French President Nicolas Sarkozy hunted far-right votes yesterday after losing to Socialist Francois Hollande in a first-round vote that saw a shock breakthrough by the anti-immigrant National Front (FN).
The right-wing incumbent moved quickly to woo the 18 percent of voters who backed the FN’s Marine Le Pen, saying they deserved an answer to their concerns, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel called her showing “alarming.”
Hollande and Sarkozy are to face each other in a run-off on May 6 after Sunday’s first round saw the Socialist beat the incumbent by a vote of 28.63 to 27.18 percent, according to near-complete official results.
Hollande’s victory cemented his position as the clear leader in the race, dealing a blow to Sarkozy’s hopes of gaining enough momentum from a first-round win to defy expectations and return to office.
However, it was the showing of populist nationalist flagbearer Le Pen that shook up the race, setting up her voters as potential kingmakers.
“We must respect the voters’ will, it is our duty to listen,” Sarkozy told journalists as he prepared to campaign yesterday in central France. “There was this crisis vote that doubled from one election to another, an answer must be given.”
Le Pen’s score on Sunday was nearly double the 10.4 percent her father, Jean-Marie, took as the FN candidate in the 2007 first round.
Hollande told reporters that the vote reflected anger in the country and that he would also listen to far-right supporters.
“Nicolas Sarkozy is to blame for the far-right’s high level,” he said after meeting aides in Paris before heading to Brittany to campaign. “There are voters who may have been led to this through anger. That is what I want to hear.”
Polls show most far-right supporters prefer Sarkozy, but up to a quarter — mainly working-class voters attracted by Le Pen’s protectionist trade policies — could switch to Hollande.
Le Pen’s high score stunned observers and she told supporters after the results that “the battle of France has just begun” and “nothing will be as it was before.”
In the first foreign reaction to the result, Merkel’s deputy spokesman Georg Streiter told reporters: “This high score [for Le Pen] is alarming, but I expect it will be ironed out in the second round.”
Sarkozy, who had already swung to the right in the campaign, had brandished his right-wing credentials in his first post-results speech on Sunday.
“These anxieties, this suffering, I know them, I understand them,” Sarkozy said. “They are about respecting our borders, the determined fight against job relocation, controlling immigration, putting value on work, on security.”
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique