France to resume election race after gunman’s death

TOULOUSE, March 25: France’s presidential election race resumes, irrevocably altered by the killing of an al Qaeda-inspired gunman whose murders have shifted the political debate in favor of incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy.
Mohamed Merah’s cold-blooded shootings of seven people, including three Jewish schoolchildren, forced politicians to suspend normal campaigning while a giant manhunt closed in on the 23-year-old unemployed panel-beater.
That hunt ended in a cacophony of gunfire shortly before midday, after a 30-hour siege in the southern city of Toulouse. Merah was shot in the head as he clambered out of a ground floor window with all guns blazing, fulfilling his macabre wish of dying with a weapon in his hand.
Counter-terrorism operatives said they had wanted to capture him alive, but had been forced to kill him when he began to fire at police commandos searching his flat, wounding at least two of them.
The young self-styled Islamist’s crimes spread fear, triggered an emotive debate about immigration and integration, and gave Sarkozy a small bounce in the polls as he sought to close the gap behind Socialist rival Francois Hollande.
With only one month left to go before the first round of the election, Merah’s influence is likely to endure. “Of course what has happened in the past week has changed the course of events,” a senior Sarkozy campaign adviser said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“There wasn’t much talk about security and terrorism before. But this is going to raise questions about our system of integration, our approach to fundamentalism and our tolerance of certain practices here. You’re going to hear a lot about that in the weeks to come,” he said.
President Sarkozy will visit the northern French town of Valenciennes where he is expected to tour urban renovation projects, industrial facilities, and purpose-built housing for workers.
The first opinion poll conducted since Merah committed his third and deadliest attack at a Jewish school in Toulouse showed Sarkozy surging past Hollande in the April 22 first round, even though it predicted Hollande would still win a May 6 runoff.
A second poll showed Sarkozy had also trimmed Hollande’s lead in the second round and that voters considered him more credible on security and immigration issues, which are likely to increasingly come into focus in the campaigns.
Analysts say Sarkozy has capitalized on his role as the incumbent during the crisis, portraying himself as a statesman, and his right-leaning rhetoric on immigration and law and order has appeared topical, even if it raises the hackles of the left. The question is whether he can keep the focus of the pre-election debate on law and order, where he is seen as being more comfortable, or whether his rivals can turn the spotlight back onto issues such as unemployment, the economy and social justice, on which he is perceived as weaker. Far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who claimed after the shootings that entire suburbs had been surrendered to Islamist radicals by negligent politicians, will restart her own campaign – by visiting the tourist attraction of Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy – while her father Jean-Marie will travel to the southern town of Nimes.-DNA