Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin on Monday formally endorsed his political rival, the center-right candidate Nicolas Sarkozy, for president. “Today I am with Nicolas Sarkozy to defend the ideals of our political family and so that the choice for the French people is as clear as possible,” Mr. de Villepin told Europe 1 radio a day after President Jacques Chirac announced that he would not seek a third term. He added, “We have been together in government, we will be together in this battle.”The endorsement is important because Mr. de Villepin, who once had been considered a potential presidential contender, put party unity ahead of the personal and political differences he has had over the years with Mr. Sarkozy, who is the interior minister and the head of the governing party, the Union for a Popular Movement.
In the past, for example, Mr. de Villepin has criticized Mr. Sarkozy’s proposal to institute a modest limited affirmative action program for France, which Mr. de Villepin believes runs counter to the republican ideal that ignores race, religion and ethnicity. And although Mr. Sarkozy, like Mr. Chirac and Mr. de Villepin, opposed the war in Iraq, he has criticized the two men for the way they conducted diplomacy with the United States before the war, calling France’s attitude “arrogant.”