Row after Hollande calls Sarko ‘dirty guy’

Supporters of France's President Nicolas Sarkozy demanded that his main opponent in his re-election battle apologise Wednesday after he reportedly insulted him at a lunch for political journalists.

Published: 4 January 2012 16:33 CET

Socialist flag-bearer François Hollande, who will face Sarkozy in April’s election, allegedly called the president a “sale mec” – literally a “dirty guy” and roughly equivalent in force to a term like “nasty piece of work”.

Tuesday’s lunch was supposedly an off-the-record briefing for reporters, including one from AFP, but Hollande’s taunt was partially revealed in the daily Le Parisien, drawing outrage from the right.

Le Parisien reported the term as an insult, but other journalists at the lunch interpreted the phrase as part of an imagined dialogue in which Sarkozy described himself in unflattering terms in order to appear tough.

Imagining himself in the mind of Sarkozy, Hollande said: “I’m the president of failure, a nasty piece of work, but in this difficult period I’m the only one capable of handling things. I alone have the bravery.

“He’s going to present himself as Captain Courageous, courting unpopularity. He’s a weak candidate because if that’s how he’s beginning his campaign it’s unimpressive. France deserves better,” he continued.

Several of Sarkozy’s ministers and supporters in parliament denounced the insult. Valérie Rosso-Debord of Sarkozy’s UMP party said: “Frankly, it’s a red card offence. You do not insult the president of the republic.”

Interior Minister Claude Guéant branded Hollande’s attack “unacceptable” and several other ministers demanded a public apology from the opposition leader.

Sarkozy is reportedly privately very caustic about Hollande, and his career has also been marked by several insulting outbursts.

In February 2008 he was caught on camera telling a member of the public who refused to shake his hand at the Paris agricultural show: “Get lost, you stupid bastard.”

Responding to the criticism, Hollande’s spokesman recalled this episode.

“Honestly, if Francois Hollande had said to Nicolas Sarkozy ‘Get lost, you stupid bastard,” he would have had reason to complain,” Bernard Cazeneuve said.

“But that’s not the kind of thing François Hollande says and François Hollande will not be the president of ‘get lost, you stupid bastard’.

“This story is false. François Hollande is not in the habit of launching insults. He campaigns on the issues,” he continued.

“And as to the way this non-event has been exploited by the UMP, I suppose that when Sarkozy calls François Hollande ‘small’ it’s meant as a compliment, or that when he calls his supporters ‘crackpots’ he’s just being friendly?”

The alleged epithet caused a storm on Twitter and the comments sections of French news sites, as supporters of both candidates traded insults.

Sarkozy is trailing Hollande in the opinion polls, which suggest that he on course to lose to him in May’s second-round presidential run-off, but he has begun making up ground on his rival and observers expect a tight race.

France has in recent weeks been shaken by a series of attacks on schoolchildren by their peers, in particularly the fatal beating earlier this month of Shemseddine, 15, outside Paris.

The far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party has accused Attal of not doing enough on security as the anti-immigration party soars ahead of the government coalition in polls for the June 9th election.

Speaking in Viry-Chatillon, the town where Shemseddine was killed, Attal condemned the “addiction of some of our adolescents to violence”, calling for “a real surge of authority… to curb violence”.

“There are twice as many adolescents involved in assault cases, four times more in drug trafficking, and seven times more in armed robberies than in the general population,” he said.

Measures will include expanding compulsory school attendance to all the days of the week from 8am to 6pm for children of collège age (11 to 15).

“In the day the place to be is at school, to work and to learn,” said Attal, who was also marking 100 days in office since being appointed in January by President Emmanuel Macron to turn round the government’s fortunes.

Parents needed to take more responsibility, said Attal, warning that particularly disruptive children would have sanctions marked on their final grades.

OPINION: No, France is not suffering an unprecedented wave of violence

Promoting an old-fashioned back-to-basics approach to school authority, he said “You break something – you repair it. You make a mess – you clear it up. And if you disobey – we teach you respect.”

Attal also floated the possibility of children in exceptional cases being denied the right to special treatment on account of their minority in legal cases.

Thus 16-year-olds could be forced to immediately appear in court after violations “like adults”, he said. In France, the age of majority is 18, in accordance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Macron and Attal face an uphill struggle to reverse the tide ahead of the European elections. Current polls point to the risk of a major debacle that would overshadow the rest of the president’s second mandate up to 2027.

A poll this week by Ifop-Fiducial showed the RN on 32.5 percent with the government coalition way behind on 18 percent.