Return
of the Sarko-cop
Nicolas
Sarkozy promises voters a full-scale crackdown on crime and weak
sentencing.
By NICHOLAS VINOCUR
11/3/15, 9:12 PM CET
PARIS — Nicolas
Sarkozy sought Tuesday to revive an image he first cultivated more
than a decade ago when, as a middling politician, he used his
nomination as French interior minister to impose himself as the
nation’s top cop and played the role with so much gusto it
ultimately landed him the presidency in 2007.
Sarkozy hopes he can
resurrect that tough-guy, law-and-order version of himself as he
fights for his party’s nomination to run for re-election in 2017.
The conservative chief of the Républicains party laid out a series
of searing proposals on security and policing ranging from a
“shoot-first” policy for police to a law punishing anyone who
visits a jihad-themed website.
While the proposals
were made in the name of the party, they appeared designed to speak
to Sarkozy’s perceived strengths as a figure of authority. The
60-year-old is banking on his hard-liner reputation to distinguish
him from the softer-seeming Alain Juppé, his main rival in the race
for his party’s nomination, but also from Socialist President
François Hollande, whom he accuses of weakness, and far-right chief
Marine Le Pen.
“We want to put an
end to the systematic flouting of the state’s authority,” Sarkozy
said at the Républicains’ headquarters in Paris. “Everything
appears to suggest that the state is disappearing, that the Republic
is progressively letting itself go, that the French are being
increasingly left to their own devices.”
In an hour-long
speech, Sarkozy depicted France as a country which had been given
over to armed criminals, in which police were outgunned by
increasingly brazen gang members, and in which Islamist terrorism was
proliferating unchecked by a laxist justice system.
Among other
measures, Sarkozy called for equipping some 20,000 municipal police
officers with firearms (currently they only get guns if their mayor
makes a special request to central authorities); letting police shoot
first at armed criminals rather than having to wait until the suspect
fires their weapon, as is currently the rule; expanding an
overcrowded prison system to accommodate 10,000 more inmates; making
jail-time mandatory for anyone convicted of a crime punished by more
than six months in prison; and building permanent police bases inside
120 of the country’s toughest neighborhoods.
“There can no
longer be areas of our Republic that are off-limits,” Sarkozy said.
With regional
elections now a month away, Sarkozy is playing his strongest card
against Hollande’s government at a moment of vulnerability for the
Socialist leader.
Earlier this month,
police angry over lax sentencing rallied outside of the Justice
Ministry in Paris and courthouses across the country to voice anger
at a government. At the same time, lawyers and penitentiary workers
went on strike asking for improved compensation.
The protests were
perfectly timed for Sarkozy, whom a BVA poll published this week by
Le Parisien showed beating Juppé and all other rivals in the race
for his party’s nomination. The Républicains chief is trying to
press his advantage through the December 6 regional elections, which
could strengthen his standing if his party performs well against the
Socialists and Le Pen’s National Front.
Tuesday’s speech
was larded with verbal attacks on Hollande and his justice minister,
Christiane Taubira, an advocate of more relaxed sentencing rules who
has become a lightning rod for right-wing criticism.
In a signal that
Sarkozy plans to make full use of a powerful network in the
law-and-order community, Le Monde reported this week that he had
surrounded himself with aides who come from the world of police. His
current chief of staff, Michel Gaudin, was Paris’ police prefect
for five years until 2012, while the Républicain party’s director,
Frederic Péchenard, was formerly the head of national police.
Authors:
Nicholas Vinocur
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