UPDATE Sarkozy enters election race but second term a tough sell

By Clare Byrne Feb 16, 2012, 1:01 GMT

Paris - It was never a question of if but when.

After keeping everyone waiting for weeks, French President Nicolas Sarkozy finally confirmed Wednesday evening that he would seek another term in office.

'Yes, I am a candidate in the (April/May) presidential election,' Sarkozy said in an interview with TF1 television, confirming what has been seen as an open secret. To bow out now, in the midst of an economic crisis, would be to 'abandon ship', the president declared.

He had considered putting off the announcement until March, just a month before the first round of the election.

Sarkozy wanted to remain in presidential mode for as long as possible in order to be seen as remaining above the fray, busy with running the country while his Socialist rival Francois Hollande runs about canvassing for votes.

By building anticipation, the incumbent also hoped to rekindle a little longing among the voters who propelled him to power five years ago.

It didn't work.

Opinion polls show Sarkozy stuck at the lowest point ever for an incumbent at this point in the presidential race - with between 24.5 and 26 per cent of voter intentions, compared with between 29.5 and 31 per cent for Hollande, the frontrunner.

With panic now palpable in the halls of government, Sarkozy's advisors convinced him to pick up the pace.

His team has promised a 'lightning' campaign that will blitz the electorate with 'new ideas' every day between now and the election.

On Thursday he will address supporters in the mountain town of Annecy before ending the week with a major rally in Marseille.

Sarkozy said the main innovation of his second term, if he is re-elected, would be to give the French a greater say in their future by holding more referendums, beginning with a referendum on limiting unemployment benefits.

He would level with the French, he said.

'If we want to keep our social model, our way of living, we must continue making changes,' he said. The changes, he said, would make France stronger.

That's a tough sell from a president who presided over the downgrading of the country's AAA credit rating from Standard & Poor's agency in January. The downgrading has had little impact on the country's borrowing rates so far but left the country feeling weaker.

Centrist candidate Francois Bayrou used Sarkozy's shipping analogy to accuse him of steering France 'onto the rocks.'

Unemployment has climbed to a 12-year high of nearly 10 per cent.

Meanwhile, Sarkozy's 2007 promise to create a 'a republic beyond reproach' have sounded hollow as his party battles a string of corruption scandals.

In the past few weeks Sarkozy has attempted to buff his record by proposing labour reforms aimed at making French industry more competitive.

He also returned to the traditional right-wing themes of immigration and identity.

Sarkozy told Le Figaro Magazine last week he would propose a constitutional amendment that would limit the rights of illegal immigrants to challenge deportations.

His opponents accuse him of chasing after far-right National Front (FN) voters.

In 2007, Sarkozy took votes from the FN by vowing to tackle 'scum' youth in the high-rise ghettos where many French people of north African origin live.

This time, the nationalist FN threatens to take votes from Sarkozy among low-paid workers and the unemployed.

The risk for Sarkozy, in trying to shore up his right flank is that he could loses centrist voters, Frederic Dabi of Ifop polling institute told Le Journal du Dimanche.

For Christine Ockrent, a French journalist writing in Britain's The Guardian newspaper this week, Sarkozy's endless chopping and changing have created 'intense Sarkozy fatigue.'

'Whatever his formidable talent as a campaigner, it (the fatigue) will be hard to dispel,' she predicted.