Socialist candidate for French presidency will meet Labour leader for talks likely to focus on growth in Europe
Ed Miliband and senior figures in his shadow cabinet team are to host a lunch for François Hollande, the French socialist candidate for the presidential elections at his offices on Wednesday with talks focused on growth in Europe.
The discussions are likely to focus on how to pull Europe away from recession and Hollande's promise of a contract between the generations, a concept that has similarities with Miliband's own reflections on a British Promise, a commitment that the older generaiton have a responsibility to leave a sustainable economic and environmental legacy to the next generation.
Hollande, currently leading President Nicolas Sarkozy in all the polls, is taking a high-level team with him to London, including Pierre Moscovici, his campaign manager and Élisabeth Guigou, the French justice minister between 1997–2000.
Hollande, who is due to give a lecture at Kings College, will not meet David Cameron, something he is said to be relaxed about, even if as expected Cameron does host Sarkozy in London closer to polling day.
Both Miliband and Hollande are intellectuals, and have been wrestling with how to make socialism more relevant at a time of austerity, but they are likely to have differences over Hollande's call for a financial transaction tax.
Labour supports such a tax only if it is implemented worldwide, but Hollande wants a European wide financial transaction tax. Hollande has also called for a new 75% income tax for those earning more than 1m euros, and reductions in the pensionable age, two policies Miliband's aides said he would not be endorsing at today's meeting. The current top rate of income tax in France, paid by many, is 45%.
The two men are also expected to discuss Syria and Iran, as well as Germany. Hollande has already been to Germany and Italy to show that, contrary to Sarkozy's warnings, he can stand up to Germany and form alliances in Europe that matter.
Miliband is to be acompanied by the shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander, the shadow chancellor Ed Balls and his Europe minister Emma Reynolds, a fluent French speaker.
The latest polling showed Sarkozy having halved Hollande's lead to 3.5 percentage points within a week.
The challenger remains far ahead of Sarkozy in polls of how people would vote in the likely head-to-head runoff between the two men on 6 May. But Sarkozy's camp hopes a strong first-round showing can change minds before the decisive day.
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