NEWS,26.04.2012.

The man behind Sarkozy's tilt to the right

Paris - As French President Nicolas Sarkozy seeks to woo far-right voters ahead of the 6 May presidential polls, the spotlight falls on the man suspected of being behind his shift rightwards."Evil genius, prodigious strategist ... who really is Patrick Buisson?" the right-wing French weekly Figaro Magazine asked last month, as curiosity and controversy surrounding the aide began to mount.Referred to as Sarkozy's principal advisor by the French media, the former far-right journalist is said to have steered Sarkozy toward the anti-immigrant and borderline eurosceptic tactics at the centre of his campaign.Though the tough rhetoric failed to win Sarkozy enough votes to secure the top spot in the first round of the election on 22 April, he is now counting on it to give him an edge in the upcoming second and final round.As he goes head-to-head with Socialist Party candidate Francois Hollande - who won round one by a thin margin of 28.6% to Sarkozy's 27.2% - Sarkozy believes he will have to reach out to National Front voters to win.With National Front candidate Marine Le Pen coming in third with a historic 18%, opinion polls suggest that Sarkozy must siphon away at least 70 to 75% of her votes to beat Hollande. Enter Buisson, the 63-year-old advisor and poll expert who was instrumental in Sarkozy's 2007 victory and who has since risen above the rest of the entourage to become Sarkozy's key confidant.As head of the polling firm Publifact, Buisson and his team conducted €1.5m worth of surveys for the Sarkozy government in 2008, according to the French court of auditors.Though he has no official position in Sarkozy's government nor in his re-election campaign, Buisson is nevertheless credited with having inspired several of Sarkozy's campaign tactics, according to French media.The aide who came from the strongest French far-right tradition is said to have been behind Sarkozy's speech on immigration, in which he vowed to halve the annual number of arrivals into France to 100 000 from 180 000.Buisson is likewise said to have inspired Sarkozy's vow to suspend the Schengen agreement allowing visa-free travel and to have convinced Sarkozy to present himself as "the people's candidate" against the elite.This oft-repeated credo - "I want to be the French people's candidate and not that of a small elite" - has almost become a campaign slogan since Sarkozy announced his candidacy in mid-February."I want to talk to the powerless. I want to talk to the rural folk who don't want to starve, I want to talk to workers who don't want the unemployed to earn more than them," Sarkozy said again on 23 April.Bald and with rimless glasses, Buisson is a discreet man who runs the television channel Histoire and honed his chops at the far-right weekly Minute, where he wrote from 1981 to 1987.There he criticised the Socialist government of President Francois Mitterand and celebrated the National Front's notorious founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, who at the time was emerging from relative anonymity to a leading role.Now, under the leadership of Le Pen's daughter Marine, the far right is at the centre of political calculations ahead of the 6 May election run-off.But, though Buisson is considered the mastermind behind Sarkozy's tilt toward the National Front, the aide rejects the idea that Sarkozy has shifted."This idea of 'a move to the right' is the surest sign of the mental confusion that has taken hold of some minds," Buisson said in mid-March in the French newspaper Le Monde. "If 'a move to the right' consists of taking into consideration the suffering of the most at-risk and vulnerable French, it's because the old political categories no longer make any sense," he added.Buisson thinks that Hollande's Socialist Party has become "the mouthpiece of the new dominant classes" and that it follows an "ideology of globalisation" that the French people will reject.

No change in Tibet stand: Dalai Lama

 The Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, said on Wednesday he would not alter his non-violent quest for greater Tibetan autonomy, even after Beijing blamed him for inciting a wave of unrest.A total of 34 Tibetans, many of them Buddhist monks and nuns, are reported to have attempted to kill themselves by setting themselves on fire in China's Tibetan-inhabited areas since the start of 2011 in protest at Chinese rule.Many of the protesters - who criticise Beijing for what they see as repression of their culture - have reportedly died from severe burns.Beijing has repeatedly accused the Dalai Lama of inciting the self-immolations in a bid to split the vast Himalayan region from the rest of the nation, a charge he denies."Recently things become very, very difficult but our stand - no change," the Dalai Lama told the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates."Independence, complete independence is unrealistic - out of [the] question," the Dalai Lama said, saying his non-violent "Middle Way" of seeking change from Beijing still has the support of 90% of Tibetans."So we can continue," he said in a press conference at the conclusion of the summit.Tibet's leadership-in-exile in India remains committed to "meaningful talk" with the Chinese government in order to establish "meaningful autonomy" for the Tibetan minority, he said.The latest self-immolations by a pair of young Tibetan men occurred last week in the prefecture of Aba in a rugged area of Sichuan province, overseas Tibetan rights groups said.China has imposed tight security to contain simmering discontent in Tibetan regions since 2008, when deadly rioting against Chinese rule broke out in Tibet's capital Lhasa and spread to neighbouring Tibetan-inhabited regions.Many Tibetans in China complain of religious repression and a gradual erosion of their culture blamed on a growing influx of majority Han Chinese to their homeland.China denies any repression and says it has improved the lives of Tibetans with investment in infrastructure, schools and housing and by spurring economic growth.Twelve Nobel laureates including South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu have urged China's president to resume talks with the Dalai Lama, but the Buddhist monk said that up until now, negotiations had not been productive."Sometimes I describe totalitarian regimes as no ear, only mouth," he told the summit with a laugh.The Chinese officials "lecture us, never really listen" and are angry that "I am not acting like 'yes minister'," he said."Our approach failed to bring some concrete or positive result from the government, but the Chinese public, or Chinese intellectuals, or students who study in foreign countries - they are beginning to know the reality," he said."That, I think, is a positive side, a significant result."The Dalai Lama also expressed the need for patience in the decades-long struggle."Sometimes people have the impression [this is] some crisis very recently happened," he said."I meet some Chinese. They are frustrated. Very hostile. Then I tell them long stories... 60 years of stories. Then they understand, oh - the Tibetan issue is really a very, very complicated issue."