“I am not seeking revenge, I have no egotistical score to settle”, Sarkozy said on social media on Monday as he announced his bid. “I feel I have the strength to lead the fight at such a turbulent moment in our history”, Sarkozy wrote.
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As the incumbent, President Hollande, has faced a severe political backlash over the numerous French attacks, being accused of everything from failing to implement tough enough security and intelligence measures, to mismanaging immigration.
Sarkozy was unseated from the Elysee Palace at the previous election, in 2012, by the now deeply unpopular President Francois Hollande, but had been widely expected to try to win back the office. While announcing his decision, he said, “The next five years will be filled with danger but also with hope”.
Although local media reports that Sarkozy’s book has became a best-seller since in the two days since its release monday, book sales do not seem to have done anything to fix his image with France´s voters.
On immigration, a sensitive issue in election campaigns, he proposed to suspend the right of family members to join a migrating relative in France.
He said France’s “main battle” was over how “to defend our lifestyle without being tempted to cut ourselves off from the rest of the world”.
The politician was defeated in his bid for re-election in 2012 after conducting a campaign seen by many in his own camp as too rightwing. “The meanness has sort of – they say Sarkozy put his pals in positions of power, and he was, you know, a president of the rich, and he divided people”.
Polls have consistently shown that the last thing French voters want is a rematch.
If Sarkozy wins, he could face a rematch against Hollande, who has said he too has the “desire” for a second term.
Mr Sarkozy was President from 2007 to 2012. He has also suggested that children born in France to parents staying illegally in the country shouldn’t be granted French nationality.
After telling the French before his defeat they would never hear from him if vanquished, Sarkozy made a comeback to frontline politics in 2014.
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Government spokesman Stephane Le Foll urged leftist lawmakers on Monday not to place personal ambitions before the party after former industry minister Arnaud Montebourg threw his hat into the ring, saying it was “impossible to support the current president” who had betrayed socialist values.
