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Focus on France Ian Sparks reports from Paris
EURO-REPORT
FOCUS ON... France
Ian Sparks reports from Paris on the fall-out from the nuclear argument – and from the Socialists’ tax plans.
France’s presidential election battleground is fast turning into a nuclear warzone for Nicolas Sarkozy as his support for the country’s atomic energy industry threatens a meltdown of his already flagging campaign.
The French leader has been attacking his socialist rival Francois Hollande for months over a deal with the Green Party to reduce France’s dependency on nuclear power from 80 per cent to 50 per cent if he wins the election.
Sarkozy has insisted he will maintain France’s position as the world’s most nuclear-dependent nation if he is returned to office on 6 May, and has visited a string of nuclear plants to pose beside workers in wearing overalls and hard hats.
But in his determination to boost his nuclear credentials, he ultimately exposed himself to nationwide ridicule at an election rally in early April. In a bid to reassure the French people that nuclear power is safe, he told an audience of 5000 supporters in Normandy that the Japanese disaster at Fukushima last year was caused by the tsunami, and not by a failure of the nuclear technology.
He then went a step further and falsely claimed he had actually visited the scene of the devastated nuclear plant. He told the rally: “I went to Fukushima with Nathalie KosciuskoMorizet (his environment minister), and unlike Francois Hollande, I can tell you the disaster was caused by the 42 metre high wave from a tsunami. Frankly, I don’t see the immediate risk of a tsunami in Alsace.”
Mr Sarkozy was the first world leader to visit Japan after it was struck by a massive earthquake and tsumani in March last year. But journalists at French newspaper Le Monde who accompanied him on the trip insist he never left Tokyo.
Mr Hollande leapt on the president’s gaffe to quip in the French media: “This is the first time in the history of the French republic that a candidate has told of a voyage he never made. These are the kind of half truths that eventually become full-blown lies.”
The socialist candidate’s campaign director Pierre Moscovici added that Mr Sarkozy “lies from morning, lunchtime to night,” while another socialist spokesman jokes on Twitter: “Nicolas Sarkozy is everywhere, on the Berlin Wall and at Fukushima. Now it’s the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic... Was he on board that too?”
Then as the president’s aides tried to defuse the blunder by admitting Mr Sarkozy ‘did not actually stick his nose’ into the Fukushima plant, another nuclear catastrophe swiftly reared up on the horizon.
Anne Lauvergeon, the former head of French nuclear energy company Areva and a self-confessed socialist, revealed to the press that Mr Sarkozy had once tried to sell a nuclear reactor to fallen Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
Lauvergeon – dubbed ‘Atomic Anne’ in France – told L’Express news magazine: “The state, which is supposed to act responsibly, was supporting the folly of selling nuclear technology to Gaddafi. Hindsight may be a wonderful thing, but just imagine, if we had done it, how it would look now.”
Without explicitly denying the allegation, Sarkozy’s spokeswoman Valerie Pecresse swiftly accused Lauvergeon of trying to ‘settle scores’ and of trying to discredit the president because she had been promised a seat in Mr Hollande’s future cabinet.
Looking for the exit
While Mr Sarkozy tries to contain the fallout from his nuclear disaster, Mr Hollande is making no friends among France’s super-rich and big companies who, the latest figures show, are planning a mass exodus to Britain in panic at the left-winger’s pledges for massive hikes in income and corporation tax.
Inquiries from wealthy French people for London homes worth more than five million pounds soared by 30 per cent in the first three months of this year and interest in homes worth between one and five million rose by 11 per cent, UK estate agency statistics showed.
Mr Hollande has warned in his manifesto that he will increase taxes for incomes over one million euros a year from 50 per cent to 75 per cent if elected, and will also increase corporation tax from 33 per cent to 50 per cent and outlaw stock options.
British estate agent Knight Frank said the socialist’s tax plans had sent French interest in luxury London homes rocketing. Liam Bailey, Knight Frank’s global head of residential research, said: “It is too early to see the impact of the proposed wealth taxes in France in terms of actual purchases in London. But there is strong evidence from our web search statistics.”
Tax expert Armand Grumberg, a Paris lawyer at the firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom, told how at a recent lunch for bosses of France’s largest listed firms, the main topic was ‘how to get out’.
He said: “Investment banks and international law firms would probably be the first to go, as they are highly mobile.
“Other firms may find it harder to leave France, but the most damaging effects may be long-term as brainy youngsters who have the choice of where they set up new businesses decide they will not create jobs and new products for 25 per cent or less of the fruits of their labour.” n
