Hollande given cold shoulder
Foreign leaders appear to be avoiding meeting with the Socialist candidate in the run-up to the presidential elections
SOCIALIST presidential candidate François Hollande appears to be being given the cold shoulder in Europe, despite riding high in the French polls.
So far no leaders of leading EU nations have agreed to meet him in the run up to the elections, giving rise to rumours of an “anti-Hollande front” across the union and, more generally, abroad.
David Cameron did not meet him on his recent London trip and attempts by his team to set up a meeting with Angela Merkel (who met with 2007’s Socialist candidate Ségolène Royal during her campaign), have come to nothing.
At Rome in December president of the council Mario Monti did not see him. A possible American trip was shelved after it proved impossible to arrange a meeting with the president.
According to German national daily Der Spiegel the German, English, Spanish and Italian heads of state have “verbally agreed” not to meet with Hollande.
“I think above all François Hollande has a credibility problem in Europe,” said Nicolas Sarkozy’s spokeswoman Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet.
Hollande’s plan to call for a renegotiation of European agreements over budgetary discipline is said to be unpopular with the EU right.
However Hollande said of the situation on France 3 that “this doesn’t bother me”.
On the contrary, he believes that the foreign leaders do not have a good image in France – Cameron, for example, seen as representing a politics of austerity – and that their support or otherwise is not significant for his success at home.
“It is the French people who will decide on their future. It is not the European leaders, who I respect for that matter, who should weigh on their decision,” he said.
Nonetheless he is still seeking allies. On Friday and Saturday, in Poland, Hollande will be aiming to convince prime minister Donald Tusk of his point of view on the EU budget rules.
