Is it the vision of defeat? Is it a fit of rage over having failed to convince the electorate? A simple demonstration of a way of thinking that is typical of the Left? With just a few hours remaining till the end of the Presidential campaign and two days from the balloting, Madame Ségolène Royal is issuing more and more irresponsible and scandalous statements.
On the French radio RTL, this morning, she said: ‘Nicolas Sarkozy is a dangerous choice. I would not want France to be oriented towards a system of brutality.’ Then she released the following attack: ‘It is my responsibility to issue an alert regarding the risks of this candidacy and the violence and brutality which will be unleashed in the country. All the world knows it but no one says it. It is a kind of taboo.’ The lady from Poitou-Charentes, the French region she heads, then took out her crystal ball: ‘There will be very great tension in the country, because he has made many provocations and practiced verbal violence, in particular with regard to working class areas.’ In a word, whereas she wishes to ‘encourage the spread of light,’ Nicolas Sarkozy, for his part, would like ‘there to be more darkness in human beings.’ Quite naturally, when she was asked whether the choice between her and her adversary came down to a choice between ‘her and chaos,’ she replied: ‘There is some truth in this view of things.’
Moreover, she does not stop here on this fine path of hers and accuses her rival of being a ‘neo-Conservative’ and of ’imitating George Bush [the highest insult, as one can well imagine] in the ways of a compassionate conservative.’ For a candidate who, lacking any program, has during her entire campaign played on vague promises, on an artificial empathy and cheap sentiments, the accusation is quite curious.
When Madame Royal brings up the subject of ‘violence’ you don’t know if she secretly wishes for it so that the Left can play out a third round in the streets, but in any case it looks an awful lot like a call for civil war. Since it is hard to imagine that a woman who has been elected by the people could stoop so low, we will assume that this is just a regrettable loss of nerve which, if there were any need of it, would disqualify Madame Royal for the role to which she aspires.
It is definitely unworthy of both the elections at issue and of republican values to play on fears – fears which you yourself have kept alive and even artificially fanned for months with little murderous statements. On Sunday evening when the votes are counted and the results come in, it is doubtful this sinister tactic will have served her well.
