Paris: French President Nicolas Sarkozy has vowed to be a "different President" if re-elected to the post, and admitted he had acted at times too impulsively and more like a minister than a head of state in his first tenure.
"I will be different. I will already have been President for five years and you don’t repeat mistakes already made. The main one is to think I was still a minister,” The Telegraph quoted Sarkozy, as saying.
"As a minister you need to be reactive and fast-acting, but as a president you need, along with being reactive, to be able to step back from things and you also need to stand back and be solemn,” he added.
It was the latest in a series of Sarkozy’s mea culpas as he pursues all avenues to further close the gap on his Socialist rival Francois Hollande in the upcoming Presidential Election.
He said if re-elected, he would remain above the fray on daily issues and focus on implementing structural reforms.
He also promised not to raise taxes after the election.
Meanwhile, a poll published in the Le Figaro newspaper showed him leading the presidential race with 28 percent support, one point ahead of Hollande, for the first round on April 22.
But his momentum could yet be torpedoed by potentially explosive allegations that he received EUR 800,000 of cash from ailing L`Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt to help fund his 2007 Presidential campaign.
ANI
