Nicolas Sarkozy ( , born
Nicolas Paul
Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa on January 28, 1955) is the
23rd and
current President of the French
Republic and
ex officio
Co-Prince of Andorra.
He assumed the office on 16 May 2007 after defeating
Socialist Party candidate
Ségolène Royal 10 days
earlier.
Before his presidency, he was leader of the
Union for a Popular Movement
(UMP).
Under Jacques
Chirac's presidency, he served as
Minister of the
Interior in Jean-Pierre
Raffarin's (UMP) first two governments (from May 2002 to March
2004), then was appointed Minister of Finances
in Raffarin's last government (March 2004 to May
2005), and again Minister of the Interior in Dominique de Villepin's government
(2005-2007).
Sarkozy
was also president of the General council of the Hauts-de-Seine
department from 2004 to 2007 and mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine, one of the wealthiest
communes of France from 1983 to
2002. He was also Minister of the
Budget
in the government of Édouard Balladur (RPR, predecessor of the UMP) during
François Mitterrand's last
term.
Sarkozy is known for wanting to revitalize the
French economy.He has pledged to revive the
work ethic, promote new initiatives and fight intolerance.
In
foreign affairs, he has
promised a strengthening of the entente
cordiale with the United Kingdom
and closer cooperation with the United States
. His nickname, "Sarko", is used by both
supporters and opponents.
Personal life
Family background
Sarkozy is a Frenchman of mixed national and ethnic ancestry. He is
the son of
Pál István Ernő Sárközy de Nagy-Bocsa,
( ; some sources spell it
Nagy-Bócsay Sárközy Pál István
Ernő; ) a
Hungarian aristocrat, and
Andrée Jeanne "Dadu"
Mallah (b.
Paris
, 12 October
1925), who is of French Catholic and Ottoman-Sephardic Jewish descent. They were married at
Saint-François-de-Sales
, Paris XVII, on 8
February 1950 and divorced in 1959.
Pál
Sárközy was born on 5 May 1928 in Budapest
into a
family belonging to the lesser Hungarian nobility. They possessed lands
and a small castle in the village of Alattyán
, near
Szolnok
, 92 km
(57 miles) east of Budapest. Pál Sárközy's father and
grandfather held elective offices in the town of Szolnok. Although
the Sárközy de Nagy-Bócsa (nagybócsai Sárközy) family was
Protestant, Pál Sárközy's mother, Katalin Tóth
de Csáford ( ), grandmother of Nicolas Sarkozy, belonged to a
Catholic noble family.
As the
Red Army entered Hungary in 1944, the
Sárközy family fled to Germany
. They
returned in 1945 but all their possessions had been seized.
Pál
Sárközy's father died soon afterwards and his mother, fearing that
he would be drafted into the Hungarian People's Army or sent to
Siberia
, urged him to leave the country and promised she
would eventually follow him to Paris.
Pál
Sárközy fled to Austria
and then Germany while his mother reported to
authorities that he had drowned in Lake Balaton
. Eventually, he arrived in Baden Baden
, near the French border, where the headquarters of
the French Army in Germany were located,
and there he met a recruiter for the French Foreign Legion.
He signed
up for five years, and was sent for training to Sidi Bel
Abbes
, where the French
Foreign Legion's headquarters were located. He was due
to be sent to
Indochina at the end
of training, but the doctor who checked him before departure, who
was also
Hungarian, sympathised
with him and gave him a medical discharge to save him from possible
death at the hands of the
Vietminh.
He
returned to civilian life in Marseille
in 1948 and, although he asked for French
citizenship only in the 1970s (his legal status was that of a
stateless person until then), he
nonetheless gallicised his Hungarian
name into "Paul Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa". He met Andrée Mallah
(known as
Dadu) in 1949.
Andrée
Mallah, then a law student, was the daughter of Benedict Mallah, a
well-off urologist and STD specialist with a
well-established reputation in the mainly bourgeois 17th
arrondissement of Paris
. Benedict Mallah, originally named Aaron
Mallah (and nicknamed Benico), was born in 1890 in the Sephardic Jewish community of (modern day
Thessaloniki
, Greece
).
The
family had originally been from Spain
, then
resettled in Provence, southern France, and later moved to Salonica
into the Jewish community established there by other Spanish expellees victims of the Spanish Inquisition. Benico Mallah, the
son of jeweller Mordechai Mallah and Reyna Magriso, left Salonica,
then still part of the Ottoman Empire, with his mother in 1904 at
the age of 14 to attend the prestigious Lycée
Lakanal
boarding school of
Sceaux, in the southern
suburbs of Paris. He
studied medicine after his
baccalaureate and decided to stay in
France and become a French citizen.
A doctor in the French Army during World
War I, he met a recent war widow, Adèle
Bouvier (1891–1956), from a bourgeois family of Lyon
, whom he
married in 1917. Adèle Bouvier, Nicolas Sarkozy's
grandmother, was a Catholic like the majority of French people.
Mallah, for whom religion had reportedly never been a central
issue, converted to Catholicism upon marrying Adèle Bouvier, which
had been requested by Adèle's parents, and changed his name to
Benedict.
Although Benedict Mallah converted to
Catholicism, he and his family nonetheless had to flee Paris and
take refuge in a small farm in Corrèze
during World War II to
avoid being arrested and delivered to the Germans. During
the Holocaust, many of the Mallahs who
stayed in Salonica or moved to France were deported to
concentration and extermination camps. In total, 57 family members
were murdered by the
Nazis.
Paul Sarkozy and Andrée Mallah settled in the 17th
arrondissement of Paris and had three sons:
Guillaume, born in 1951, who is an
entrepreneur in the
textile industry and
current vice president of the MEDEF (French union of employers);
Nicolas, born in 1955; and François, born in 1957 (an
MBA and manager of a
health
care consultancy company. In 1959, Paul Sarkozy left his wife
and his three children. He later remarried three times and had two
more children. His third wife, Christine de Ganay, married U.S.
ambassador
Frank G. Wisner.
Sarkozy's half-brother,
Olivier, was
chosen by the
Carlyle Group in March
2008 as co-head and managing director of its recently launched
global financial services division.
