(File image) French President Nicolas Sarkozy (File image) French President Nicolas Sarkozy
Paris - Allegations of scandal and dirty tricks clouded France's presidential election on Monday as the race entered the final week with both sides preparing for rival May Day rallies and the sole, crucial television debate.
Conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy said he would sue news website Mediapart for publishing a document it says proves that the government of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi sought to fund his 2007 election campaign.
Sarkozy in turn tried to embarrass his Socialist opponent, Francois Hollande, by turning the spotlight on former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was favourite for the Socialist nomination until he was arrested on rape allegations last year.
The latest opinion poll showed Hollande's lead over the incumbent has narrowed slightly ahead of next Sunday's decisive runoff ballot.
The Ipsos-Logica poll for France Inter showed the Socialist down one point on 53 percent and Sarkozy up one point on 47. A Reuters survey of polls published since the April 22 first round of voting gives Hollande an average score of 54 percent.
Waging an uphill battle for re-election, Sarkozy dismissed a purported 2006 letter from Libya's former secret service chief, published by Mediapart, that discussed an “agreement in principle” to pay 50 million euros for Sarkozy's campaign.
The case seems unlikely to sway the election at such a late stage in a country where voters are inured to regular sleaze allegations. “We will file a complaint against Mediapart,” Sarkozy told France 2 television. “Do you really think that with what I did to him, Mr Gaddafi would have made me a bank transfer? Why not a signed cheque - it's grotesque.”
Sarkozy hosted Gaddafi on an official visit to Paris in 2007 but spearheaded Western military intervention that helped drive the Libyan from power after a 2011 popular uprising.
The president called the document an “obvious fake”, saying that the two Libyans who were supposed to have sent the letter and received it had both denied any involvement.
Sarkozy has probably his last chance to turn the tide against Hollande when they face off on television on Wednesday evening for the sole head-to-head debate of the campaign, expected to draw millions of viewers.
Both candidates were preparing for May Day celebrations on Tuesday, with Sarkozy planning his own rally on Paris' Trocadero square as a rival to traditional trade union marches to defend workers' rights. The president said last week his event would showcase “real work” - a term he has since said he regretted.
“This sort of rhetoric, which divides people, has become unbearable,” Francois Chereque, head of the CFDT union, told Liberation. The CFDT has not endorsed a candidate, while the CGT union has urged its members to “vote against Sarkozy”.
Alongside union-led marches, the far-right National Front party will be holding its annual “Joan of Arc Day” rally, at which party leader Marine Le Pen has said she will spell out voting advice for her supporters ahead of the runoff.
Hollande said he would attend a memorial ceremony on May Day for former Socialist Prime Minister Pierre Beregovoy, who took his life on May 1, 1993.
A more direct contest comes the following day when they meet for a television debate which could be decisive.
In 2007, commentators said a heated exchange between Sarkozy and Socialist Segolene Royal helped widen the centre-right leader's margin of victory after Royal - Hollande's former partner - lost her cool when talking about handicapped children.
Sarkozy was ahead in polls one week before the deciding round in 2007. This time he faces more difficult odds.
Surveys show voters are most concerned about resolving France's economic woes and restoring growth as jobless claims have risen to their highest level since September 1999.
Yet it seemed scandals and mudslinging could dominate the last days of the race.
Sarkozy has attacked Hollande on several fronts, accusing the man who could become the first left-wing president in 17 years of maintaining relations with controversial figures.
He said last week that controversial Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan had endorsed Hollande, which the Swiss academic denied.
On Monday, Sarkozy drew attention to a Socialist lawmaker's birthday party at which some of Hollande's campaign staff rubbed shoulders with Strauss-Kahn, who has become a political pariah over his alleged sexual misconduct.
“When you see the circus around this birthday dinner... with Mr Strauss-Kahn on rue Saint Denis - you couldn't make this stuff up - you wonder whether the Socialists are thinking,” Sarkozy told i>Tele, highlighting the fact that the party took place in a Paris street renowned for prostitution.
Hollande told Europe 1 radio: “I have already said that Dominique Strauss-Kahn has not been involved in this election campaign and it is not his place to show up now.” - Reuters
