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Chirac Refuses Debate, Attacks ‘Brute Force’ Of Le Pen
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RENNES, France, April 23 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Warning Tuesday that France’s future was at stake, French President Jacques Chirac refused a televised election debate with extreme-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen who stunned the country by winning through to the second round of the presidential election.
"France is confronted with a grave situation. What is at stake is its soul, its cohesion, its role in Europe and the world," Chirac told a crowd of 7,000 supporters in the Brittany capital of Rennes, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Launching his campaign for round two of the election on May 5, Chirac, 69, also unleashed a blistering attack on Le Pen, 73, accusing him of "brandishing the threat of the street, and waving the specters of brute force, of the irrational, of contempt."
Chirac flatly refused to take part in a planned televised debate with the National Front (FN) leader.
"Faced with intolerance and hate there is no transaction, no compromise and no debate possible," he said to loud cheers in the hangar of an exhibition center outside the city.
Despite some pressure to take on Le Pen and his extremist views, Chirac declared that such "intolerance and hatred" made a debate impossible.
Commentators warned that Le Pen could put the incumbent president on the spot over the string of allegations concerning sleaze and corruption when he was mayor of Paris, as well as raising other awkward issues, reported BBC’s online news service.
However, Chirac insisted that his decision was a principled one. "Just as I did not accept any alliance in the past with the National Front, whatever the political price, I will not accept a debate with its leader in the future," he said.
"You must have the courage of your convictions and the steadfastness of your commitments."
The debate has been a feature of the presidential campaign since the 1970s, and Le Pen condemned his rival's decision as an "attack on the rules of the democracy".
Le Pen is preparing for his major television interview since coming second in the first round of the presidential poll on Sunday, seeing off the Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin.
For his part, Le Pen scoffed at Chirac's refusal as a "pitiful cop-out," accusing him of being afraid of the truth.
With the Socialist party promising to rally behind Chirac after its candidate Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, 64, was knocked out on Sunday, the president is practically assured of winning a new five-year term.
But posing as the elder statesman who alone can stand up to champion France's democratic values, he used his address to appeal for as large a majority as possible to wipe out the embarrassment of Le Pen's first round success.
"In belonging to the French nation, we are all united by our rejection of extremism, of racism, of anti-Semitism and of xenophobia. We all reject the simplistic brutal solutions that will always lead one day to the violence of the state," he said.
In an attack on Le Pen's declared aim of taking France out of the European Union, Chirac said France would never leave Europe, "because Europe is peace, Europe is democracy, Europe is liberty, Europe is prosperity."
His delighted audience, including local politicians and many young people waved banners, sounded hooters and broke into regular bursts of "On va Gagner!" - "We're going to win" - and "Chirac, Chirac!"
Among the crowd were leading figures of the centrist parties Liberal Democracy (DL) and the Union for French Democracy (UDF), which Chirac's Gaullists are hoping to bring into a broad pro-Chirac coalition in time for the crucial parliamentary elections that take place in June.
With victory almost certain in the presidential election, the right is hoping to capitalize on the sense of crisis prevailing since Le Pen's breakthrough to win a clear majority in the National Assembly and push through institutional and economic reforms.
According to Chirac the thrust of his program will be to clamp down on crime, and reduce the economic constraints that he says are hampering France's international competitiveness.
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