Jos\u00e9 Luis Rodr\u00edguez Zapatero, the Spanish president participated in a large rally in Toulouse yesterday in support of the Socialist candidate for the French presidency, S\u00e9gol\u00e8ne Royal. During the meeting, attended by thousands, he said that, S\u00e9gol\u00e8ne was the future for France. According to official sources this will be S\u00e9gol\u00e8ne\u2019s last rally before the first round of voting on Sunday. <\/p>\n
Zapatero said that Europe was waiting for an innovative, committed, brave and modern France to emerge from the elections. He also said that he was convinced that S\u00e9gol\u00e8ne would achieve this because she represented a real alternative and would offer another form of government. According to Zapatero Spain feels close to France. His speech, which was translated using subtitles on two giant screens either side of the stage, was greeted with applause and chants of \u2018Zapatero, Zapatero\u2019. <\/p>\n
When asked why he had chosen to show such strong support to S\u00e9gol\u00e8ne he justified his presence saying that he wanted to accompany her in this decisive phase of her campaign because of the commitment to social democratic ideas which they both shared and to offer a model of success to the French. <\/p>\n
S\u00e9gol\u00e8ne Royal, was given the nickname Zapatera by the press in 2004 when she became the first female president of the region Poitou-Charentes. When she was still competing to be the candidate for the French presidency, she visited Madrid to participate in PSOE\u2019s annual political conference last September, where she had a meeing with Zapatero. The Socialist leader committed her party to following a similar programme of equality designed by Zapatero\u2019s government. <\/p>\n
The French opinion polls only show that three out of four voters are still undecided on who to vote for. Although the outcome is still uncertain, latest polls show Nicolas Sarkozy as the front runner and many foreign policy analysts will question Zapatero’s very public display of support for the opposition candidate, especially since Franco-Spanish relations and cooperation are vital in the on-going fight against Basque terrorism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jos\u00e9 Luis Rodr\u00edguez Zapatero, the Spanish president participated in a large rally in Toulouse yesterday in support of the Socialist candidate for the French presidency, S\u00e9gol\u00e8ne Royal. During the meeting, attended by thousands, he said that, S\u00e9gol\u00e8ne was the future for France. According to official sources this will be S\u00e9gol\u00e8ne\u2019s last rally before the first round of voting on Sunday. Zapatero said that Europe was waiting for an innovative, committed, brave and modern France to emerge from the elections. He also said that he was convinced that S\u00e9gol\u00e8ne would achieve this because she represented a real alternative and would offer <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[31,40],"class_list":["post-5894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sin-categoria","tag-spanish-politics","tag-zapatero"],"yoast_head":"\n