Early life
During Sarkozy's childhood, his father refused to give his wife's
family any financial help, even though he had founded his own
advertising agency and had become wealthy.
The family lived in a
small mansion owned by Sarkozy's grandfather, Benedict Mallah, in
the 17th
Arrondissement
. The family later moved to Neuilly-sur-Seine, one of the wealthiest
communes of the Île-de-France
région immediately west of the
17th Arrondissement just outside of Paris. According to
Sarkozy, his staunchly
Gaullist grandfather
was more of an influence on him than his father, whom he rarely
saw. Sarkozy was, accordingly, raised
Catholic.
Sarkozy said that being abandoned by his father shaped much of who
he is today. He also has said that, in his early years, he felt
inferior in relation to his wealthier classmates. "What made me who
I am now is the sum of all the humiliations suffered during
childhood", he said later.
Education
Sarkozy
was enrolled in the Lycée Chaptal, a state-funded public
middle and high school in Paris's 8th
arrondissement
, where he failed his sixième.
His family then sent him to the
Cours Saint-Louis de
Monceau, a private Catholic school in the 17th arrondissement,
where he was reportedly a mediocre student, but where he
nonetheless obtained his
baccalauréat in 1973. He enrolled at
the
Université Paris
X Nanterre, where he graduated with a Master in
Private law, and later with a
DEA degree in Business law. Paris
X Nanterre had been the starting place for the
May '68 student movement and was still a stronghold
of
leftist students. Described as a quiet
student, Sarkozy soon joined the
right-wing student organization, in which he was
very active. He completed his military service as a part time Air
Force cleaner.
After graduating, he entered the
Institut d'Études Politiques de
Paris
(1979-1981) but failed to graduate due to an
insufficient command of the English
language. After passing the
bar, he became a lawyer specializing in
business and
family
law, and was one of
Silvio
Berlusconi's top French advocates.
Relationships
Marie-Dominique Culioli
Sarkozy
married his first wife, Marie-Dominique Culioli, on 23 September
1982; her father was a pharmacist from
Vico
(a village north of Ajaccio
, Corsica
). They had two sons, Pierre (born in 1985),
now a hip-hop producer, and
Jean (born
in 1986) now a regional councillor in the city of
Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. Sarkozy's best man was the prominent
right-wing politician
Charles Pasqua,
later to become a political opponent. Sarkozy divorced Culioli in
1996, although they had already been separated for several
years.
Cécilia Ciganer-Albéniz
As mayor
of Neuilly-sur-Seine, Sarkozy met
former fashion model and public relations executive Cécilia Ciganer-Albéniz
(great-granddaughter of composer Isaac Albéniz and daughter of a Moldovan
father), when he officiated at her wedding to
television host Jacques
Martin. In 1988, she left her husband for Sarkozy, and
divorced Martin one year later. Sarkozy married her in October
1996, with witnesses
Martin Bouygues
and
Bernard Arnault They have one
son, Louis, born 23 April 1997.
Between 2002 and 2005, the couple often appeared together on public
occasions, with Cécilia Sarkozy acting as the chief aide for her
husband.
On 25 May 2005, however, the Swiss
newspaper Le Matin
revealed that she had left Sarkozy for French-Moroccan
national Richard
Attias, head of Publicis in New
York. There were other accusations of a private nature in
Le Matin, which led to Sarkozy
suing the paper. In the meantime, he was
said to have had an affair with a journalist of
Le Figaro,
Anne
Fulda.
Sarkozy and Cécilia ultimately divorced on 15 October 2007, soon
after his election as President. She was his second wife.
Carla Bruni
Less than a month after separating from Cecilia, Sarkozy met
Italian-born singer
Carla Bruni at a
dinner party, and soon entered a relationship with her.
They
married on 2 February 2008 at the Élysée
Palace
in Paris.
Personal wealth
Sarkozy declared to the
Constitutional Council a
net worth of
€2
million, most of the assets being in the form of
life insurance policies. As the French
President, one of his first actions was to give himself a raise:
his yearly salary went from €101,000 to €240,000 (to match his
European/French peers) . He is also entitled to a mayoral pension
as a former mayor of
Neuilly-sur-Seine.
He also receives a
yearly council pension as a former member of the council of the
Hauts-de-Seine department.
Member of National Assembly
Sarkozy is recognised by both right and left as a skilled
politician and striking
orator. His
supporters within France emphasize his
charisma, political innovation and willingness to
"make a dramatic break" amid mounting disaffection against
"politics as usual".
Overall, he is considered more pro-U.S. and pro-Israeli
than most French politicians.
Since November 2004, Sarkozy has been president of the
Union pour un Mouvement
Populaire (UMP), France's major right-wing political party, and
he was
Minister of the
Interior in the government of
Dominique de Villepin, with the
honorific title of
Minister of
State, making him effectively the number three official in the
French State after President
Jacques
Chirac and the prime minister. His ministerial responsibilities
included law enforcement and working to co-ordinate relationships
between the national and local governments, as well as
Minister of Worship (in this
role he created the
CFCM, French Council of
Muslim Faith). Previously, he was a deputy to the
French National Assembly. He was
forced to resign this position in order to accept his ministerial
appointment. He previously also held several ministerial posts,
including
Finance Minister.
In government
Sarkozy's political career began when he was 22, when he became a
city councillor in
Neuilly-sur-Seine. A member of the
Neo-Gaullist party RPR, he went on to
be elected
mayor of that town, after the death
of the incumbent mayor
Achille
Peretti. Sarkozy had been close to Peretti, as his mother was
Peretti's secretary. The senior RPR politician at the time,
Charles Pasqua, wanted to become
mayor, and asked Sarkozy to organize his campaign. Instead Sarkozy
profited from Pasqua's short illness to propel himself into the
office of mayor. He was the youngest mayor of any town in France
with a population of over 50,000. He served from 1983 to 2002. In
1988, he became a deputy in the
National Assembly.
In 1993, Sarkozy was in the national news for personally
negotiating with the "Human Bomb", a man who had taken small
children hostage in a
kindergarten in
Neuilly. The "Human Bomb" was
killed after two days of talks by
policemen of the
RAID, who
entered the school stealthily while the attacker was resting.
