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| France election: De Villepin to stand for president | France election: De Villepin to stand for president |
| (40 minutes later) | |
| French former prime minister and conservative politician Dominique de Villepin has announced he will stand for president in the 2012 election. | French former prime minister and conservative politician Dominique de Villepin has announced he will stand for president in the 2012 election. |
| The long-time rival of incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy made his announcement on French TV. | The long-time rival of incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy made his announcement on French TV. |
| Mr Sarkozy himself has not formally declared a bid for re-election but is widely expected to do so. | Mr Sarkozy himself has not formally declared a bid for re-election but is widely expected to do so. |
| France's Socialist opposition recently elected Francois Hollande as their candidate for the Elysee Palace. | France's Socialist opposition recently elected Francois Hollande as their candidate for the Elysee Palace. |
| Recent opinion polls suggested Mr de Villepin would have little chance of winning the election but correspondents say he could draw away vital votes from a Sarkozy candidacy in the first round. | |
| Troubled career | |
| "I intend to defend a certain idea of France," Mr de Villepin told the TF1 channel, his words quoted by le Monde newspaper. | "I intend to defend a certain idea of France," Mr de Villepin told the TF1 channel, his words quoted by le Monde newspaper. |
| "I have a conviction: the 2012 meeting will a meeting of truth, courage and will." | "I have a conviction: the 2012 meeting will a meeting of truth, courage and will." |
| He said he was "concerned" to see France "humiliated by the law of markets which encroaches further and further in austerity". | He said he was "concerned" to see France "humiliated by the law of markets which encroaches further and further in austerity". |
| "I want to reunite all the French, those on the left, those on the right, and those in the centre." | |
| Dominique Marie Francois Rene Galouzeau de Villepin, 58, has not traditionally been seen as a politician with the popular touch in France. | |
| A protege of Mr Sarkozy's predecessor as president, Jacques Chirac, he is perceived by some as arrogant, by others urbane. | |
| As foreign minister in February 2003, he opposed the invasion of Iraq at the United Nations. | |
| As prime minister between May 2005 and May 2007, he saw his plans for labour reforms scrapped in the face of public protests and strikes. | |
| He had badly misread the public mood and isolated himself politically as he tried to justify the reforms. | |
| He was later involved in a long and bitter legal battle centring on allegations that he had tried to smear Mr Sarkozy in the run-up to the 2007 presidential election through the Clearstream affair. | |
| A French appeals court cleared him of complicity in September. | |
| One French tweeter, Aure Lianna, quipped on Sunday: "At least it's certain he's not standing in order to negotiate a ministerial post from... Nicolas Sarkozy." |