Profile of Nicolas Sarkozy on Famous Like Me

Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa (born January 28, 1955, in Paris, 17th arrondissement), simply known as Nicolas Sarkozy (French pronunciation [▶]), is a notable French politician. He often is nicknamed Sarko by both his supporters and his opponents; this nickname is never used in any official context but is often used in newspapers such as Le Canard Enchaîné or Libération.

While his supporters emphasise his charisma, strong leadership qualities, and his many innovative initiatives, Sarkozy's opponents see him as populist, careerist, and "repression-happy" for his law-and-order policies; in addition, his departures from traditional French values in favour of American-style economic reforms have been opposed by those who dislike laissez-faire economics. He is known for his ubiquity, is active in a wide range of political fields, and often appears on TV talk and news shows. Many of his speeches and interviews are famous for their frankness, wit, and folksy, plain-spoken character; opponents, however, contend that he uses demeaning language.

As of May 2005, he is president of the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP), a conservative political party, and he is French Minister of the Interior in the government of Dominique de Villepin, with the high honorific title of Minister of State. His ministerial responsibilities include law enforcement and working to co-ordinate relationships between the national and local governments.

Previously, he was a deputy to the French National Assembly. He was forced to resign this position in favour of his ministerial appointment. He previously also held several ministerial posts, including Finance Minister and Minister of the Interior.

Sarkozy is a probable contender for the next presidential election. His collaborators do not all agree that his return to the government in June 2005 will help him in this, although it is widely recognised that his position, influence and popularity currently make him the third man at the country's head (after Jacques Chirac and Dominique de Villepin).

Personal life

Background

Nicolas Sarkozy is the son of Pál nagybócsai Sárközy (some sources spell it Pál Nagy-Bócsay Sárközy) (Hungarian pronunciation [▶]), who was born in 1928 in Budapest, Hungary, into a family belonging to the lower aristocracy of Hungary. The family possessed land and a small castle in Alattyán (in the Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok region, 92 km or 57 miles east of Budapest.

As the Russians entered Hungary in 1944, the family fled the country. Pál nagybócsai Sárközy crossed Austria and Germany with great difficulty because of the chaos in which Central Europe was embroiled at the end of the Second World War. Eventually, he arrived in Baden Baden, near the French border, where the headquarters of the French Army in Germany was located, and there he met a recruiter for the French Foreign Legion. He signed up for a five-year enlistment, and was sent for training to Sidi Bel Abbes in French Algeria, the Algerian headquarters of the French Foreign Legion. However, at the end of training, a sympathetic doctor gave him a medical discharge in order to save him from being sent to French Indochina, where death at the hands of the Vietminh was a distinct possibility (the Foreign Legion suffered the heaviest casualties during the First Indochina War). Upon returning to civil life in Marseille, France, in 1948, he acquired French citizenship and his name was officially gallicised to Paul Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa.

Paul Sarkozy moved to Paris where he entered the advertising industry, using his artistic skills. He met Andrée Mallah, Nicolas Sarkozy's mother, in 1949. Andrée Mallah, then a law student, was the daughter of Benedict Mallah, a wealthy physician with a well-established reputation and practice in the very bourgeois 17th Arrondissement of Paris. Benedict Mallah was originally a Sephardic Jew from Salonica in the Ottoman Empire (now a part of Greece). According to Jewish genealogical societies, the Mallah family of Salonica came from Provence in southern France, which they probably had left at the time of the Jewish expulsions in the Middle Ages. At the beginning of the 20th century, Benedict Mallah migrated to France, acquired French citizenship, and converted to Catholicism when he married his French Catholic wife, Nicolas Sarkozy's grandmother.

Paul Sarkozy and Andrée Mallah Sarkozy settled in the 17th Arrondissement and had three sons: Guillaume Sarkozy, born in 1951, who is an entrepreneur in the textile industry; Nicolas, born in 1955; and François, born in 1957 (now a researcher in biology). Guillaume Sarkozy is also a well-known personality in France, being the leader of the union of textile entrepreneurs and the vice-president of the MEDEF, the French union of employers. Allegedly, Guillaume Sarkozy was prevented from running for the presidency of the MEDEF due to the political career of his brother Nicolas.