From 1993 to 1995, he was Minister for the Budget and spokesman for
the executive in the cabinet of
Prime Minister Édouard Balladur. Throughout most of
his early career, Sarkozy had been seen as a protégé of
Jacques Chirac. During his tenure, he
increased France's public debt more than any other French Budget
Minister except his predecessor, by the equivalent of €200 billion
(
USD260 billion) (FY 1994-1996). The first two
budgets he submitted to the parliament (budgets for FY1994 and
FY1995) assumed a yearly budget deficit equivalent to six percent
of
GDP. According to the
Maastricht Treaty, the French yearly
budget deficit may not exceed three percent of France's GDP.
In 1995, he spurned Chirac and backed
Édouard Balladur for
President of France. After Chirac won
the election, Sarkozy lost his position as Minister for the Budget
and found himself outside the circles of power.
However, he returned after the right-wing defeat at the
1997 parliamentary
election, as the number two candidate of the RPR. When the
party leader
Philippe Séguin
resigned, in 1999, he took the leadership of the Neo-Gaullist
party. But it obtained its worst result at the
1999 European Parliament
election, winning 12.7% of the votes, less than the dissident
Rally for France of Charles Pasqua.
Sarkozy lost the RPR leadership.
Nicolas Sarkozy speaking at the
congress of his party, 28 November 2004
In 2002, however, after his re-election as President of the French
Republic (see
French
presidential election, 2002), Chirac appointed Sarkozy as
French Minister of the Interior in the cabinet of Prime Minister
Jean-Pierre Raffarin, despite
Sarkozy's support of Edouard Balladur for French President in 1995.
Following Chirac's 14 July keynote speech on road safety, Sarkozy
as interior minister pushed through new legislation leading to the
mass purchase of speed cameras and a campaign to increase the
awareness of dangers on the roads.
In the cabinet reshuffle of 31 March 2004, Sarkozy became Finance
Minister. Tensions continued to build between Sarkozy and Chirac
and within the UMP party, as Sarkozy's intentions of becoming head
of the party after the resignation of
Alain Juppé became clear.
In party elections of November 2004, Sarkozy became leader of the
UMP with 85% of the vote. In accordance with an agreement with
Chirac, he resigned as Finance Minister. Sarkozy's ascent was
marked by the division of UMP between
sarkozystes, such as
Sarkozy's "first lieutenant",
Brice
Hortefeux, and Chirac loyalists, such as
Jean-Louis Debré.
Sarkozy was made Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur (Knight of the
Legion of Honour) by President
Chirac in February 2005. He was re-elected on 13 March 2005 to the
National Assembly (as required by
the constitution, he had to resign as a deputy when he became
minister in 2002).
On 31 May 2005 the main French news radio station
France Info reported a rumour that Sarkozy
was to be reappointed Minister of the Interior in the government of
Dominique de Villepin without
resigning from the UMP leadership. This was confirmed on 2 June
2005, when the members of the government were officially
announced.
First term as Minister of the Interior
Towards the end of his first term as Minister of the Interior, in
2004, Sarkozy was the most divisive
conservative politician in France, according to
polls conducted at the beginning of
2004.
Sarkozy has sought to ease the sometimes tense relationships
between the general French population and the
Muslim community. Unlike the Catholic Church
in France with their official leaders or
Protestants with their umbrella organisations,
the French Muslim community had a lack of structure with no group
that could legitimately deal with the French government on their
behalf. Sarkozy supported the foundation in May 2003 of the private
non-profit
Conseil
français du culte musulman ("French Council of the Muslim
Faith"), an organisation meant to be representative of French
Muslims. In addition, Sarkozy has suggested amending the
1905 law
on the separation of Church and State, mostly in order to be
able to finance
mosques and other Muslim
institutions with public funds so that they are less reliant on
money from outside of France.
Minister of Finance
During
his short appointment as Minister of Finance
, Sarkozy was responsible for introducing a number
of policies. The degree to which this reflected
libéralisme (a hands-off approach to running the economy)
or more traditional French state
dirigisme (intervention)
is controversial. He resigned the day following his election as
president of the
UMP.
- In September 2004, Sarkozy oversaw the reduction of the
government ownership stake in France Télécom from 50.4 percent to
41 percent.
- Sarkozy backed a partial nationalisation of the engineering company
Alstom decided by his predecessor when the
company was exposed to bankruptcy in
2003.
- In June 2004, Sarkozy reached an agreement with the major
retail chains in France to concertedly lower prices on household
goods by an average of two percent; the success of this measure is
disputed, with studies suggesting that the decrease was close to
one percent in September.
- Taxes: Sarkozy avoided taking a position on the ISF (solidarity tax on wealth). This is
considered an ideological symbol by many on the left and right. Some in the business world and on the
liberal right, such as Alain Madelin,
wanted it abolished. For Sarkozy, that would have risked being
categorised by the left as a gift to the richest classes of society
at a time of economic difficulties.
Villepin government
Second term as Minister of the Interior
During his second term at the Ministry of the Interior, Sarkozy was
initially more discreet about his ministerial activities: instead
of focusing on his own topic of law and order, many of his
declarations addressed wider issues, since he was expressing his
opinions as head of the UMP party.
However, the
civil unrest in
autumn 2005 put law enforcement in the spotlight again. Sarkozy
was accused of having provoked the unrest by calling young
delinquents from
housing projects
"rabble"
("racaille") in
Argenteuil near Paris, and controversially
suggested cleansing the minority suburbs with a
Kärcher. After the accidental death of two
youths, which sparked the riots, Sarkozy first blamed it on
"hoodlums" and gangsters. These remarks were sharply criticised by
many on the left wing and by a member of his own government,
Delegate Minister for Equal Opportunities
Azouz Begag.
After the rioting, he made a number of announcements on future
policy: selection of immigrants, greater tracking of immigrants,
and a reform on the 1945 ordinance government justice measures for
young delinquents.
UMP leader
Before he was elected President of France, Sarkozy was president of
UMP, the French
conservative party, elected with 85 percent of the vote. During his
presidency, the number of members has significantly increased. In
2005, he supported a "yes" vote in the
French referendum
on the European Constitution, but the "No" vote won.
