Sarkozy joins Twitter; invites the French to watch TV announcement

Feb 15, 2012, 9:52 GMT

Paris - French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday made his debut on microblogging site Twitter, a few hours before he is expected to announce on national television that he is seeking reelection.

'Hello all. I am very happy to launch my Twitter account today. Thanks to all of you who wish to follow me!,' Sarkozy tweeted, signing 'NS.' With an hour and a half, he had over 11,000 followers.

In a second tweet on the account marked @NicolasSarkozy, he confirmed that he would be appearing on TF1 television at 8 pm (1900 GMT) and invited people to watch him.

Environment Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, who is expected to be named spokeswoman for his reelection campaign, confirmed the tweets were Sarkozy's own compositions.

Sarkozy's intention to seek a second five-year term in two-stage April/May elections has been an open secret for over a year.

He had initially put off the announcement to March, preferring to appear 'presidential' for as long as possible, in order to play up his experience over Socialist candidate Francois Hollande.

But members of his party convinced him to bring forward the launch of his campaign in order to try catch up on Hollande.

With a little over two months to go to the first round of voting on April 22, opinion polls show Hollande enjoying a comfortable lead, with between 29.5 and 31 per cent of voter intentions, compared with between 24.5 and 26 per cent for Sarkozy.

Hollande has been active on Twitter for weeks. He has some 146,000 followers.