In an editorial, here, about the one and only debate between Sarkozy and Hollande:
At one point Mr Sarkozy plumbed new depths in a campaign which had already turned xenophobic to recapture ground from Marine Le Pen. This was where he explained that he was not bothered about Canadian or Norwegian immigrants getting the vote, but Algerian, Malian and Nigerian ones – the Muslim ones of course: "Community tensions come from whom and they come from where?" This was the Sarkozy of old, the former interior minister of raw political ambition who earned the loathing of his colleagues by calling delinquents rabble, and promising to cleanse minority suburbs with a Kärcher high-pressure water hose.