Throughout 2005, Sarkozy called for radical changes in France's
economic and social policies. These calls culminated in an
interview with
Le Monde on 8
September 2005, during which he claimed that the French had been
misled for 30 years by false promises. Among other issues:
- he called for a simplified and "fairer" taxation system, with fewer loopholes and a maximum
taxation rate (all direct taxes combined) at 50 percent of
revenue;
- he approved measures reducing or denying social support to
unemployed workers who refuse work
offered to them;
- he pressed for a reduction in the budget deficit, claiming that the French
state has been living off credit
for some time.
Such policies are what are called in France
libéral (that
is, in favour of
laissez-faire
economic policies) or, with a pejorative undertone,
ultra-libéral. Sarkozy rejects this label of
libéral and prefers to call himself a pragmatist.
Sarkozy opened another avenue of controversy by declaring that he
wanted a reform of the
immigration
system, with
quotas designed to admit the
skilled workers needed by the French economy. He also wants to
reform the current French system for foreign students, saying that
it enables foreign students to take open-ended curricula in order
to obtain residency in France; instead, he wants to select the best
students to the best curricula in France.
In early 2006, the
French
parliament adopted a controversial bill known as
DADVSI, which reforms
French copyright law. Since his party
was divided on the issue, Sarkozy stepped in and organised meetings
between various parties involved. Later, groups such as the Odebi
League and EUCD.info alleged that Sarkozy personally and
unofficially supported certain amendments to the law, which enacted
strong penalties against designers of
peer-to-peer systems.
Presidential campaign
Nicolas Sarkozy
Sarkozy was a likely candidate for the presidency in 2007; in an
often-repeated comment made on television channel
France 2, when asked by a journalist whether he
thought about the presidential election when he shaved in the
morning, Sarkozy commented, "not just when I shave".
On 14 January 2007, Sarkozy was chosen by the
UMP to be its candidate in the
2007 presidential election. Sarkozy, who was running unopposed, won
98 percent of the votes. Of the 327,000 UMP members who could vote,
69 percent participated in the online ballot.
In
February 2007 Sarkozy appeared on a televised debate on TF1
where he
expressed his support for affirmative
action and the freedom to work overtime. Despite his
opposition to
same-sex marriage,
he advocated
civil unions and the
possibility for same-sex partners to inherit under the same regime
as married couples. The law has been voted in July 2007.
On 7
February, Sarkozy decided in favour of a projected second,
non-nuclear, aircraft carrier for the
national Navy (adding to the nuclear Charles de Gaulle), during
an official visit in Toulon
with
Defence Minister Michèle
Alliot-Marie. "This would allow permanently having an
operational ship, taking into account the constraints of
maintenance", he explained.
On 21 March, President Jacques Chirac announced his support for
Sarkozy. Chirac pointed out that Sarkozy had been chosen as
presidential candidate for the ruling UMP party, and said: "So it
is totally natural that I give him my vote and my support." To
focus on his campaign, Sarkozy stepped down as interior minister on
26 March.
During the campaign, rival candidates had accused Sarkozy of being
a "candidate for brutality" and of presenting hardline views about
France's future. Opponents also accused him of courting
conservative voters in policy-making in a bid to capitalise on
right-wing sentiments among some communities. However, his
popularity was sufficient to see him polling as the frontrunner
throughout the later campaign period, consistently ahead of rival
Socialist candidate, Ségolène Royal.
The first round of the presidential election was held on 22 April
2007. Sarkozy came in first with 31.18 percent of the votes, ahead
of
Ségolène Royal of the
Socialists with 25.87 percent. In the second round, Sarkozy came
out on top to win the election with 53.06 percent of the votes
ahead of
Ségolène Royal
with 46.94 percent. In his speech immediately following the
announcement of the election results, Sarkozy stressed the need for
France's modernisation, but also called for national unity,
mentioning that Royal was in his thoughts. In that speech, he
claimed "The French have chosen to break with the ideas, habits and
behaviour of the past. I will restore the value of work, authority,
merit and respect for the nation."
Political career
- President of the French Republic : Since 2007
Electoral mandates
- Mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine :
1983-2002 (Reelected in 1989, 1995, 2001, resignation in 2002)
- Vice-president of the General Council of
Hauts-de-Seine : 1986-1988 (Resignation)
- President of the General Council of Hauts-de-Seine : 2004-2007 (resignation, became President of the
French Republic in 2007)
Governmental functions
- Minister of Budget and government's spokesman : 1993-1995
- Minister of Communication and government's spokesman :
1994-1995
- Minister of State, minister of Interior, of the Internal
Security and Local Freedoms : 2002-2004
- Minister of State, minister of Economy, Finance and Industry :
March-November 2004 (Resignation)
- Minister of State, minister of Interior and Planning :
2005-2007 (Resignation)
Political functions
Presidency
On 6 May 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy became the sixth person to be
elected President of the Fifth Republic (which was established in
1958), and the 23rd president in French history. He is the first
French president to have been born after World War II.
The
official transfer of power from Jacques Chirac took place on 16 May
at 11:00 am (9:00 UTC) at the Élysée
Palace, where he was given the authorization codes of the
French nuclear arsenal.
In the
afternoon, the new President flew to Berlin
to meet
with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Under Sarkozy's government,
François Fillon replaced
Dominique de Villepin as Prime
Minister.
Sarkozy appointed Bernard Kouchner, the left-wing founder of
Médecins Sans
Frontières, as his foreign minister, leading to Kouchner's
expulsion from the Socialist Party
. In addition to Kouchner, three more Sarkozy
ministers are from the left, including
Eric
Besson, who served as
Ségolène Royal's economic adviser
at the beginning of her campaign. Sarkozy also appointed seven
women to form a total cabinet of 15; one, Justice Minister
Rachida Dati, is the first woman of
Northern African origin to serve in a French
cabinet.
Of the 15, two attended the elite Ecole
Nationale d'Administration
(ENA). The ministers were reorganised, with
the controversial creation of a 'Ministry of Immigration,
Integration, National Identity and Co-Development' – given to his
right-hand man
Brice Hortefeux — and
of a 'Ministry of Budget, Public Accounts and Civil Administration'
— handed out to
Éric Wœrth,
supposed to prepare the replacement of only a third of all civil
servants who retire. However, after the 17 June parliamentary
elections, the Cabinet has been adjusted to 15 ministers and 16
deputy ministers, totalling 31 officials.