In 1959, Paul Sarkozy, who had developed a reputation as a Don Juan, left his wife and his three children. He later married twice more, fathering two additional children with his second wife. Abandoned with three young children, Sarkozy's mother resumed her legal studies. She graduated from law school, passed the bar exam in the western suburbs of Paris, and went on to become a successful lawyer. She pleaded in some of the famous cases of the 1970s, such as the Villarceaux case, a major political corruption scandal.

Early Life

During Sarkozy's childhood, his father refused to give his former 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 the grandfather Benedict Mallah in the 17th Arrondissement. The family later moved to Neuilly-sur-Seine, a wealthy commune immediately west of the 17th Arrondissement just outside of Paris, France. According to Sarkozy, his staunchly Gaullist grandfather was more of an influence on him than his father, whom he rarely saw. However, his grandfather is said never to have passed on his own Jewish roots to his grandchildren. He had turned a page when he had moved to France, and he wanted his daughter and grandchildren to be raised as French and to be fully assimilated into the mainstream of French society.

Nicolas Sarkozy, like his brothers, is a baptised and professing Catholic. Like his grandfather Benedict Mallah, the elder Paul Sarkozy never taught his children Hungarian, or made any effort to teach them about his ethnic background. Sarkozy says that his father wanted the children to be fully assimilated into French society, considering Hungary too small a country, and the Hungarian language and culture useless in the modern world. Thus, despite its heterogeneous ethnic origins (50% Hungarian, 25% French, 25% Ottoman Jewish), the Sarkozy family can culturally be described as a mainstream bourgeois Catholic family of western Paris, albeit one without a father.

Sarkozy has said that his father's abandonment shaped much of what he is today. As a young boy and teenager, he felt inferior in relation to his wealthy classmates. He did not feel fully French at the time (his father is said to have told him once that a Sarkozy never could become President of France, that such things happened only in the United States), suffered from insecurities (his physical shortness, his family's lack of money), and harboured a considerable amount of resentment against his absent father. Sarkozy said later, "What made me who I am now is the sum of all the humiliations suffered during childhood." Friends and opponents alike say that his seemingly endless energy and unconcealed ambitions are driven by his desire to compensate for what he felt was his second-class status during his youth.

Studies

Nicolas Sarkozy was enrolled in the Cours Saint-Louis de Monceau, a private Catholic middle and high school in the 17th Arrondissement of Paris, where reportedly he was a mediocre pupil. Later he obtained a bachelor's degree in law from the Université Paris X Nanterre and a master's degree in political science at the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris (more commonly known as Sciences Po). After passing the bar exam, he became a lawyer specialising in French business law.

Marriages

On September 23, 1982, he married Corsican-born Marie-Dominique Culioli, daughter of a pharmacist from Vico (a village north of Ajaccio, Corsica). They have two sons, Pierre (born in 1985) and Jean (born in 1987). Sarkozy's marriage witness was Charles Pasqua.

In 1984 as mayor of Neuilly, he wed Cécilia Ciganer-Albeniz to TV host Jacques Martin. In 1989, Cécilia Ciganer-Albeniz left Jacques Martin for Nicolas Sarkozy. After a difficult divorce, Sarkozy married her in 1996. They have a son, Louis. Between 2002 and 2005, the couple often appeared together on public occasions, with Cécilia acting as a sort of chief aide for her husband. This was fairly unusual: in general, French politicians seek to separate their public lives from their personal and family lives.

However, on May 25, 2005, the Swiss newspaper Le Matin revealed that Cécilia had left her husband for Richard Attias, head of the Publicis Events company (who had organised the UMP meeting in 2004). It was then reported that she had taken this decision after obtaining proof that Nicolas Sarkozy had cheated on her, reportedly meeting mistresses while pretending to be jogging in a Parisian park while he was Minister of the Interior, and in other situations . This led Sarkozy to sue Le Matin .

Such revelations are unusual in France, where generally the press does not inquire into the private lives of politicians, unless it influences their public actions; but in this case, some commentators justified the move because the Sarkozy couple themselves had put their relationship in the spotlight. The events seemed to have taken Nicolas Sarkozy aback for a while, and he appeared to be suffering under the stress.

According to several French and Swiss newspapers, Nicolas Sarkozy is now in the process of divorcing from Cecilia and is in a relationship with Anne Fulda, a journalist from Le Figaro.

Political career

Nicolas Sarkozy's political career began at the early age of 22 when he became a city councillor in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a very wealthy and exclusive western suburb of Paris (in the Hauts-de-Seine département). He went on to be elected mayor of that town, serving from 1983 to 2002. In 1988 he became a deputy in the National Assembly.

