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last updated 8 January 2015

Paris

France’s presidential race turned nasty this week, as the campaign entered its last month. Center-right candidate Nicolas Sarkozy said Socialist Ségolène Royal had called him “ignoble”—a bigger insult in French than it is in English—after Sarkozy proposed creating a ministry of “national identity.” “I never made such remarks,” Royal said. “Is a liar fit to become president of the republic?” Last week, Royal blamed a youth riot at a Paris train station on the failure of the tough law-and-order policy Sarkozy implemented as interior minister. Sarkozy shot back that Royal was obviously on the side of “cheats and rioters.”