Nice-Premium: What was your reaction to the announcement of the second round opposing Sรฉgolรจne ROYAL to Nicolas SARKOZY?
Jacques Peyrat: The results of the first round of the presidential election gave me immense satisfaction:
nationally, Nicolas SARKOZY’s score is remarkable,
on a departmental level, as with 43.60% of the votes, the Alpes-Maritimes department placed our candidate at the top of the departments in metropolitan France,
and on a municipal level, the score of Nicolas SARKOZY in the city of Nice, in almost all the polling stations, is, it must be said, historic.
This is not a reason to become demobilized. There are still about ten days left to continue mobilizing and convincing.
The French have understood that the presidential election is the major vote of our democracy. It is the cornerstone of our institutions. Each presidential election is a choice of society, but this meeting is a turning point for our country.
The choice of April 22 and May 6, 2007, was made and will be made around values: equity, merit, work, responsibility, respect for the laws of the Republic, controlled immigration, security of people and property, the choice of a nation that declares its identity, that assumes its history.
NP: What other lessons do you draw from these results?
JP: It is essential to note the very high turnout for this first round of the presidential election. It is an encouraging element for the future and proof of the strength of our democracy. Nice has regained the participations of the sixties.
We can only rejoice at this massive turnout. Our compatriots have understood that the election for the Presidency of the Republic is the most important vote for the future of the Nation. I hope that having found their way back to the polling stations, our country will retain the taste for upcoming elections, this year and next year.
Nicolas SARKOZY, during a dynamic, explanatory, committed campaign, prioritizing the requirement for truth, carries a project that meets the current needs of France. Through the clear choices he proposes, by his experience, the French have favored his capacity, his will to implement a new societal project supported by a stable and solid majority. He has spoken about France as the French hoped.
Nicolas SARKOZY is well ahead at the end of the first round. Nevertheless, the participative campaign of Sรฉgolรจne ROYAL has successfully mobilized her supporters. The score of Franรงois BAYROU must be taken into account, however, no one owns the votes of their voters. They will choose freely and conscientiously.
Jean-Marie LE PEN did not recreate the surprise of 2002. The French have understood that only Nicolas SARKOZY can implement a coherent policy in terms of security. The security vote and national preference, therefore, did not play in favor of Jean-Marie LE PEN.
Finally, I note that those whom the media called “the minor candidates” are crushed, and among them, the defunct communist party and the greens who have neither succeeded in their breakthrough nor their survival.
NP: How do you analyze this second round?
JP: This second round clarifies things. The French have to choose between a society of freedom and individual responsibility and a socialist society, bearing in mind that, on one side, there will be the socialist party with its cohort of supports from the revolutionary far left of Olivier BESANCENOT and Arlette LAGUILLER, through the Trotskyites of Mr. SCHIVARDI, the alter-globalists of Josรฉ BOVE, the Greens of Dominique VOYNET, and the communist party of Marie-George BUFFET who hardly counts anymore on the national political chessboard while it represented the working-class for decades, and finally the socialist party of Sรฉgolรจne ROYAL.
What a heterogeneous gathering!
For example, in this gathering, there will be those who voted YES in the referendum on the European constitution and those who were most fiercely opposed, and I am not even talking about the entry of Turkey into the European Community.
How can one imagine that a government could be formed by such antagonistic currents? If, in addition, part of the UDF joins, it’s no longer the 5th Republic, but a return to the regime of parties from the 4th Republic and the political instability that ensues.
I believe we must return to a situation where the left-right difference is readable and marked. It’s fortunate for the voters who now find themselves in major choices to make. The left and the right have opposing visions; the values are different, the choice of society too. France needs a policy of clarity.
The French know that the left is hostage to the far left who will impose a number of measures, including increased tax pressure, because to redistribute in an egalitarian way, which is the least stimulating for the national economy, money must be found somewhere. It is from the middle classes that the tax burden will come. Yet, we already pay too many taxes.
I say: national solidarity, YES, fiscal oppression, NO.
NP: According to you, who will be the next President of the Republic and why?
JP: Nicolas SARKOZY has the courage to identify real problems and propose new and realistic solutions. The French were not mistaken in the first round. I am convinced that the second round will see a very significant result in favor of Nicolas SARKOZY and that, alone, the interest of the country will guide the choice of our compatriots.
