* Sarkozy presents manifesto centred on deficit-cutting
* France risks fate of Greece or Spain if left wins-Sarkozy
* Juppe says spending plans, EU treaty haggling dangerous
* Hollande says would call audit, freeze spending if wins
(Adds quotes)
By Catherine Bremer and Emmanuel Jarry
PARIS, April 5 (Reuters) – President Nicolas Sarkozy pledged
to achieve a budget surplus for the first time since 1974 and
cut France’s swelling debt if re-elected on May 6, warning that
his Socialist rival would lead the country towards the fate of
Greece or Spain.
Presenting an austere manifesto 17 days ahead of the first
round of voting on April 22, Sarkozy said he would put a “golden
rule” to parliament in July that would commit France to balance
its budget, as promised to European partners.
Struggling to beat Socialist Francois Hollande and secure a
second term, Sarkozy is increasingly playing on voters’ fears
about the economy to portray his rival as an unsafe pair of
hands at a time when Europe is still in crisis.
“Some countries in Europe are on the edge of a precipice
today. We cannot refuse to make the historic choice of
competitiveness, innovation and reducing public spending,” said
the conservative Sarkozy, who trails Hollande in polls for the
run-off.
“To depart even slightly from the commitments France has
made would mean a crisis of confidence,” he said.
In another dig, Sarkozy said the speed of market reactions
today meant that whereas it took the last Socialist president,
Francois Mitterrand, two years to plunge France into crisis in
the 1980s, the left today might manage it in just two days.
Polls show that stubborn unemployment and stagnant household
income are voters’ top worries today, far ahead of issues such
as crime and immigration which got Sarkozy elected in 2007.
Sarkozy, who himself presided over an explosion of the debt
and deficit after the 2008 financial crisis, said his programme
would generate a budget surplus of 0.5 percent of gross domestic
product in 2017 after achieving balance in 2016, and public debt
would fall to 80.6 percent from a peak of 89.4 percent in 2013.
Sarkozy called for a mass rally of the “silent majority” to
support him on Paris’ central Place de la Concorde on April 15 –
a week before the first ballot.
“RETAKE THE BASTILLE”
He seemed to be trying to emulate hard-left candidate
Jean-Luc Melenchon, who has stormed to third place in some
opinion polls after leading a march of tens of thousands of
leftists to “retake the Bastille” last month, symbolically
re-enacting one of the high points of the 1789 French
Revolution.
Pre-empting Sarkozy’s attack on his spending plans, Hollande
told Canal+ television early on Thursday that if elected he
would immediately order an audit of public finances and could
freeze some spending plans.
The battle over debt and deficit came after a cover story in
the Economist weekly entitled “France in Denial” made waves in
political circles by accusing the two rivals of lacking serious
ideas for tackling the country’s economic and fiscal problems.
Sarkozy said Hollande’s plan to lower the retirement age to
60 from 62 for people who started work at age 18 or younger
showed it was the Socialist who was in denial.
“That proposal alone is a negation of the existence of the
crisis, and the existence of an outside world,” he said.
Earlier, Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, tipped as a possible
prime minister if Sarkozy wins, said Hollande’s economic and
European plans were an “explosive cocktail” that could derail
Europe’s exit from its debt crisis.
“EXPLOSIVE COCKTAIL”
“The cocktail of these two measures, the immediate spending
without savings, in other words slippage in our public finances,
and secondly, throwing the EU treaty into question, could cause
the system to explode,” Juppe said.
Latest polls show Sarkozy just ahead or level with Hollande
in round one, with Melenchon edging ahead of far-right candidate
Marine Le Pen for third place and centrist Francois Bayrou
sliding to fifth. But all show Hollande ahead with at least 53
and up to 56 percent support for the decisive second ballot.
To win, Sarkozy needs centrist and far-right voters to rally
behind him in round two, but surveys show many of those people
will give their runoff votes to Hollande.
The harsh language from Sarkozy’s camp kept up a
long-running exchange of barbs. Fuming after Sarkozy recently
told a reporter Hollande was “nul” – a word that translates as
“useless” or “pathetic” – the Socialists derided him for taking
so long to produce a manifesto.
“It’s not very serious,” said Socialist Party chief Martine
Aubry, noting Hollande presented his programme in January.
“Sarkozy’s programme is his record of the past five years,
only worse,” said Hollande, who asserts that the wealthy rather
than the needy benefited most from tax giveaways since 2007.
The Socialist, who wants to hire 60,000 school staff and
create 150,000 state-aided jobs, said he hoped to recruit 4,000
school support staff before the new academic year in September.
(Additional reporting by Nick Vinocur, Yann Le Guernigou and
Daniel Flynn; Editing by Paul Taylor and Giles Elgood)
