|
|
NEWS
Sarkozy Supplants Chirac as Leader of Right-Wing
Party
by Arnon Yaffe, Paris
Following a prolonged battle for control, French President
Jacques Chirac's rival, Interior and Finance Minister Nicolas
Sarkozy, took over the governing right-wing party, Union for
a Popular Movement (UPM), on Monday, at a lavish inauguration
ceremony resembling a coronation. Some 50,000 mostly young
participants received him with trumpet blasts, in accordance
with the new custom of the French right, in an enormous hall
at Le Bourget Airport.
Chirac, his rival, remained ensconced at the Elysees,
watching from a distance as his control of the party, which
has been the basis of his power with the help of the
activists over two years before the presidential elections,
began to fade. Chirac was trounced in the party elections by
Sarkozy, who won 85 percent of the vote. This was the first
time since Chirac set up the predecessor to the UPM, a neo-
Gaullist party called Rally for the Republic, that he has
lost control over it. Party activists see him as an old
leader steering France toward isolation from the West,
generating anti-France sentiments in the US, holding cruel
Arab dictators in high esteem and directing policies of anti-
Israeli incitement that stir antisemitism.
Sarkozy rose in the ranks—against Chirac's
wishes—as a young politician cast from the outset as
the next president. "I am prepared to realize the hopes for
renewal and change on the wings of your energy," he told the
thousands of cheering supporters. Chirac has controlled the
political arena for 37 years, serving his own interests in
the UPM as the absolute ruler of France. It still does not
appear that he intends to step aside to make room for younger
blood. Chirac's associates are trying to establish other
political movements to thwart Sarkozy's rise and to lay the
groundwork for a third presidential candidacy for their
leader. Chirac and his handlers, experts in Machiavellian
putsch and tactics, are working to advance former interior
and foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, but he has no
chance against Sarkozy. Chirac has had to come to terms with
his rival's victory.
In his inauguration speech, Sarkozy was still forced to
promise he would back Chirac if he was made the right's
candidate for president. Later, he left no doubt he would be
the right's only candidate. Sarkozy decided to forego his
post as Finance Minister in order to serve in the party as a
means of securing control. Observers anticipate a bitter
struggle at the top between Chirac and Sarkozy. The
socialists described the inauguration ceremony as "a feeble
imitation of the crowning of Napoleon as Caesar 200 years
ago." Sarkozy resembles Napoleon in his ambitiousness, short
stature and energy. He has captured French hearts with his
simple approach to all, while Chirac appears detached,
pompous and condescending. Chirac has taken over all of the
state's posts, provoking disgust. The French have grown weary
of seeing him in power.
Sarkozy is known as a friend to the Jews and to Israel. As
Mayor of Neuilly, the hometown of France's chief rabbi HaRav
Yosef Sitrouk and his institutions, Sarkozy maintained close
ties with the rov and the kehilloh. The press claims
his mother is a descendent of Jews from Salonika, Greece. He
claims he is Catholic.
Jews are hoping he puts an end once and for all to France's
policy of subjection to the Arabs and will bring the country
closer to the US and the West. The socialists attack him as
"pro-American." Sarkozy intends to terminate what he calls
the failed, adversarial policy toward the US and President
Bush, and he wants to alter the world's impression of the
"elderly France." He has a plan to eliminate the separation
of religion from the republic and to fund religion and
schools, in order to prevent the growth of fanatic Islam
among France's 5 million Arabs.
In his inauguration speech, he said he would work to impose
supervision on Islam and to make it conform with France's
Western, democratic values, not allowing Arab countries to
send Muslim instigators. He has shown the courage to speak
out on issues others are afraid to raise, such as Islam's
place in European society, the fight against Muslim terrorism
and the preservation of Western culture. His effort as
interior minister to establish order in Islam in France
failed and the organization he founded fell into the hands of
fanatics, such as a school for imams he set up in a palace
using state funds.
Chirac will wage a campaign against him, together with the
left, to preserve the anti-American policy referred to as
French independence and the centricity of power. Chirac was
elected in the previous elections with the left's assistance
on the basis of nationalist, anti-American sentiments.
Sarkozy will have to win the elections without the left's
help.
|
