Sarkozy wants Buy European Act within 12 months if re-elected

French President Nicolas Sarkozy says he will unilaterally introduce a "Buy European Act" based on the US “Buy American Act’ that obliges the state to use domestically-produced products in public contracts if no action is taken at a European level. 

Sarkozy speaks at massive rally in Villepinte north of Paris REUTERS/Charles Platiau

Speaking before thousands of supporters at a mass rally in Villepinte north of Paris aimed at boosting his flagging re-election bid, he questioned why the US has the legislation and not Europe.

"I solemnly ask the question why should Europe deny itself that which the United States, the most [economically] liberal country in the world, allows itself," he asked.

He also warned that France might pull out of the Schengen agreement which sees the free movement of people within the European Union saying it needs to be revised and reformed.

Sarkozy, who has taken a turn to the hard right on immigration, said urgent measures were needed to stem the flow of illegal immigration.

"We must undertake a reform of Schengen which would be as structural as the reform we have just put in place for the euro," he said.

Sarkozy said the EU should be able to punish any state within the Schengen area that failed to sufficiently tighten its borders.

In a speech which covered the highlights of his five-year term as president including Libya, the Armenian genocide law and Georgia, he said he had come to accept that “the president of the republic is more attacked, criticised and charicatured than anybody else” but he had come to accept this.

In reply to criticism this week by the Socialist presidential candidate François Hollande of Sarkozy’s record as president, he emphasised repeatedly how much he had “learned” and “understood” from his term in office.

“I have learned that France’s destiny is played out both internally and externally, on the world stage as much as the European and domestic stage,’ he said. “There are no dividing walls, no separation.”

Sarkozy has so far failed to narrow the gap with Hollande, who has had a clear lead in opinion polls for the past five weeks, and this week pulled out all the stops to revamp what has been described as a lacklustre campaign.

Some of the speech was reserved for attacks on the opposition Socialist Party. which he blamed for the situation in the country’s troubled suburbs which have seen a number of violent riots during his presidency.

“I have no lessons to learn from the Left which left the suburbs in a terrible state at the end of the 1990s,” he said. “It’s the Left who abandonded these areas, the Left who abandoned the people who lived there, the Left who wanted to leave these areas impoverished and divided.”

He also blasted the opposition for failing to vote in favour of the new European Treaty.

“We had to save the euro and save Europe, and we did it,” he explained. “Shame on those who didn’t have the courage to vote in favour of the new European Treaty out of self-interest.”

He ended his speech with a rallying call to the troops: “I am aware of what I need to accomplish. Help me, we have two months left….two months to turn everything around and to see victory for the truth."