Jospin makes US 'axis of evil' issue in election

FRANCE: As Mr Jospin sounded presidential, President Chirac patted cow rumps, Lara Marlowe reports from Paris

At his official investiture as the Socialist Party's presidential candidate yesterday, the Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin, mocked the discord on the French right and introduced President Bush's "axis of evil" as a campaign issue.

While Mr Jospin was sounding presidential, the "president-candidate" Mr Jacques Chirac patted cow rumps and tasted cheese at the Salon de l'Agriculture.

The Agriculture Minister, Mr Jean Glavany, usually opens the annual fair, but since Mr Glavany is Mr Jospin's campaign manager an appearance with the President was deemed too awkward.

On Saturday, a congress of the inchoate "Union in Movement" (UEM) - which was intended to unite the fragmented right around Mr Chirac's candidacy - disintegrated into booing and recriminations.

Mr Chirac must have thanked heaven he didn't travel to Toulouse for the debacle.

Gaullist politicians had hoped to merge Mr Chirac's RPR, the centre-right UDF and the DL (liberal) party within the UEM.

But Mr Francois Bayrou, leader of the UDF and a presidential candidate, sabotaged the project, saying: "If we all think the same thing, we won't think anything." Mr Bayrou then made the mistake of starting a sentence: "If I am elected president of the Republic . . ." The audience nearly lynched him.

The UEM meeting provided the socialists with ammunition for their congress at the Maison de la Mutalité in Paris. The Socialists are the largest party in France, and made Mr Jospin their sole candidate with a score befitting a Third World dictator - 99.07 per cent. Those known as "Chiraquiens" fought one another in the 1974, 1981, 1988 and 1995 presidential campaigns, Mr Jospin said. "How can they claim to unite France when they are perennially divided in their own camp?"

The first secretary of the Socialist Party, Mr Francois Hollande, set the aggressive foreign policy tone of the congress when he noted that "France is not a nation like others.

It is a great people with a universal message." He accused the right of wanting to reduce corporate taxes "to the lowest level, on the Irish model".

France's partners align themselves, Mr Jospin said. The words "with Washington" were understood. France's "refusal to accept submission" must not take the form of turning inward or rejecting Europe, but the country could not allow itself to be "dissolved in globalisation and uniformity".

The question of "the power and presence of the Americans" was "coming to the fore", Mr Jospin continued. France had expressed "total solidarity" with the US in the wake of the September 11th attacks.

Paris was "beside the US in the fight against terrorism and in Afghanistan".

But until now, only socialist and left-wing politicians have taken a stand against Mr Bush's policies, Mr Jospin noted. "All the problems of the world cannot be reduced to terrorism. The security of the world has more than a military dimension. The world is too complex, too pluralistic, for one power to claim to resolve all its problems."

Mr Jospin did not want the US to pull out of world affairs either - just respect others. Mr Clinton attempted to mediate between Israelis and Palestinians. "Now we see the full weight of the US's failure to intervene," the Socialist candidate said to loud applause.