In 1993, Sarkozy was in the national news for personally dealing with "Human Bomb", a man who had taken small children hostage in a kindergarten in Neuilly. "Human Bomb" was finally killed that day by policemen of the RAID, who entered the school stealthily while the attacker was resting.

From 1993 to 1995, he was Minister of 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. However, in 1995 he spurned Chirac and backed Édouard Balladur for President of France. After Chirac won the election, Sarkozy lost his position as Minister of the Budget and found himself outside the circles of power. It is widely believed that ever since 1995 Chirac has considered Sarkozy's having sided with Balladur as a form of treason, and that the two men now loathe one another.

In 2002, however, after his re-election as President of the French Republic (see French presidential election, 2002), Jacques Chirac appointed Sarkozy as French Minister of the Interior in the cabinet of Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, despite the widely acknowledged mistrust between the two.

Following the cabinet reshuffle of March 31, 2004, Sarkozy was moved to the position of 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. It became increasingly apparent that Sarkozy would go on to seek the presidency in 2007; in an often-repeated comment made on the programme 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" .

In November 2004 after party elections, Sarkozy became leader of the UMP with 85% of the vote. In accordance with an agreement with Chirac, he resigned his position as 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 re-elected on March 13, 2005, to the National Assembly (as required by the French Constitution, he had had to resign as a deputy when he had become minister in 2002).

On May 31, 2005, the main French news radio station France Info reported that Sarkozy was rumoured to be reappointed Minister of the Interior in the government of Dominique de Villepin without resigning from UMP leadership. This was confirmed on June 2, 2005, when the members of the government were officially announced.

Recent politics

Raffarin government

Minister of the Interior

Towards the end of his first spell as Minister of the Interior, in 2004, Nicolas Sarkozy was the most popular conservative politician in France, according to polls conducted at the beginning of 2004. However, his actions as a minister have made him a controversial figure. He became Minister of the Interior at a time when France was facing significant social and public order problems, including a spate of anti-Semitic violence by Islamic youths (the seriousness of such violence is itself disputed, with many alleging that the media, especially TF1, exaggerated the issue). His "tough on crime" policies, which included increasing the police presence on the streets and introducing monthly crime performance ratings, were popular with many. However, he was criticised for putting forward legislation that some felt infringed on civil rights, and adversely affected disadvantaged sections of the population, such as the homeless, prostitutes, and young people from housing estates. Another criticism was that Sarkozy's actions were more show than real substance, and that they simply relocated delinquency from some wealthy areas to some less-fashionable ones.

Nicolas Sarkozy has sought to ease the sometimes-tense relationships that the general French population has with the Muslim community. Because Islam, contrary to Roman Catholicism, does not have an official church, and unlike Protestantism did not have an umbrella organisation to speak for it before the French government, Sarkozy felt that the foundation of such an organisation was desirable. He supported the foundation in May 2003 of the private non-profit Conseil français du culte musulman ("French council of Muslim worship"), 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. Supporters of this measure contend that it is better that they should be funded by French money than to be under the influence of foreign donors and foreign governments, such as that of Saudi Arabia, which are suspected of pushing radical clerics.

Minister of Finances

During his appointment as Minister of Finance, Sarkozy introduced a number of policies mixing libéralisme (a hands-off approach to running the economy) with some intervention. In September 2004, he oversaw the reduction of the government ownership share in France Télécom from 50.4% to 41% (see []). He also reached an agreement with the major retail chains in France to lower prices by an average of 2%; the success of this measure is disputed, with studies suggesting that the decrease was closer to 1% . Sarkozy avoided taking a position on the ISF ("solidarity tax on fortune"), which is considered an ideological symbol by many on the Left and Right. Some in the business world and on the Right, such as Alain Madelin, want it to be abolished, but such an action by Sarkozy would risk being categorised by the Left as a gift to the richest classes of society at a time of economic difficulties .

Action as UMP's president

Sarkozy currently is the president of UMP, the French conservative party, elected with 85% of the votes. During his presidency, the number of members has significantly increased. In 2005, he supported the Yes in the French referendum on the European Constitution.

