PARIS: Nicolas Sarkozy’s ascent to the French presidency exemplifies the France that he envisions: a land of opportunity for those — even immigrants’ children like himself — who work hard and abide by the rules.
Critics call Sarkozy, 52, a dangerous neo-con. He heaps praise on America, vows to be tough on crime and terrorism, and often sees society in terms of black and white, right and wrong.
Sarkozy, the son of a Hungarian immigrant, got to the presidential Elysee Palace through grit, huge ambition, opportunism and by promising a fresh start for France after 12 lacklustre years under his predecessor and former mentor, Jacques Chirac.
Although Chirac and Sarkozy are both political conservatives, they were often rivals, not allies. For all his guile and experience, even Chirac could not thwart Sarkozy’s rise to the top — even though he is thought to have had other successors in mind.
Sarkozy has made no secret of his lust for power.
“I don’t want to be president, I must be president,” he told biographer Catherine Nay.
Sarkozy has upset many. He fanned anger in poor neighbourhoods where many blacks and Arabs live by calling delinquents there “scum.” The neighbourhoods were swept up by a three-week wave of rioting in late 2005, and he became their Enemy No. 1.
He has refused to apologise. “I certainly have the intention of continuing to call a hoodlum a hoodlum, (and) scum, scum,” he said last month.
For many, this election was a referendum on Sarkozy: many voters backed his challenger, Segolene Royal, in hopes of keeping him out.
As president, his main responsibilities will be defence and foreign policy. But the French head of state holds tremendous influence beyond official duties, and Sarkozy’s main goal is to spark an economic renaissance that will restore France’s belief in itself as a great nation.
On the world stage, his bluntness could clash with France’s reputation for cool-headed diplomacy.
A fervent supporter of Israel and its security, he also supports a Palestinian state. He says his first big overseas trip will be to Africa, a long-time French sphere of influence that has been a growing source of illegal immigrants to Europe.
Sarkozy has repeatedly plucked policy ideas from the United States. As interior minister, he led a “zero tolerance” policy on crime like one by former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani. He favours a form of affirmative action — to hoist marginalised blacks and Arabs into mainstream society.
Although portrayed by critics as a dangerous free marketeer, Sarkozy intervened to protect French companies as Chirac’s finance minister. In the campaign, he assailed the European Central Bank and “rogue bosses” who collect bloated payoffs amid layoffs.
He is a fierce critic of France’s 35-hour work week, a socialist reform of the 1990s, and promises to get around it by encouraging more overtime with tax breaks.
Nicolas Paul Stephane Sarkozy de Nagy-Bocsa grew up in a middle class Paris home, the second of three sons of a French mother and an aristocratic Hungarian émigré father who fled communism after World War II by joining the French Foreign Legion.
Their divorce, when Nicolas was three, was a sore point for him at the Catholic school he attended — and biographers say he shunned his father for three years as a youth. His mother raised the boys with their grandfather, a Jewish-Greek doctor who adored Gen. Charles de Gaulle.
Sarkozy grew up in Paris, and has acknowledged an unhappy childhood. Politics was an early passion.
Sarkozy attended Paris’ prestigious Institute of Political Sciences, and trained as a lawyer. He did not go on to the Ecole Nationale d’Administration, the finishing school for political elites that Chirac and many others in power attended.
His ambition knows few bounds. In 1983, at age 28, he pushed aside his political mentor — who was also best man at his wedding — to become mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine, France’s richest town per capita.
Five years later he was elected to the National Assembly, and became budget minister and government spokesman in the early- to mid-1990s, under then-Prime Minister Edouard Balladur.
He has taken falls. The biggest came when he endorsed Balladur instead of Chirac in the 1995 presidential election. Chirac won, and Sarkozy was cast into the political wilderness.
His opening came when conservatives regained control of parliament in 2002, and Chirac appointed him interior minister. Sarkozy led a crackdown on crime, and his popularity soared.
In 1984, he fell for a 27-year-old brunette with a Jackie Kennedy air named Cecilia Albeniz — while officiating as mayor of Neuilly at her wedding to a TV star, Nay wrote. By the late ’80s, Sarkozy had left his first wife, and he and Cecilia were married in 1996. They have a son together. He has two sons from his first marriage.
Sarkozy doesn’t drink alcohol but has a passion for chocolate and orange juice. He jogs, collects stamps and suffers migraine headaches.
His biggest flaw: he’s “in a hurry,” he recently said.—AP