France's Socialist presidential hopeful is being shunned by a coalition of European leaders. Too fiery for the austerity tsars?
The French may be particularly fond of them, but this is not just another conspiracy theory; it's a statement from Germany's most influential investigative news magazine Der Spiegel. This week's edition spells it out rather eloquently: a European coalition of rightwing leaders has discreetly formed to boycott France's Socialist presidential candidate François Hollande.
The last few months have indeed felt unusual. There was Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy's double act on primetime French television back in November, Angela Merkel's recent steadfast and unambiguous endorsement for the rightwing candidate and, finally, David Cameron's slightly more nuanced support at a joint press conference in Paris during the last Anglo-French summit. In short, world leaders have gone out of their way to show that, if they voted in the French presidential elections, they'd vote for Sarkozy. Problem is, they don't. And there's another issue – it's called meddling in another country's internal affairs. Do it at your own peril.
The French first took this strange carousel as a sign of their president's desperate attempt at winning them back, like an insecure child inviting all his classmates for his birthday – even those he doesn't like – to appear more popular than he really is. In the last couple of weeks, Sarkozy has even asked Rachida Dati, his former justice minister with whom he fell out very publicly, to open a rally in Lille in front of bemused UMP sympathisers who never thought they'd see her again. He has also, of all people, managed to get his second wife Cécilia (who said at the time of their divorce that he had no dignity and didn't love his children) to back him on French television. Every little helps, it seems.
Desperate as he is to be re-elected, there is no doubt that Sarkozy encouraged this anti-Hollande coalition. He may even have demanded it from his European partners, in exchange of past favours and future God-knows-what. It has, however, been a long tradition for the two main French presidential candidates to be received by France's closest allies during presidential campaigns; Germany, Spain, Italy, Britain, the US and Japan, among others. Socialist Ségolène Royal was granted a meeting with Angela Merkel in 2007 – so were presidential hopefuls Jacques Chirac, Lionel Jospin and Edouard Balladur by Helmut Kohl in 1995.
However, recent rebuffs from Spain's Mariano Rajoy, Italy's Mario Monti, Germany's Merkel, Britain's Cameron, and even from Obama, to Hollande's requests to meet sound unparalleled. Asked about it Hollande, decidedly l'homme tranquille, replied with a smile that he "always liked to see world leaders being so nice to each other". Nevertheless, the 56% of French people saying they want Hollande as their next president might soon start feeling a little irritated. And Sarkozy's continental blockade may well end up in tears for him. It is extremely short-sighted of European leaders to boycott the man who has been continually leading the polls for months. It would have been in their interest to meet him, as they may very soon be working together. Antagonising a potential future French president is simply not a clever thing to do.
If we look back 200 years or so, France has often been surrounded by hostile and reactionary coalitions. It did wonders for the country's cohesion, unity and sense of identity. Sarkozy's five years in power have proved divisive for French society, and a coalition of his European acolytes might just provide the cement the French need. In fact, Hollande may be on to something with his plan to renegotiate the European treaty and tax the uber-rich by 75%. Could it be that a majority of Europeans would also favour such plans in their home country? Could it be that some of Hollande's proposals feel too fiery for austerity tsars Cameron, Merkel, Monti and Rajoy? We will have our answer on 6 May.