Issued on:
France’s conservative former president Nicolas Sarkozy threw his support behind Emmanuel Macron in his bid for reelection on Tuesday, touting Macron’s experience in the face of the “grave international crisis” in Ukraine. Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, for her part, said she had no plans to pull France out of the European Union despite her deep euroscepticism.
Le Pen and Macron will face off in the second round of France’s presidential election on April 24, with polls pointing to a much tighter race than the lopsided contest that saw Macron easily prevail in 2017.
Former president Nicolas Sarkozy gave Macron his high-profile endorsement on Tuesday in announcing he would be voting for the incumbent.
“I will vote for Emmanuel Macron because I believe he has the necessary experience faced with a grave international crisis,” Sarkozy posted on his Facebook page.
“[Macron’s] economic project puts the value of work as the top priority and his commitment to Europe is clear and unambiguous,” he added. “We must abandon our partisan habits (…). Fidelity to right-wing republican values and our governing culture must lead us to answer Emmanuel Macron’s call for unity.”
The statement came just days after the candidate from Sarkozy’s own conservative Les Républicains party – whom he had refused to support publicly – suffered a humiliating defeat in the first round of the election. Valérie Pecresse obtained just 4.8 percent in the vote on Sunday, a staggering 15 points short of the party’s score five years ago under scandal-plagued candidate François Fillon.
Pécresse’s drubbing puts Les Républicains in dire financial straits because the party failed to reach the 5 percent threshold, above which election campaign spending is reimbursed by the state. Pécresse issued an urgent plea for…
Source : france24
