Nicolas Sarkozy said yesterday that party unity was the key to victory for his Les Republicains party in France’s 2017 presidential election.
At the same time, though, he mocked a call by Alain Juppe, his main rival, for a code of good conduct in the campaign before the party’s November primaries.
“There will be no victory if we are divided,” Sarkozy told the party’s first gathering after the summer break, in the seaside town of La Baule. “The first rule of these primaries must be that the choice that we make is respected by all. We must all stand behind the winner of these primaries.”
On Saturday, the first day of the two-day gathering, Juppe had called for a code of good conduct to ban personal attacks in the increasingly heated campaign.
“We must do everything we can to have a real debate and not a bad fight. I propose a code of good conduct: no personal attacks,” Juppe told the first gathering of the party on Saturday after the summer break in La Baule.
“I have been called the bonze (Buddhist monk) of Bordeaux. I will continue to be calm and serene,” joked the bald-headed Juppe, who is mayor of Bordeaux.
In recent weeks Juppe’s rivals, notably Sarkozy and former prime minister Francois Fillon, have traded barbs in an increasingly heated campaign.
Fillon, who served under Sarkozy for five years, said last week: “Who could imagine for one moment that General de Gaulle could have been placed under formal investigation?”
This was widely seen as an attack on Sarkozy, who is still dogged by judicial woes.
“I do not like a code of good conduct. I like good conduct,” Sarkozy said yesterday, drawing laughter and cheers from the audience. “If you need a code, that’s because there is already a problem.”
Sarkozy, 61, a former president, and Juppe, 71, a former prime minister, are by far the two leading candidates for the November 20 and 27 primaries.
The winner of those contests will become the candidate of the conservative Les Republicains in the April 2017 presidential election.
The unpopularity of the governing Socialists means the winner of the conservative primaries is likely to make it to the second round of the presidential election, where he is expected to face Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Front.
The soft-spoken Juppe has led in opinion polls for months.
The more divisive Sarkozy has been dogged by legal issues and by lingering voter distaste for the abrasive style that marked his 2007-2012 presidency.
But Sarkozy closed some of the gap in June as Juppe’s campaign lost steam.
His ratings improved further after attacks by militants in Nice and Normandy in July.