Sarkozy: burkini must be banned

SUPPORTERS GET BEHIND FORMER PRESIDENT

Nicolas Sarkozy said this week he would impose a nationwide ban on burkinis if elected back to the presidency in 2017, positioning himself as a strong defender of French values and tough on immigration.

Hundreds of supporters waving French flags chanted “Nicolas! Nicolas!” and applauded as Sarkozy, a conservative president from 2007 to 2012, before losing an election to Socialist Francois Hollande, promised to protect the French people.

“I will be the president that re-establishes the authority of the state,” Sarkozy told a crowd of more than 2 000 packing a sports hall in Chateaurenard.

“I want to be the president who guarantees the safety of France and of every French person,” he said, sending a message that he could tackle the Islamist violence that has killed 230 people in attacks since January 2015.

For months he lagged in opinion polls behind Alain Juppe, a mild-mannered, more centrist former prime minister who is his main rival for the November primaries that will choose a conservative candidate for the election.

But his popularity, which had already started improving with party sympathisers in June, rose after Islamist attacks on a Bastille Day crowd in Nice and on a priest in Normandy.

Taking a hard line on a debate that has agitated France over the past weeks, Sarkozy told supporters that the full-body swimwear known as the burkini should be banned throughout the country.