Throughout 2005, Nicolas Sarkozy became increasingly vocal in calling for radical changes in France's economic and social policies. These calls culminated in an interview with Le Monde on September 8, 2005, during which he claimed that the French had been misled for 30 years by false promises, and denounced what he considers to be unrealistic policies . 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% of revenue;
• he approved measures reducing or denying social support to unemployed workers who refuse work offered to them;
• he has 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. Le Libéralisme is a controversial topic in France, with most on the left and some on the right rejecting it, while some others (on the right) embrace it wholeheartedly. As with other words ending in -isme, it also suffers from the current French scepticism for ideologies — "ideological" now often having the pejorative meaning of "blind application of a theory without much regard for reality". This is probably why Nicolas Sarkozy rejects this label of libéral and calls himself a pragmatist — that is, a person who takes a practical approach and chooses the appropriate solution, even though it does not fit some pre-established political theory.

Sarkozy opened another avenue of controversy by declaring that he desired 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, claiming that it enables foreign students to take open-ended curricula in order to get residency in France; instead, he wants to select the best students to the best curricula in France.

Criticisms

Sarkozy's political career has been the subject of significant controversy. Generally speaking, he is the bête noire of the left (see below), and is also criticised by many on the right, most vocally by the supporters of Jacques Chirac and Dominique de Villepin, such as Jean-Louis Debré.

He tries to portray himself as an energetic man, intent on solving France's problems, often accusing (directly or indirectly) other politicians of not really working for the French. This posturing is criticised by many, especially among the Left, which, generally speaking, accuses him of being an authoritarian demagogue, with more talk than substance, ready to trade away civil liberties for political gains. Some of these accusations are echoed by civil rights organisations.

His political style, which relies heavily on communication (some say media manipulation), is highly criticised, as are the controversial statistical figures he uses. Some of his declarations with respect to crime and law enforcement have been criticised as demeaning for the people that Sarkozy was supposed to help. As an example, responding to crime in the poor banlieue of La Courneuve, he vowed to clean the area out "with a Kärcher" (a well-known brand of cleaning apparatus using high-pressure water).

As a Minister of the Interior, Sarkozy systematically has made bold statements following heinous crimes reported in the media. As a consequence, he has been accused in certain cases of failing to respect the separation of powers between the executive and the judiciary, by trying to apply pressure in certain cases. In September 2005, some youths were acquitted of the arson of a police station in Pau, for lack of proof, and Sarkozy was accused of having pushed for a hasty enquiry — Sarkozy had vowed that the perpetrators would be arrested within 3 months . On June 22, 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, enabling him to commit a murder . These comments were criticised by both moderate and left-wing magistrates, especially since Sarkozy, Minister of the Interior and a former attorney, must have been aware that this decision had been taken by 3 judges.

Sarkozy has personal friendships with some of the highest figures in the French business world; for example, Martin Bouygues (from the Bouygues group, owner of the TF1 channel, as well as telecommunications and public works companies) and Bernard Arnault (from LVMH) were his marriage witnesses. His brother Guillaume is a senior executive of the MEDEF, the foremost business union in France; in 2005, he renounced running for the top position of that union, supposedly in order not to hinder his brother's political career.

Sarkozy was an elected official in one of the most wealthy and exclusive suburbs of Paris; as a minister, he pushed for tax breaks that critics contend benefit the wealthiest at the expense of the poor. As a consequence, critics contend that, despite his claims to care about the "common people" of France, he is too much under the influence of the most privileged sections of society.

His political connections in the Hauts-de-Seine also are controversial. Sarkozy is close to Patrick Balkany, another right-wing politician, who was convicted of misuse of public funds, and also accused of misusing firearms. His mentor (and witness to his first wedding) was Charles Pasqua, who has been accused in a variety of corruption scandals.

Sarkozy, a Roman Catholic, has caused controversy because of his views on the relationship between religion and state. 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, including the government subsidy of mosques in order to encourage Islamic integration into to French society . There has also been controversy over his attitude to the Church of Scientology — which has itself been the subject of significant controversy in France — after meeting with Tom Cruise .

Sarkozy calls for ambitious reforms of the tax system. Left-wing opponents contend that those reforms are little more than tax cuts for the wealthiest, while the burden on common people will not be eased.

Ambition for the future

As of 2005, many think that Sarkozy is the French Right's best hope for the French presidential election, 2007. Polls often credit him with being France's most popular politician. His precise electoral platform is unknown at this point, but Sarkozy's various 2005 declarations give a confident idea of its probable general lines. It is conjectured that he will run on a platform of lower taxes and flexible labour markets; this has been presented in some of the foreign press as representing a move towards the social and economic model of the United States of America . Because of this, and because of his perceived willingness to seek closer links with the United States, Sarkozy has been treated favourably by the US press.

