As Europe’s centre-left turned the continent pink in the latter half of the 1990s, so the latter half of the 2000s has been a time of the right. In Germany and France, Italy and Sweden, and most recently in the UK and Poland, parties of the centre-right have taken power. A leading trio of conservatives in particular – Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi – have dominated European politics. But now all three find themselves beset by difficulties and sliding in the polls. The question can fairly be asked: is the right’s domination ending?
Mr Sarkozy, the French president, this week found himself mired in a glutinous series of allegations surrounding links between his government colleagues, and him personally, and the fortune of Liliane Bettencourt, the l’Oréal heiress now facing suspicions of tax evasion. Mr Sarkozy is alleged to have taken a €150,000 ($190,000, £126,000) donation to his election campaign in 2007, a sum 20 times greater than the permitted maximum of €7,500.
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