Hollande wins high profile support as French vote nears

French presidential frontrunner Francois Hollande was to hold a campaign rally Tuesday with Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo, as influential supporters began to fall in behind him. With just five days to go before the first round of voting, polls show the 57-year-old Socialist remains on course to oust the right-wing incumbent, but he has not yet won over the leaders of France's main European partners. Di Rupo is the only foreign leader openly backing him but, with polls predicting victory over Sarkozy in the second round run-off on May 6, high-profile recruits have begun to flock to his banner at home. According to one of former right-wing president Jacques Chirac's close friends, Sarkozy's still popular predecessor is planning to vote Hollande, despite his career-long opposition to the Socialist Party. Some 42 top economists wrote an open letter endorsing Hollande's recovery plan and the leader of the right-leaning employers association MEDEF, Laurence Parisot, said she agreed with some of his ideas and would like to meet. Hollande has been a strong critic of the eurozone fiscal stability pact signed last month, arguing that it binds member states into strict austerity rules without leaving space for measures to promote economic growth. France's allies, especially European powerhouse Germany, are concerned any attempt by a newly elected Hollande to renegotiate the hard-won agreement will undermine confidence in EU deficit reduction and panic the bond markets. Hollande has also criticised Sarkozy's decision to bring France back into NATO's integrated military command, promising to renegotiate Paris's role in the alliance and speed the withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan. And, while the Socialist candidate is a veteran national political figure, he has never held high office nor worked closely with foreign powers. Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, US President Barack Obama and Britain's David Cameron have publicly wished Sarkozy well, while reports suggest that the Spanish and Italian leaders would also like to see him re-elected. But the frontrunner is not completely isolated. Di Rupo, a fellow Socialist and French-speaker, was to make the short trip across the border on Tuesday to support Hollande in the northern city of Lille. There Di Rupo, a 50-year-old known for his trademark red bow tie, was to attend a rally with Hollande and Lille's mayor, French Socialist Party leader Martine Aubry and Belgian Socialist leader Thierry Giet. "It's always in Lille that the Socialist candidate holds his last major rally before the first round, here in the land of Socialism and workers' struggle, but also a land at the heart of Europe," Aubry said. Di Rupo's spokesman, Guillaume de Walque, said Di Rupo would not speak at the event himself but had been planning to visit Hollande for weeks "because they have met many times and they are friends." Sarkozy has mocked Hollande's international isolation, and was criticised recently for breaking standard protocol and allowing television cameras to film the first few moments of a videophone conference with Obama. "We will win, you and me," Sarkozy told a smiling Obama, referring to the US leader's own re-election challenge in November. But the right-wing leader has also distance himself from Merkel since the start of the campaign, as polls show much opposition in France to the austerity measures that Germany insisted on in the EU fiscal pact. Merkel initially said she would come to France to stump for Sarkozy, but no date has been set, and on Sunday the French leader risked upsetting Germany with a call for the European Central Bank to do more to generate growth. Germany remains strongly attached to the idea of an independent ECB with a strictly limited inflation-busting agenda, and would strongly oppose political pressure on the body to play a more activist role in economic policy. The latest opinion polls Tuesday showed Hollande and Sarkozy neck-and-neck at around 27 percent each in the April 22 first round, but forecast a comfortable 56 to 44 percent win for Hollande in the run-off vote on May 6.