FORMER PRIME minister Dominique de Villepin has launched a new centre-right party, his sights set on challenging rival Nicolas Sarkozy for the French presidency in 2012.
Several thousand supporters chanted “Villepin, président” as the patrician former diplomat inaugurated his République Solidaire grouping in a Paris hall on Saturday.
Mr de Villepin is one of Mr Sarkozy’s fiercest critics on the right, and hopes to draw support from conservatives disillusioned with the president’s approach. Making his long-expected return to national politics at the weekend, Mr de Villepin sought to position himself as a compassionate, socially responsible conservative, fusing Gaullist language with calls for higher income and corporate taxes.
He criticised “an ever-growing gap between words and acts, between what French people go through and what their leaders experience . . . I am starting this because I think the French people need another way.” During a tour of the French regions, he had met “unsettled, tired, exasperated” people. “If we don’t watch out, impatience will become anger and anger will become violence,” he added.
Mr de Villepin also alluded to the symbolism of Saturday’s launch taking place a day after celebrations to mark the 70th anniversary of Charles de Gaulle’s appel of June 1940, when the general called on the French people to resist the German occupation.
The 56-year-old’s comeback could reveal divisions within the ruling UMP bloc and cause problems for Mr Sarkozy at a time when he is overseeing sensitive pension reforms and cuts to public spending. “I’m not bound by decisions made today by the government,” Mr de Villepin said pointedly.
The deep mutual antipathy between Mr de Villepin and Mr Sarkozy, both one-time proteges of former president Jacques Chirac, reached a nadir recently with the Clearstream affair, in which Mr de Villepin was accused of trying to smear Mr Sarkozy and destroy his presidential ambitions. The former prime minister was cleared in a trial in January, though Paris prosecutors have appealed the ruling and a new trial could take place next year.
In an interview with Le Monde last Friday, Mr de Villepin said the government’s dominant trait “was that it was developing policies with pollsters who look at the surveys every day and ask what publicity stunt they can mount”.
Members of Mr Sarkozy’s entourage accuse Mr de Villepin of being motivated by desire for personal revenge, but express scepticism about his ability to muster the support required to mount a serious challenge in 2012.
