In a long interview with the JDD, Nicolas Sarkozy confided in recent news. Le Parisien summarizes in a few points what to remember from this river interview, one of the first since 2016.
What he thinks of Emmanuel Macron
Nicolas Sarkozy supported the current president re-elected for the 2022 campaign. “I supported him. And if I had to do it again, I would do it again. Politics is never a choice of absolute value, always a choice of relative value, begins the former head of state. We take the best of the possibilities. I didn’t want Mr. Mélenchon or Mrs. Le Pen. In the interest of France, the best possible decision was therefore to help President Macron. “With half a word, Nicolas Sarkozy explains the reason for which it did not support Valérie Pécresse, the candidate of the Republicans: To be able to choose a candidate with the second turn, still it was necessary that it is qualified there. Or that he has a credible chance of being. »
According to him, “having a calm, moderate president, refusing any form of excess, was the best solution. You don’t respond to an eruptive situation by being eruptive yourself: you need composure, moderation and experience. It seems to me that President Macron has these qualities. The limits of the current president? “The president has undeniable intuitions and experience. But I observe that he can sometimes be tempted to stop in the middle of the ford. »
About the use of 49.3
Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne on Wednesday drew the constitutional weapon that would allow her to vote on the first part of the 2023 budget, in the absence of an absolute majority in the Assembly. But for Nicolas Sarkozy, “the 49-3 is not the only solution”. According to him, the government “could also seek to make a political agreement in good and due form with all the good wills ready to constitute a majority in the superior interest of the country. We never deny ourselves when we make the choice of the general interest. »
Regarding the unexecuted OQTF of Lola’s murderess
After the murder of little Lola, 12, killed by a woman who was subject to an unexecuted obligation to leave the territory (OQTF), Nicolas Sarkozy believes that “that is not the question”: “J I would have been just as upset if this despicable act had been committed by a Frenchman. Lola’s death, regardless of the criminal, is an absolute tragedy. But I want to add that if Lola were still alive, I would still be scandalized by the non-execution of deportations to the border. »
Regarding the recovery of this affair by political parties, the former president considers that “political exploitation has no label” but it is “still just as stupid and counterproductive”. “All the legislative arsenal to fight against irregular immigration that we had put in place was systematically dismantled by my immediate successor (Editor’s note. François Hollande). Gérald Darmanin is right to demand more firmness.
On the war in Ukraine
For Nicolas Sarkozy, Macron “is perfectly right to want to maintain contact with Vladimir Poutine” because “how to stop the war without talking to the belligerents? “, he asks. “Not only do we want to make war without doing it, but we also want to stop it without addressing the protagonists. It will end up getting very complicated! »
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According to him, “the wrongs” are not shared between Russia and Ukraine: “We cannot put the aggressor and the attacked on the same level. We must also take into account the complexity of the region, its intertwined history, its centuries-old hatreds and the deep instability that has reigned there since the collapse of the Soviet Union. But “if we have achieved Franco-German reconciliation, we will be able to reconcile Europe and Russia. It is up to France to take the lead in this crisis. »
Should we boycott the World Cup in Qatar?
No, believes the former president who considers that “football does not belong only to Westerners, whether they are French, English, Italian or American. It is a sport that brings people together. »
“I observe that all the countries that have organized major international events in recent years have been the subject of multiple controversies: China, Russia, Brazil, today Qatar. We should give each of these host countries the chance to demonstrate their know-how and wait for how these events will unfold before judging them. that it was not me who sold Rafales to this country. If it was done by my immediate successor, he must have judged him to be trustworthy. »
Who for the right in the 2027 presidential election?
Nicolas Sarkozy salutes the “real talent” of Laurent Wauquiez who was a “good minister” and who “if he gives himself the means” and “if he is ready to endure the sacrifices which are the price”. He says he believes in “the party of order, the one who rewards work and merit, the one who defends freedom. But I cannot accept that our ideas, those of the millions of French people who believed in us, are caricatured by such deeply reactionary attitudes as soon as a social issue appears. I think of abortion as homosexual marriage or even the desire for children. »
But the former leader of the right considers that it would be “a strategic error” to let the most conservative “represent, lead, impose their views on the entire Republican right”.