Sarkozy stand on veils ridiculed

Nicolas Sarkozy, leader of France’s conservative opposition, has lurched into the anti-Muslim territory of the National Front in an attempt to avert being given a bloody nose by the far Right in looming elections.

Appearing on national TV, the former president called for a ban on Muslim headscarves in universities and backed councils that want to end pork-free menus in school canteens.

‘‘I don’t see any coherence in a system that bans the veil in state schools and allows it at universities,’’ Sarkozy said on the TF1 network.

He was adding his voice to a campaign to extend a 2004 schools law against girls’ head cover to higher education. On moves by Right-wing councils to end alternative menus in canteens, he said: ‘‘If you want your children to have religious eating habits, you send them to private schools.’’

Sarkozy’s hard line broke with his recent support for moderation in his Union for a Popular Movement ( UMP) towards France’s big Muslim community.

The shift was mocked by both the National Front, led by Marine Le Pen, and President Francois Hollande’s governing Socialist party as a ploy to head off the expected relegation of the UMP into second place in the first-round voting for 100 departement councils on Monday.

Polls show the Front winning about 30 per cent of the vote, with the UMP two points behind and the Socialists trailing with a humiliating 18 per cent in a sign of rejection of Hollande’s three-year-old administration.

The UMP is certain to win control of most councils in the run-off on March 29, but second place in the first round will damage Sarkozy’s shaky come-back as party leader.

‘‘Nicolas Sarkozy is running after the National Front and has pulled out the machine of unkept promises a few days before the elections,’’ Le Pen’s party said. ‘‘Not a single French person is fooled by this masquerade.’’

In 12 years as interior minister and then president, it noted, Sarkozy had never acted against veils in universities or pork-free meals in schools.

Sarkozy and Manuel Valls, the Socialist prime minister, have joined in a fierce slanging match this week with each accusing the other of boosting the chances of the Front.

On Monday, Valls derided Sarkozy as ‘‘a man with no spine nor convictions’’ for pandering to the Front at the same time as Sarkozy was claiming that the Socialists were driving voters into the arms of Le Pen.

The French must open their eyes to the danger of the Front gaining power in France, Valls said. ‘‘Dozens and dozens of the party’s council candidates . . . are using anti-Semitic, racist and homophobic language,’’ he said. Sarkozy seemed unable to distinguish between this far Right party and the nation’s centre-Left party, he added.

Sarkozy said that Valls was losing his nerve. ‘‘France is not governed any more since Mr Valls prefers the excess of words, the excess of posturing when the French are expecting action, calm and results,’’ he said.

I don’t see any coherence in a system that bans the veil in state schools and allows it at universities.

Nicolas Sarkozy

French opposition leader