Post date: Apr 10, 2012 9:31:33 PM
BESANCON, FRANCE (APRIL 10, 2012) (SOCIALIST PARTY POOL) - French Socialist Francois Hollande, boosted by polls showing he may be eroding President Nicolas Sarkozy's lead in the first round of voting in presidential elections in two weeks time, on Tuesday criticised European conservatives for what he said was the promotion of austerity above growth.
French Socialist presidential candidate Francois Hollande criticises European conservatives as the latest polls show President Nicolas Sarkozy's narrow first-round lead either steady or shrinking.
Speaking at an electoral rally in the eastern town of Besancon -- his first major engagement since the start of official campaigning -- Hollande slammed President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose narrow lead in the first round of voting on April 22 may be coming under pressure, according to one poll published on Tuesday.
He accused the President of not doing enough to protect the less-well-off and favouring the rich.
Hollande repeated his by-now familiar call for the renegotiation of the tough budget treaty that limits what debts European governments can run up. But he called on Europe's conservative parties to be held to account.
"The European Right has a grave responsibility. It is not only to have accepted austerity, it is to have promoted it and allowed its continuance and to have organised it. So I want to tell you here: we will open a new path from June 2012. And I will renegotiate as much as is possible the budgetary treaty as I won't accept austerity," he told supporters.
Less than two weeks before voting begins, the conservative's narrow lead over challenger Francois Hollande is steady or shrinking for the April 22 first round and he is still trailing in the May 6 runoff, three opinion polls showed.
Sarkozy saw his lead for the first ballot slip to half a percentage point from 2 points a week ago in a poll by Ipsos Logica, with 29 percent support to Hollande's 28.5 percent.
The same poll showed Hollande retaining a 10-point lead in voting intentions for the May 6 runoff with 55 percent to Sarkozy's 45 percent, unchanged from a week earlier.
Hollande urged his supporters to keep up the momentum, urging them to turn out to ensure he came top of the polls in the first round of voting and give him momentum in the runoffs.
"It's on the Sunday of the first round of voting, when you will see the capacity that has been ours to motivate voters that you will see the faces. Faces of confidence on our side, faces of vexation on the other. Don't deprive yourself of that moment because there will be others, because we won't have finished, because this movement won't stop itself, because if on April 22 we are strong, on May 6 we will be victorious, for the Republic and for France," he said.