French Finance Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has taken one step closer to a bid for the presidency, taking the helm of President Jacques Chirac's party.
In a multimillion-dollar, American-style political show, Sarkozy on Sunday was named president of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), kicking off a new era for Chirac's right.
That could prove fatal to the president if he should want to bid for a third term. Chirac turned 72 yesterday, while Sarkozy, who stepped down as finance minister yesterday, is 49.
At least 15,000 UMP members packed the hall of Le Bourget airport northeast of Paris for the party's changing of the guard. Thousands of others followed the proceedings on screens from adjoining areas. The press compared the spectacle, featuring show-biz stars, to the crowning of a king.
In an address to the crowd, Sarkozy, elected for a three-year term, said he will work so that UMP is the source of a rebirth for the "essential values" of France -- respect, work and country.
UMP, created in 2002 in an alliance of Chirac's conservatives and some centrists, has been losing elections ever since. It replaced the traditional conservative Rally for the Republic, a neo-Gaullist party created by Chirac.
Sarkozy made clear that, in giving the party new momentum, he wants to do away with the status quo, which he called "our adversary."
"I want to remain a free man," Sarkozy said. "Things are going to change," he added later. "We will not disappoint."
However, Chirac sent a warning in a message to the party, insisting that the "union" between conservatives and centrists upon which the UMP was founded must be preserved.
"Today, you are the vigilant guardians," Chirac said in the message read out quickly by Sarkozy. "Nothing, ever, must put this [union] into question."
Chirac said he counted on the "vitality, efficiency, commitment of Nicolas Sarkozy" in his new job.
Sarkozy, once part of Chirac's inner circle, betrayed the president by backing Edouard Balladur for president in 1995 rather than the winner Chirac. He retreated for seven years from the political scene to be brought back in 2002 as interior minister.
Energetic, quick-witted and frank, Sarkozy is said to have wanted the prime minister's job, but he quickly moved to center-stage with a law-and-order program against delinquents and bold moves to bring France's huge Muslim population into the mainstream.
Sarkozy took a deep jab at the 35-hour work week put in place by the former Socialist government, saying he wants a "profound reform" of the law. Work must be "rehabilitated" and "the France of work" must be "at the heart of all politics," he said.
"We must invent and symbolize a French model of success inspired by no other model but [able] to inspire others," he said.
Neither skin color nor social origins should stand in the way of success, he added.
Sarkozy outlined a project to make the UMP a truly popular party, saying he will spend three days a month in various French regions, meeting farmers, factory workers and civil servants and encouraging the party's youth movement to connect with high schools.
"Together, we will develop the great popular movement you have dreamed of," Sarkozy said. "A new horizon is before us."
Speaking like a statesman, Sarkozy also addressed international concerns, lauding former communist-era leaders of eastern Europe like Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel for making "liberty triumph" -- and getting heavy applause for also praising Pope John Paul II.
As expected, Sarkozy won the Nov. 15 to Nov. 21 election for UMP president by a wide margin. He took 85.1 percent of the vote, the head of the election commission Robert Pandraud announced on Sunday, when results were made public.
Sarkozy has never said he seeks the presidency and, to much applause, promised his "loyal and full support" in 2007 to "whoever it is" that can best rally to unite the French.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in