Shortly
after taking office, Sarkozy began negotiations with Colombian
president Álvaro
Uribe and the left-wing guerrilla
FARC, regarding the release of hostages held by
the rebel group, especially Franco-Colombian politician Ingrid
Betancourt. According to some sources, Sarkozy himself
asked for Uribe to release FARC's "chancellor"
Rodrigo Granda. Furthermore, he announced on
24 July 2007, that French and European representatives had obtained
the
extradition of the
Bulgarian nurses detained in Libya to
their country. In exchange, he signed with
Gaddafi security, health care and immigration pacts
– and a $230 million (168 million euros)
MILAN
antitank missile sale.
The contract was the first made by Libya
since 2004,
and was negotiated with MBDA, a subsidiary of
EADS. Another 128 millions euros
contract would have been signed, according to Tripoli, with
EADS for a
TETRA radio system.
The Socialist
Party (PS) and the Communist Party (PCF) criticised a
"state affair" and a "barter" with a "Rogue
state". The leader of the PS,
François Hollande, requested the
opening of a parliamentary investigation.
On 8 June
2007, during the 33rd G8 summit in
Heiligendamm
, Sarkozy set a goal of reducing French CO2 emissions by 50 percent by
2050 in order to prevent global
warming. He then pushed forward Socialist Dominique Strauss-Kahn as European
nominee to the International Monetary Fund
(IMF). Critics alleged that Sarkozy proposed
to nominate Strauss-Kahn as managing director of the IMF to deprive
the Socialist Party of one of its more popular figures.
The
UMP, Sarkozy's
party, won a majority at the
June 2007 legislative
election, although by less than expected. In July, the UMP
majority, seconded by the
Nouveau
Centre, ratified one of Sarkozy's electoral promises,
which was to partially revoke the
inheritance tax. The inheritance tax
formerly brought eight billion euros into state coffers.
Sarkozy's UMP majority prepared a budget that reduced taxes, in
particular for
upper middle-class
people, allegedly in an effort to
boost GDP growth, but did not reduce
state expenditures. He was criticised by the European Commission
for doing so.
Sarkozy broke with the custom of
amnestying
traffic tickets and of releasing thousands of prisoners from
overcrowded jails on
Bastille Day, a
tradition that
Napoleon had started in 1802
to commemorate the
storming of
the Bastille during the
French
Revolution.
Sarkozy's government issued a
decree on 7
August 2007 to generalise a voluntary
biometric profiling program of travellers in
airports. The program, called 'Parafes', was to use fingerprints.
The
new database would be
interconnected with the
Schengen Information System
(SIS) as well as with a national database of wanted persons
(
FPR). The Commission nationale de
l'informatique et des libertés (
CNIL) protested
against this new decree, opposing itself to the recording of
fingerprints and to the interconnection between the SIS and the
FPR.
On 21 July 2008, the French parliament passed constitutional
reforms which Sarkozy had made one of the key pledges of his
presidential campaign. The vote was 539 to 357, one vote over the
three-fifths majority required; the changes are not yet finalized.
They would introduce a two-term limit for the presidency, and end
the president's right of collective pardon. They would allow the
president to address parliament in-session, and parliament, to set
its own agenda. They would give parliament a veto over some
presidential appointments, while ending government control over
parliament's committee system. He has claimed that these reforms
strengthen parliament, while some opposition socialist lawmakers
have described it as a "consolidation of a monocracy".
On 23 July 2008, parliament voted the “loi de modernisation de
l'économie” (Modernization of the Economy Law) which loosened
restrictions on retail prices and reduced limitations on the
creation of businesses. The Government has also made changes to
long-standing French work-hour regulations, allowing employers to
negotiate overtime with employees and making all hours worked past
the traditional French 35-hour week tax-free.
However, as a result of the
global financial crisis that
came to a head in September 2008, Sarkozy has returned to the
state interventionism of his
predecessors, declaring that "
laissez-faire capitalism is over" and denouncing the "
dictatorship of the market". Confronted with
the suggestion that he had become a socialist, he responded: "Have
I become socialist? Perhaps." He has also pledged to create 100,000
state-subsidised jobs. This reversion to
dirigisme is seen as an attempt to stem the
growing popularity of revolutionary socialist leader
Olivier Besancenot.
France wielded special international power when Sarkozy held the
rotating EU Presidency from July 2008 through December 2008.
Sarkozy has publicly stated his intention to attain EU approval of
a
progressive energy package before
the end of his EU Presidency. This energy package would clearly
define climate change objectives for the EU and hold members to
specific reductions in emissions.
In further support of his collaborative
outlook on climate change, Sarkozy has led the EU into a
partnership with China
.
On
December 6, 2008, Nicolas Sarkozy, current Chairman of the European
Union, met the Dalai Lama in Poland
and
outraged China, which has announced that it would postpone the
China-EU summit indefinitely. On 3 April 2009, at
the NATO
Summit in
Strasbourg
, Sarkozy announced that France would offer asylum to a former Guantanamo
captive
.
"We are on the path to failure if we continue to act as we have,"
French President Nicolas Sarkozy cautioned at the U.N. Climate
Summit Tuesday September 22, 2009.
Middle East
Sarkozy played some vital roles in
Middle
East affairs. On January 5, 2009, Sarkozy called for a
ceasefire plan for the
Gaza Strip
Conflict.
The plan, which was jointly proposed by
Sarkozy and Egyptian
President Hosni
Mubarak envisions the continuation of the delivery of aid to
Gaza
and talks with Israel on border
security, a key issue for Israel as it says Hamas smuggles its rockets into Gaza through the
Egyptian border. Welcoming the proposal,
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called for a "ceasefire
that can endure and that can bring real security".