On the other hand, Sarkozy's presidential ambition does not sit well with president Jacques Chirac, who sees him as a threat. While it is unknown at this point whether Chirac would seek a third term as president (a move which, though legal, most consider unlikely), it is possible that more "loyalist" candidates, such as Dominique de Villepin, would oppose Sarkozy. In any case, Sarkozy's actions are already carefully monitored by his opponents .

Another barrier to Sarkozy's ambitions is the left-wing opposition. They are likely (and have started) to portray him as a political showman "cozy with big business". They also state that Sarkozy has given tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations, and that he preys upon the security fears of citizens and uses the police forces for publicity purposes. Perhaps the best help that Sarkozy can receive in that respect is the disarray and conflicting ambitions that plague the French Socialist Party, which has been in open crisis since the defeat of the proposed European Constitution in a referendum.

Timeline of career

• 1977, becomes councillor in the town of Neuilly-sur-Seine
• 1977, member of the central committee for the RPR.
• 1978–1979, national youth delegate for the RPR.
• 1979–1981, president of the national youth delegates under Jacques Chirac for the presidential election of 1981.
• 1988, national secretary of the RPR, in charge of youth and teaching issues.
• Co-director of the list "Union pour les Élections européennes".
• 1992–1993, secrétaire général-adjoint du RPR, chargé des Fédérations. (Assistant secretary of the RPR in charge of the militants organisations)
• Since 1993, member of the RPR political office.
• 1993 – 1995, Minister for the Budget in the cabinet of Edouard Balladur
• 1995–1997 spokesman for the RPR.
• 1998–1999, Secretary General of the RPR.
• 1999, interim president of the RPR.
• 1999, head of the RPR-DL electoral list of the European elections in June
• May 2000, elected President of the committee of the RPR for the department of Hauts-de-Seine
• 2002 – March 2004, Minister of the Interior in the cabinet of Jean-Pierre Raffarin
• March 2004 – November 2004, Minister of the Economy, Finance and Industry in the cabinet of Jean-Pierre Raffarin
• Nov 2004, elected the new head of President Jacques Chirac's governing UMP party.
• June 2005, Minister of State and Minister of the Interior in the cabinet of Dominique de Villepin

Quotations

• Merit and labour are values that should be rewarded more and more. We must applaud and be thankful to (the part of) France that gets up early.
• To be a young Gaullist is to be a revolutionary! (National meeting of UDR in Nice, June 1975)
• I'm the son of a Hungarian immigrant expelled by Communism. My father fled Hungary, hidden under a train, in 1949. (Libération, 1991)
• The Chiraquian EEG is flat. This is no longer [Paris] City Hall, this is the antechamber of the morgue. Chirac is dead, only the 3 last shovelfuls are needed. (before the 1995 presidential elections)
• We live in a world where people don't all have the same scruples, where all blows can be given, and where, in order to down somebody, all means can be used. Nothing will lead me astray from the path that I have chosen. (Le Monde, 2005)
• How can one be fascinated by those fights of obese guys with brylcreemed buns? Sumo, this is not an intellectual's sport! (Hong Kong, January 9, 2004; Jacques Chirac has a taste for watching sumo)
• June 2005: following these two declarations, Nicolas Sarkozy was reprimanded during the Council of Ministers by president Chirac and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin
  • We shall clean the Cité des 4000' [in La Courneuve] with a Kärcher
  • The judge who freed Mrs. Cremel's murderer will pay for his mistake.
• Success and social promotion are not some right that anybody can claim after queuing at some [government office]. It is better: it is a right, a right that one can merit because of one's sweat. (Summer meeting of the Young Populars in La Baule, September 4, 2005)
• All these squatted habitations, all these buildings must be closed in order to prevent those tragic events, and this is what I asked the Prefect of Police because these people are poor human beings who are housed in inacceptable conditions. After accepting people to whom, sadly, we cannot propose work or housing, we end up in a situation that results in tragedies like these. (France Inter, August 30, 2005, after several cases where poor black immigrant families from Africa had died when the derelict buildings in which they lived burnt down)
• The worst risk is not to take one.

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