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Why a Cop Is France’s Favorite Politician
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Candidate
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| Contributor | La Fayette |
| Last Edited | La Fayette Oct 26, 2012 01:12am |
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| Category | News |
| Author | Bruce Crumley |
| News Date | Friday, October 19, 2012 07:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Who is France’s most popular politician in this era dominated by bleak economic forecasts amid fears about the euro’s very existence?
It isn’t the cabinet members struggling to balance public finances, halt plant closures, slow rising unemployment, or offsetting bitter austerity measures with huge, public-pleasing tax hikes for the rich. It also isn’t President François Hollande, who—like fellow Socialist Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault—has seen his approval ratings plunge. And it certainly isn’t any of France’s conservative heavyweights currently diving their time between attacks on the ruling left, and bashing each other in the battle for the leadership of France’s right.
Instead, the darling of French voters is Interior Minister Manuel Valls, whose unapologetic hardline stance on law and order in responding to an alarming crime wave has won him fans on the left and right alike. Indeed, Valls’ activism on security issues (and ubiquitous presence in French media) has earned him comparisons from both sides of the political divide to conservative predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy. It was by serving as Interior Minister in the early- and mid-2000s that anti-crime crusader Sarkozy first won the admiration of safety-concerned voters who later flocked to his victorious 2007 presidential bid—an Elysée ambition Valls clearly shares. Yet if that likeness to Sarkozy has been much noted by French pundits—and grudgingly acknowledged by conservative politicians—it has sparked criticism from his own camp that Valls is actually a conservative in Socialist clothes. As such, Valls may France’s most popular official, but the least liked pol among his peers.
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