PARIS, Oct. 8 (Xinhua) -- Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who is joining the competition to be chosen as the conservative presidential nominee, pledged to consult voters on his controversial proposals on immigration and presumed terrorists.
"I will give speech back to popular sovereignty. Hand over to people on such important subjects is to make a choice of democracy," Sarkozy told state-run France 2 TV on Friday.
If elected, the 61-year-old conservative promised to put "sensitive, strong and serious" issue of the right of family members to join a migrating relative in France to a referendum during the second round of legislative election scheduled for June 18.
"The population explosion in Africa will double in 30 years ... in a way that we can not, in my view, to accept the automatic family reunification for non-EU foreigners," he said.
"So, I'll ask this question in a referendum: Will the French agree that we remove, suspend the automatic right to migrant family reunification as long as Europe ... has not an adequate migration policy?"
Sarkozy also said that France, already on high terror alert, needs a new security roadmap suggesting to lock up all those who are under the surveillance of intelligence services. He pledged to listen to voters by calling referendum on the issue.
In the 2012 presidential election, Sarkozy was beaten by the Socialist leader Francois Hollande. After a two-year break from politics, he came back as leader of the crisis-hit conservative party then known as Union for a Popular Movement (UMP).
Hoping to revenge his defeat, he is working to appease voters of the far-right party whose public support keeps widening as a long-running rise in unemployment, refugees crisis and fatal Islamist militants attacks ignited citizens' fears and triggered a switch to anti-immigrant party.
At end of August, Sarkozy, a skilled campaigner and experienced orator, started his campaign for right-wing primary with a harsh tone on immigrants and Muslim community. He said they posed threat to France's identity and security, the same subjects that he has echoed in 2012 election and which had led to his defeat.
After truck attack in which 86 people have been killed in southern city of Nice on the Bastille Day and the killing of a priest by two radicalized young men, Sarkozy's tough stance helped him to improve public support and to overtake his rival Alain Juppe.
However, his rhetoric also seemed to have negative impact. A Harris Interactive poll released on Oct. 6, showed 39 percent of voters supported Juppe in the primary race while Sarkozy is expected to garner 35 percent of the vote.
In September, the pollster showed the two contenders neck-and-neck on 37 percent.
"Sarkozy has understood: the campaign will be played in the right camp. There is a turnaround of public opinion since attacks in January 2015. But, the question is how he will convince voters of the right and far-right parties to trust him again", Jean-Yves Camus, a political analyst told France 24.
Supporters of centre-right parties will elect their candidate in the 2017 presidential election in two-round vote on Nov. 20 and 27.
The winner will face a Socialist candidate and Marine Le Pen, head of the far-right National Front party.
