Lang on left; Sarkozy on right. Source of photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.
(p. A3) In the heat of the presidential campaign early this year, Jack Lang, a popular icon of the French left, accused Nicolas Sarkozy of ”trickery at the highest level,” ”anti-republican behavior” and — perhaps most cutting of all — being a ”Bush adapted for France.”
Now Mr. Lang, a former culture minister and education minister who served as campaign spokesman for the defeated Socialist candidate, Ségolène Royal, is the latest leading Socialist to defect to the Sarkozy camp.
. . .
”Human relations have deteriorated in the Socialist Party,” Mr. Lang told the left-leaning daily Libération last week. ”Today I don’t feel happy in this house.”
He accused the party of self-destruction, by casting out those who choose to work outside its structure. ”I am liberated,” he said of his decision to leave the party leadership. ”They have helped me by allowing me to make a decision I should have made long ago. Long live liberty! Long live life.”
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(Note: ellipsis added.)