French presidential favourite vaunts ‘change’ at first rally

Three months ahead of France’s presidential election, Socialist frontrunner Francois Hollande vowed at his first campaign rally on Sunday to bring change to a crisis-hit nation.

“I am aware of my task: embodying change, getting the left to win and renewing faith in France,” Hollande, 57, said to rapturous applause at the start of a 90-minute speech.

Around 25,000 of the party faithful turned out at Le Bourget near Paris, organisers said, where Hollande’s campaign slogan “Change Is Now” was emblazoned on a patriotically blue, white and red stage.

In another echo of US President Barack Obama’s ultimately successful 2009 rallying call, Hollande’s speech was preceded by a mini-concert by former tennis champion turned pop star Yannick Noah.

The bespectacled Hollande has a reputation as a manager rather than as a charismatic leader, and Sunday’s rally was an ideal opportunity to show his flair as an empassioned orator.

Hollande still leads the deeply unpopular right-wing President Nicolas Sarkozy in opinion polls, but his lead is slowly being eroded by resurgent far-right and centrist parties, but also by his own perceived dithering.

In a stridently left-wing speech, Hollande hammered home his attachment to French secular and socialist values, saying that the world of finance was his real enemy.

“My real adversary has no name, no face, no party, it will never be a candidate, even though it governs… it’s the world of finance,” Hollande said.

Recalling his conservative family roots in Normandy, Hollande thanked his parents for having given him the freedom to choose Socialism.

He lashed out at those who have criticised him for never having served as a minister, and sought to portray himself as the natural heir to the last successful Socialist presidential candidate, Francois Mitterrand.

“Some people criticise me for never having been minister. When I see who they are today, I’m reassured!” he said, recalling that a campaigning Mitterrand was criticised in 1981 for having been minister too many times.

Four Socialist former prime ministers were present, including Lionel Jospin, who in 2002 led the party to an embarrassing defeat in the first round presidential election at the hands of far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Hollande’s former partner Segolene Royale, defeated by Sarkozy in 2007, was present, along with Mitterrand’s daughter Mazarine Pingeot.

Former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn had been favourite for the Socialist party nomination before he was arrested on sexual assault charges in New York in May. The charges were dropped, but so was his candidacy.

The Socialists have criticised Sarkozy for not yet having declared his own candidacy while nevertheless reserving the right for officials from his ruling UMP party to snipe at opponents’ campaign promises as they tread water.

Hollande has consistently led opinion polls with 28-30 percent of votes predicted in the first round on April 22, ahead of President Sarkozy’s 23-24 percent.

Polls say that far-right leader Marine Le Pen would garner 18-20 percent of votes and centrist candidate Francois Bayrou 12-14 percent, but their numbers are on the rise, at the expense of both Sarkozy and Hollande.

Hollande was to appear on primetime television news on Sunday evening, with his detailed campaign manifesto to be unveiled on Thursday.