Rival rallies to France's Sarkozy, boosts poll bid

The French defence minister has backed rival Nicolas Sarkozy for April presidential polls, handing the centre-right leader a welcome boost on the eve of a nomination congress overshadowed by internal feuding.

Michele Alliot-Marie said late on Friday she would not run and would campaign alongside her rival Sarkozy, saying a bid by her would only fuel a rise in extremism and allow the Socialists to win.

The move is a major coup for Sarkozy, battered by weeks of implicit and outright criticism from President Jacques Chirac and his allies which has dismayed rightwing voters and hurt Sarkozy's efforts to unite the party behind his candidacy.

The interior minister's Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) meets in a lavish Paris congress today to officially anoint him as its candidate. Polls suggest Sarkozy will face Socialist Segolene Royal in a May 6 run-off ballot.

By rallying to his cause a prominent standard-bearer of the traditional right - Alliot-Marie was until now allied to Chirac - Sarkozy has deftly cut the ground from under conservative critics such as Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin.

The attacks have fuelled suspicions in Sarkozy's camp that Chirac and Villepin would be happy to see him lose the election in a plot to snatch back control of the UMP. But the defence minister's support could draw to him moderate voters put off by the UMP leader's strident image on law-and-order, economic reforms and his pro-US views.

"I will try to bring with me all those who have shown confidence in me, including those who asked me to run for president," said Alliot-Marie as she announced her decision on French television. "When the basis for the future of France is at stake, one should put to one side one's own desire in order to serve the general interest," she said. That could be interpreted as a signal to Villepin to end his anti-Sarkozy sniping, which an OpinionWay poll this week showed was seen by 44 per cent of the ruling right's voters as a bid to ensure the interior minister lost the April/May vote.

Villepin said last weekend he would not vote for Sarkozy in the UMP ballot because Chirac had not said whether he would seek a third term, something most observers judge unlikely.

He will briefly attend today's rally but will not address the party faithful or stay for Sarkozy's acceptance speech.

Alliot-Marie said she hoped everyone would quickly follow her example, saying unity was the precondition for victory, a comment most commentators saw as directed at the prime minister.