Leading staff members
- General secretary - Claude
Guéant
- Chief of the private military staff - Vice-amiral d'escadre Édouard
Guillaud
- Special advisor to the President - Henri Guaino
- Advisors to the President - Raymond Soubie and Catherine
Pégard
- Diplomatic advisor and sherpa -
Jean-David Levitte
- Deputy secretary general - François Pérol
- Head of cabinet - Emmanuelle
Mignon
- Advisors to the Presidency - Arnold Munnich and Patrick Ouart
- Head of cabinet - Cédric Goubet
Public image
Sarkozy was named the 68th best-dressed person in the world by
Vanity Fair,
alongside
David Beckham and
Brad Pitt. Beside publicizing, at times, and at
others, refusing to publicise his ex-wife
Cécilia Ciganer-Albéniz's
image, Sarkozy takes care of his own personal image, sometimes to
the point of
censorship — such
as in the
Paris Match affair,
when he allegedly forced its director to resign following an
article on his ex-wife and her affair with
Publicis executive Richard Attias, or pressures
exercised on the
Journal du dimanche, which was preparing
to publish an article concerning Ciganer-Albéniz's decision not to
vote in the second round of the 2007 presidential election. In its
9 August 2007 edition,
Paris Match retouched a photo of Sarkozy in order to erase
a
love handle. His official portrait
destined for all French town halls was done by
SIPA photographer
Philippe Warrin, better known for his
paparazzi work.
Former
Daily Telegraph
journalist Colin Randall has highlighted Sarkozy's tighter control
of his image and frequent interventions in the media: "he censors a
book, or fires the chief editor of a weekly." Sarkozy is reported
by Reuters to be sensitive about his height (believed to be
5 ft 5in or 5 ft 6in). He has been noted as wearing
substantially heeled shoes and standing on hidden platforms, while
the French media have pointed out that Bruni frequently wears flats
when in public with him. In 2009, this was the subject of a
political row, when a worker at a factory where Sarkozy gave a
speech said she was asked to stand next to him because she was of a
similar height (this story was corroborated by some
union officials). The president's office called
the accusation "completely absurd and grotesque", while the
Socialist Party mocked his fastidious preparation.
Sarkozy, alongside
Tony Blair, is part of
the inspiration for
Mathieu
Amalric's portrayal of
Dominic
Greene, the villain of the 22nd
James Bond film,
Quantum of Solace.
Sarkozy lost a suit against a manufacturer of Sarkozy
voodoo dolls, in which he claimed that he had a
right to his own image.
Controversies
Generally speaking, Sarkozy is a
bête noire of the Left, and is
also criticised by some on the right, most vocally by the
supporters of
Jacques Chirac and
Dominique de Villepin, such as
Jean-Louis Debré.
The
Marianne accused him of
changing opinion in an
Airbus affair. The
French Communist Party's
magazine
L'Humanité accused Sarkozy
of being a
populist.
Many on the Left have a particular distrust for Nicolas
Sarkozy; specific "anti-Sarko" movements have been started
In the
midst of a tense period and following a shooting that killed an
11-year-old boy in the banlieue
(suburb) of La Courneuve in June 2005,
Sarkozy quoted a local resident and vowed to clean the area out
"with a Kärcher" (nettoyer la cité
au Kärcher, referring to a well-known German brand of
pressure cleaning equipment), and two days before the 2005 Paris riots he referred to
the criminal youth of the housing projects as voyous
(thugs) and racaille, a slang term which can be translated
into English as rabble,
scum or riff-raff; this was criticised as being
inappropriate language by the French Communist Party's
L'Humanité.
In
September 2005 Sarkozy was accused of pushing for a hasty inquiry
into an arson attack on a police station in
Pau
, of which
the alleged perpetrators were acquitted
for lack of proof. On 22 June 2005, he announced to law
enforcement officials that he had questioned the Minister of
Justice about the future of "the judge" who had freed a man on
parole, who had later committed a
murder.
Nicolas Sarkozy opposed the U.S.-led
invasion
of Iraq. However, he was critical of the way Jacques Chirac and
his foreign minister
Dominique de
Villepin expressed France's opposition to the war.
Talking at the
French-American Foundation in Washington, D.C.
on 12 September 2006, he denounced what he called
the "French arrogance" and said: "It is bad manners to embarrass
one's allies or sound like one is taking delight in their
troubles." He also added: "We must never again turn our
disagreements into a crisis." Jacques Chirac reportedly said in
private that Sarkozy's speech was "appalling" and "a shameful
act".
Even though his current foreign minister
Bernard Kouchner (excluded from the
Socialist party after his inclusion in
François Fillon's government) had been
one of the few supporters in France of removal of
Saddam Hussein from power, Sarkozy's stance
on the war has not changed.
A few weeks before the first round of the 2007 presidential
elections, Sarkozy said during an interview with philosopher
Michel Onfray that he thinks disorders
such as
paedophilia and
depression have a
genetic as well as social basis, famously stating "I
don't agree with you, I'd be inclined to think that one is born a
paedophile, and it is actually a problem that we do not know how to
cure this disease"; he also claimed that
suicides among youth were linked to genetic
predispositions by stating, "I don't want to give parents a
complex. It's not exclusively the parents' fault every time a
youngster commits suicide." These statements were criticised by
some scientists, including controversial geneticist
Axel Kahn. Sarkozy later said, "What part is
innate and what part is acquired? At least let's debate it, let's
not close the door to all debate."
On 23
February 2008, Sarkozy was filmed by a reporter for French
newspaper Le Parisien having
the following exchange while visiting the Paris
International Agricultural Show
:
While quickly crossing the hall Saturday morning, in
the middle of the crowd, Sarkozy encounters a recalcitrant visitor
who refuses to shake his hand. "Ah no, don't touch me!", said the
man. The president retorted immediately: "Get lost, then." "You're
making me dirty", yelled the man. With a frozen smile, Sarkozy
says, his teeth glistening, a refined "Get lost, then, poor
dumb-ass, go."This exchange has been cause for much humour and
debate regarding its propriety in the French press. It should also
be noted that a precise translation into English has many possible
variations.On 28 August 2008, Hervé Eon, from Laval
came to an
anti-Sarkozy demonstration with a sign bearing the words
Casse-toi pov' con, the words Sarkozy had uttered.
He was arrested for causing offence to the presidential function
and the prosecutor required a fine of 1000€. This incident was
widely reported on, in particular as Sarkozy, as president of the
Republic, is immune from
prosecution, notably restricting Eon's rights to sue Sarkozy
for defamation.
