THE TELEGRAPH: The man who hopes to depose President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012 has launched his new political party.
France's former prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, deployed the grandiose rhetoric for which he is famous as he addressed supporters attending the launch of Republique Solidaire.
"All those in our country who are overwhelmed by fatalism, by cynicism or by indifference can look at us here and know that something has been reborn in France, something that, in the coming months, will not fail to grow," he said.
"Because at the heart of our history there is an ambition stronger than politics [–] there is the love of France."
He added: "our destiny is in our own hands."
Referring to his hero General de Gaulle, who[se] wartime rallying call to occupied France 70 years ago was marked this weekend, Mr de Villepin: added: "In 1940 men, women, young and not so young responded to the call of an unknown general ready to abandon everything, their homes, their land, to attain once more what was essential.
"Today let us take up once more that torch of republican loyalty. Let us take up once more the torch of justice and liberty." >>> Kim Willsher in Paris | Saturday, June 19, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: Domenique de Villepin launched his new party with claims to offer an alternative to his arch rival, Nicolas Sarkozy.
Dominique de Villepin is France's modern day renaissance man. The former prime minister is perfectly capable of running the country while penning poetry, dashing off a couple of history books, philosophising in three languages and looking like a political pin up from central casting.
Nicolas Sarkozy is as near as it is possible to be to his polar opposite – brash, often irascible, from an immigrant background and with none of Mr de Villepin’s aloof grandeur.
As the two leading figures of the French Right, they have been forced together where necessary in the past, but they are much more comfortable at daggers drawn.
Now, the lofty disdain that Mr de Villepin feels for his more down-to-earth rival is about to split French politics in half as he embarks on what everybody in France believes is his attempt to prise the French presidency from Mr Sarkozy and seize it for himself. >>> Kim Willsher in Paris | Saturday, June 19, 2010
