FRANÇOIS HOLLANDE, the socialist candidate for the French presidency, said he is not concerned by reports that conservative European leaders have agreed not to meet him during the election campaign.
The German weekly Der Spiegel reported that German chancellor Angela Merkel, Spanish right-wing prime minister Mariano Rajoy and Italian prime minister Mario Monti “agreed verbally” among themselves not to meet Mr Hollande because of his opposition to the EU’s fiscal treaty.
British prime minister David Cameron, who did not sign the treaty, later joined the agreement among the leaders of Europe’s main powers, the magazine claimed.
The German government said no meeting was planned between Dr Merkel and Mr Hollande, but played down the report of an informal pact against the frontrunner for the French presidency. “Every government leader decides for themselves whether they will meet Mr Hollande,” the spokeswoman said.
Dr Merkel has given her support to president Nicolas Sarkozy in his bid for re-election, saying such backing is “normal” given their parties belong to the same conservative bloc in the European Parliament. On a visit to Paris last month, she avoided answering a question about whether she would receive Mr Hollande in Berlin before the election in late April.
During a visit to London last week to seek support from French expatriate voters, the socialist candidate met Labour leader Ed Miliband but not Mr Cameron.
Mr Hollande said he was not concerned by reports that he was being boycotted by conservative leaders, adding that he had the support of left-wing governments in Belgium and Denmark. “I do not know if this information is accurate . . . but it does not worry me,” he told France 3 television when asked about the Spiegel report. “It’s quite natural that there should be an alliance of conservatives in favour of the conservative candidate in France.
“It’s not the European leaders – who I respect by the way – who will influence the decision of the French people,” he said. “We are a great nation, a great country which will not be told what to do by leaders who are friends but still outside our democracy.”
Mr Hollande’s campaign director, Pierre Moscovici, denounced “conservative pressure of a sort we have never seen in European history”. He said there was a long-established tradition whereby the French president and German chancellor received each of the main candidates for election in the neighbouring country. “That has always been done, because Franco-German friendship must stand above partisan divisions,” he added.
The Socialist Party has said it wants to renegotiate the fiscal pact – crafted largely by Dr Merkel and Mr Sarkozy – to add clauses on growth and solidarity.
Many observers believe Mr Hollande may tone down his rhetoric if elected and point to the example of the former socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin, who in 1997 said he wanted to renegotiate the European stability pact only to settle for a summit on growth and jobs once he was elected. “I will be very keen to convince them to add a growth element to the European treaty,” Mr Hollande said yesterday.
The spokeswoman for Mr Sarkozy’s campaign, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, said Mr Hollande should not be surprised that Dr Merkel did not want to meet him given that he had backed her domestic opponents and was seeking to unravel her European strategy.
In the latest opinion poll, by LH2-Yahoo, Mr Sarkozy’s support dropped by 3 percentage points to 23 per cent while Mr Hollande slipped 1.5 points but remained well ahead on 30.5 per cent.