In 2004, he published a book called La République, les
religions, l'espérance ("The Republic, Religions, and Hope"),
in which he argued that the young should not be brought up solely
on secular or republican values. He also advocated reducing
the separation of church
and state, arguing for the government subsidy of mosques in order to
encourage Islamic integration into French society. He flatly
opposes financing of religious institutions with funds from outside
France. After meeting with Tom Cruise,
Sarkozy was criticised by some for meeting with a member of the
Church of Scientology, which
is classified as a cult (secte
translates "cult") in France (see Parliamentary
Commission on Cults in France). Sarkozy stated that "the roots of France
are essentially Christian" at a speech in
Rome
in December 2007. He also called
Islam as "one of the greatest and most
beautiful civilizations the world has known" at a speech in
Riyadh
in January
2008. Both comments drew criticism.
On 27
July 2007, Sarkozy delivered a speech in Senegal
, written by Henri Guaino, in which he made
reference to "African peasants". The very controversial remarks
were widely condemned by Africans, which was widely seen as racist.
South African president Thabo Mbeki praised Sarkozy's speech, which
raised criticism by some in the South African media.
Awards and honours
French honours
Other countries
Notes
- Astier, Henri; What now for Nicolas Sarkozy?, BBC News, 16
May 2007
- Bennhold, Katrin; Sarkozy pledges quick action on French
economy, International Herald
Tribune, 7 May 2007.
- Profile: Nicolas Sarkozy (BBC)
- Anderson, John Ward and Molly Moore; Sarkozy Wins, Vows to Restore Pride in
Franc, Washington Post, 7 May 2007.
- It is the "westernised", or "internationalised", version of his
Hungarian name, in which the given name is put first (whereas in
Hungarian given names come last), and the French aristocratic
particle "de" is used instead of the Hungarian aristocratic ending
"-i". This "westernisation" of Hungarian names is frequent,
particularly for people with an aristocratic name. Check for
example the leader of Hungary from 1920 to 1944, whose Hungarian
name is nagybányai Horthy Miklós, but who is known in English as
Miklós
Horthy de Nagybánya. The French name of Pál Sárközy de
Nagy-Bócsa from 1948 is Paul Étienne Arnaud Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa,
where the given name Pál has been translated into Paul in French,
and the acute accents on the "a" of Sarközy and the "o" of Bocsa
were dropped as these letters never carry an acute accent
(accent aigu) in French. The trema on
the "o" of Sárközy was kept, probably because French typewriters
allow this combination, whereas it is impossible to write "a" or
"o" with an acute accent using a French typewriter.
- Profile: Nicolas Sarkozy
- Wargs.com
- Weekly Standard, France girds for the Sarko-Ségo
showdown
- The tough new president still loves his mum, France's real
first lady - The Guardian - Angelique Chrisafis - 14
May 2007
- Sarkozy's Jewish roots Australian JewishNews
8 May 2007
- Bioalliancepharma.fr
- Nick Clarck, Carlyle poaches Olivier Sarkozy,
The
Independent, 4 March 2008
- BBC News
- see Catherine Nay's semi-official biography
- Un pouvoir nommé désir, Catherine Nay, 2007
- Newsnours.com
- Augustin Scalbert, Un soupçon de vantardise sur les CV
ministériels, Rue
89, 18 September 2007
- See Catherine Nay's semi-official biography
- Berlusconi : le "bon Nicolas Sarkozy" a été mon
avocat
- Corfù, il vertice del disgelo "Riparte
collaborazione Nato-Russia" Il Cavaliere: "Mandai il mio avvocato
Sarkozy da lui per la Georgia..."
- Berlusconi al vertice Nato-Russia "Quando mandai
l'avvocato Sarkozy"
- Rhapsody.com
- Spiegel.de
- Netglimse.com
- BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Sarkozy soap opera
grips Paris
- Huliq.com
- Globaljournalist.org
- France begins to grow weary with the Sarkozy soap
opera - The
Guardian, 13 January 2008
- "French Populism", by Ignacio Ramonet, Le Monde
Diplomatique, June 2007 Edition, French version , English translation
- Le
Parisien, 11 January 2007
- Dette publique de la France
- Sauced Sarkozy Felice E. Baker, The Dartmouth
Independent, 31 October 2007
- French Constitution, article 23
- JO
associations, 28 May 2003
- WorldWide Religious News
- Le gouvernement finalise la privatisation de France
Télécom
- Bruxelles valide le sauvetage d'Alstom
- Le Quotidien de l'Expansion, 30 September
2004
- Le Nouvel Observateur, press review, 21
October 2004
- Azouz Begag, principal opposant à Nicolas
Sarkozy, Le
Monde, 2 November 2005
- Interview with Le Monde, 8 September
2005
- Broadcast of "France 2", 19 November 2003
- " Sarkozy nod for presidential run", BBC
News, 14 January 2007. Retrieved 14 January 2007.
- It was included in the paquet fiscal that has been one
of the first laws passed in Parliament
- Sarkozy pour un deuxième porte-avions français
(AFP)
- France's Jacques Chirac Backs Nicolas Sarkozy.
