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Chirac's party picks candidate

By Washington Post
Published January 15, 2007

PARIS - Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy was officially declared the presidential candidate of France's center-right ruling party during a boisterous convention in Paris on Sunday.

Capitalizing on deep national frustration with politics as usual, Sarkozy, 51, whose father was a Hungarian immigrant, has become one of the most popular politicians in France by promising to revitalize the country if elected.

He was the only person on the ballot of the Union for a Popular Movement, the party of President Jacques Chirac. About 233,800 people, or 69 percent of the party's 340,000 members, voted in the internal, closed primary, and 98 percent of them cast their ballots for Sarkozy, according to the party.

Chirac, who has been president since 1995, has not yet declared whether he will seek a third term, and his refusal to announce his plans is deeply dividing the party and undermining Sarkozy's candidacy, according to party insiders and French political analysts.

Although he was once considered a Chirac protege, Sarkozy had a falling-out with Chirac about 12 years ago, and the two are now bitter rivals.

Sarkozy will face as many as a dozen other candidates in the first round of France's two-stage presidential contest April 22. If no one captures a majority, the top two contenders will compete in a runoff May 6.

Recent opinion polls show it as a two-person race between Sarkozy and the Socialist Party candidate, Sigolhne Royal, 53.

Sarkozy said that if elected, he would nurture the long friendship between France and the United States. But he said he would tell the United States when he thinks it is wrong, and he paid tribute to Chirac, "who honored France when he opposed the war in Iraq, which was a mistake."

[Last modified January 15, 2007, 01:26:14]