French election hopeful Bayrou wants social economy

PARIS, Feb 23 (Reuters) Centrist Francois Bayrou, the rising star of the French presidential campaign, promised to cut debt and help business while keeping a human face on the economy today as he sought to win votes from the left and right.

The former education minister whose recent surge in the polls has given him an outside chance of snatching a place in the second round, where a recent poll said he could beat either Nicolas Sarkozy on the right or Socialist Segolene Royal.

''I want to defend a social economy,'' said Bayrou, who emerged as an alternative to Royal as her campaign floundered and as an anti-Sarkozy vote.

''A social link is only possible with a creative economy, focussed on innovation, that produces wealth and offers work,'' he told a news conference.

Bayrou said he would cut the debt and would make sure that current budget spending was not paid for by new borrowing outside periods of economic recession.

He said his programme would consist of 21 billion euros (27.53 billion dollar) of new spending that would be balanced by 21 billion euros saved by streamlining the government and social charges on businesses.

He promised to cut red tape for businesses, improve innovation through education and research, and to progressively raise tax on fossil fuel to help the environment.

He hopes the programme will lure away voters from Sarkozy and Royal and he took shots at both candidates whose programmes he said were too expensive.

''At each public meeting, each interview, they add one or two or several billions in spending, to arrive at figures that specialists say will cost more than 60 billion euros for the candidates of Socialist Party and the UMP,'' he said.

''This attitude is not only unreasonable. It is irresponsible.'' Polls have shown Bayrou's score rising from about 8 percent at the end of last year to as much as 17 percent, within sight of Royal's scores of 23 to 29 percent.

Media interest in Bayrou, who is from a farming family in the southwest far from the Parisian elite, has grown but some wonder whether he has done enough to establish a clear profile of his own.

''We are arriving at the hour of truth. What does Francois Bayrou represent? Difficult to say: he's a Mr Neither Nor. Neither Sego, Nor Sarko.'' the left-leaning Liberation newspaper wrote in an editorial on Thursday.

REUTERS SAM RAI2148