21 March 2007.
- French confused over the real Sarkozy. 18 April
2007
- Radiant Cécilia puts Sarkozy in the shade
- Communiqué de la Présidence de la République
concernant la nomination du Premier ministre. Élysée
Palace, 17 May 2007
- France's New Government - A study in perpetual
motion, The Economist, 23 June 2007
- Llama G8 a FARC contribuir a liberación de
rehenes, La Cronica, 8 June 2007
- Molly Moore, France's Sarkozy Off to a Running Start,
Washington Post, 4 August 2007
- Tripoli annonce un contrat d'armement avec la
France, l'Elysée dans l'embarras, Le Monde, 2 August 2007
- FMI: Strauss-Kahn candidat officiel de l'Union
européenne, Le
Figaro, 10 July 2007
- Reuters, "France's
Sarkozy wants Strauss-Kahn as IMF head" Sat 7 July 2007 2:38PM EDT
read here
- Les députés votent la quasi-suppression des droits
de succession, Le Figaro, 13 July 2007
- Les droits de succession (presque) supprimés,
Libération, 13 July 2007
- Droits de succession: pour une minorité de ménages
aisés, L'Humanité, 7 June 2007
- Généralisation du fichage biométrique volontaire
des voyageurs dans les aéroports français, Le Monde, 8 August 2007
- France backs constitution reform; BBC News
- Eubusiness.com/
- France's Sarkozy meets Dalai Lama as China
fumes
- NPR.org
- Arrêté du 16 mai 2007 portant nomination à la
Présidence de la République Journal
Officiel
- French President Is Best Dressed Pol,
CBS, 9 August 2007
- Frédéric Pagès, " Cécilia, dame d'enfer" in Le Canard
enchaîné, 22 August 2007
- Cécilia Sarkozy n'a pas voté... scoop censuré du
JDD, Rue 89,
13 May 2007
- Sarkozy: les poignées de l'amour, L'Express, 22 August
2007
- Un bourrelet relance le débat sur la retouche
d'images, Rue
89, 23 August 2007
- Topless Sarkozy's love handles airbrushed away,
Foreign
Policy blog, 22 August 2007
- Chloé Leprince, Pour le nouveau Président, la rupture commence par
l'image, Rue
89, 21 August 2007
- "France enjoys Sarkozy's voodoo doll setback", by Katrin
Bennhold, International Herald Tribune,
October 30, 2008
- Cette droite qui dit «non» à Sarkozy
- la-Croix.com : Boutin renonce à se présenter et
soutient Sarkozy
- Marianne, Le retournement de Sarkozy sur
Airbus, 5 March 2007
- L'Humanité, Humanite.presse.fr, 11 June 2005.
- answering to a resident who addressed Sarkozy with "Quand
nous débarrassez-vous de cette racaille ?"(When will you get
rid us from these dregs) (France 5, Arrêt sur images 6 November 2005)
- L'Humanité, Nicolas Sarkozy pompier pyromane, 2
November 2005
- Le Nouvel Observateur, 1 October
2005
- Le Monde, 23 June 2005
- Philosophie Magazine, nr 8, April 2007; online extracts
- L'Humanité, 4 April 2007, « Un gène ne commande jamais un destin humain
»
- Le Monde, 11 April
2007, Tollé dans la communauté scientifique après les
propos de Nicolas Sarkozy sur la génétique
- The
Guardian, 10 April 2007, « Row over Sarkozy's paedophilia comment refuses to go
away »
- "Premiers pas mouvementés de Sarkozy au salon de
l'agriculture"
- In French: Lors de sa traversée éclair du salon samedi
matin, en plein bain de foule, Sarkozy croise un visiteur
récalcitrant qui refuse sa poignée de main. «Ah non, touche-moi
pas», prévient-il. Le chef de l'Etat rétorque sans détour :
«Casse-toi, alors.» «Tu me salis», embraye l'homme. Le sourire se
crispe. Sarkozy lâche, desserrant à peine les dents, un raffiné
«Casse-toi alors, pauv'con, va».
- "French Politics: Found on the web", by Art
Goldhammer
- "French supporters defend Sarkozy",
Agence France-Presse, 25 February
2008
- "Sarkozy runs afoul of critics with rank reply", by
Crispian Balmer, 26 February 2008 Reuters
- Le Monde
- Rue 89
- Le Monde
- "L'Etat Doit-Il Financer La Construction de
Mosquees?"
- Worldwide Religious News, 2 September 2004
- News24.com; 28 July 2007; Sarkozy's Africa vision under fire
- Chris McGreal;The Guardian (UK)27 August 2007 Mbeki criticised for praising 'racist' Sarkozy
- Michel Agier, l'Afrique en France après le discours de Dakar,
Vacarme n°42
- Achille
Mbembe; Mail and Guardian (South Africa); 27 August
2007; Sacré bleu! Mbeki and Sarkozy?
- Queen hosts French President Nicolas Sarkozy and
wife Carla
- Real Decreto 21/2004, de 9 de enero, por el que se concede
la Gran Cruz de la Real y Distinguida Orden Española de Carlos III
al señor Nicolas Sarkozy, Ministro del Interior de la República
Francesa.
Further reading
- , interviews with Michel Denisot.
- , Grand livre du mois 1995.
- , subject(s): Pratiques politiques—France—1990–,
France—Politique et gouvernement—1997–2002.
- , series: Les dossiers du "Canard enchaîné" 89.
- Alvarez-Montalvo, Marta (9 July 2004). "¿Quién teme a Nicolas
Sarkozy? El ministro de economía francés se postula como próximo
candidato a las presidenciales de 2007.", in Epoca
([Madrid] : Difusora de Informacion Periodica S.A., DINPESA, 9 July
2004), number 1012, p. 46(2), 3 pages, 829 words, available
online [60987].
- , subject(s): Sarkozy, Nicolas (1955–) — Caricatures et dessins
humoristiques.
- , Grand Livre du mois 2004, subject(s): Chirac, Jacques
(1932–), Sarkozy, Nicolas (1955–), France—Politique et
gouvernement—1995–.
- , subject(s): Laïcité—France—1990–, Islam—France—1990–.
- René Dosière, 'L'argent caché de l'Élysée', Seuil, 2007
External links
Official websites
Press
- Radio France International feature Sarkozy's 90-minute
address to the nation, 6 February 2009
- "Hosing Sarkozy" an article in the TLS by Sudhir
Hazareesingh, 28 November 2007
- Interview after One Month in Office in Le
Figaro, 07.06.2007
- Sarkozy takes over Chirac's UMP party
(BBC)
- Profile: Nicolas Sarkozy (BBC)
- Nicolas Sarkozy: French Choose the American
Way? by David Storobin
- Vive this difference by Suzanne Fields
- France's chance, The Economist, 12 April 2007
- Letter From Europe- Round 1 Jane Kramer,
The New Yorker, 23 April
2007
- On the so-called "rupture" by Sarkozy, Mathieu
Potte-Bonneville & Pierre Zaoui, Vacarme n°41, Winter
2007
- Operation Sarkozy, English version of the famous
article published by the Russian news magazine Profile
June 16, 2008.
- Facebook fan page
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