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"Sarkozy" redirects here. For the surname, see Sárközi (surname).
| Nicolas Sarkozy | |
| |
| | |
|---|---|
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 16 May 2007 | |
| Prime Minister | François Fillon |
| Preceded by | Jacques Chirac |
| | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 16 May 2007 Alongside: Joan Enric Vives Sicília | |
| Prime Minister | Albert Pintat |
| Governor General | Philippe Massoni |
| Preceded by | Jacques Chirac |
| | |
| In office 31 May 2005 – 26 March 2007 | |
| Prime Minister | Dominique de Villepin |
| Preceded by | Dominique de Villepin |
| Succeeded by | François Baroin |
| In office 7 May 2002 – 31 March 2004 | |
| Prime Minister | Jean-Pierre Raffarin |
| Preceded by | Daniel Vaillant |
| Succeeded by | Dominique de Villepin |
| | |
| In office 31 March 2004 – 28 November 2004 | |
| Prime Minister | Jean-Pierre Raffarin |
| Preceded by | Francis Mer |
| Succeeded by | Hervé Gaymard |
| Minister of the Budget | |
| In office 29 March 1993 – 10 May 1995 | |
| Prime Minister | Edouard Balladur |
| Preceded by | Michel Charasse |
| Succeeded by | None |
| Mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine | |
| In office 1983 – 2002 | |
| Preceded by | Achille Peretti |
| Succeeded by | |
| Born | 28 January 1955 Paris, France |
| Political party | RR (?–2002) UMP (2002–) |
| Spouse | Marie-Dominique Culioli (div.) Cécilia Ciganer-Albéniz (div.) Carla Bruni |
| Children | Pierre (by Culioli) Jean (by Culioli) Louis (by Ciganer-Albéniz) |
| Residence | Élysée Palace |
| Alma mater | University of Paris X: Nanterre |
| Occupation | Lawyer |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
| Website | sarkozy.fr |
Nicolas Sarkozy (IPA: [nikɔla saʁkɔˈzi] — pronunciation ), born Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa on January 28, 1955 in the 17th arrondissement of Paris, is the current President of France and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra, elected on 6 May, 2007 after defeating Socialist Party contender Ségolène Royal during the second round of the 2007 election. Before his presidency, he was leader of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) right wing party. Under Jacques Chirac’s presidency, he served as the Minister of the Interior in Jean-Pierre Raffarin (UMP)’s first two governments (from May 2002 to March 2004), then was appointed Minister of Finances in Raffarin’s last government (March 2004 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. Furthermore, he was also Minister of the Budget in Édouard Balladur (RPR, predecessor of the UMP)’s government during François Mitterrand’s last term.
Sarkozy is known for his strong stance on law and order issuesAstier, Henri; What now for Nicolas Sarkozy?, BBC News, 16 May 2007 and his desire to revitalise the French economy.Bennhold, Katrin; Sarkozy pledges quick action on French economy, International Herald Tribune, 7 May 2007. In foreign affairs, he has promised closer cooperation with the United States.Anderson, John Ward and Molly Moore; Sarkozy Wins, Vows to Restore Pride in Franc, Washington Post, 7 May 2007. His nickname “Sarko” is used by both supporters and opponents.
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Nicolas Sarkozy is the son of a Hungarian immigrant father, Pál Sárközy de Nagy-BócsaPál Sárközy de Nagy-Bócsa is not his French name. 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 is Paul 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. (Hungarian: nagybócsai Sárközy Pál; some sources spell it Nagy-Bócsay Sárközy Pál; Hungarian pronunciation ) and a mother of French Catholic and Greek JewishBBC News Profile: Nicolas SarkozyNicola Sarkozy’s Thessaloniki Roots GreekInsight Newspaper December 27, 2007 descent, Andrée Mallah. His Greek-born grandfather, Benico Mallah (former Aaron Mallah), was a physician from Thessaloniki. Benico, who left for France to become a doctor, was the son of Mordechai Mallah, one of the eight sons of Aaron Mallah, founder of the Rabbinical School of Thessaloniki.Nicola Sarkozy’s Thessaloniki Roots GreekInsight Newspaper December 27, 2007Sarkozy’s Jewish roots Australian JewishNews May 8, 2007
Pál Sárközy was born in 1928 in Budapest into a family belonging to the lower nobility of Hungary. The family possessed lands and a small castle in the village of Alattyán, near Szolnok, 92 km (57 miles) east of Budapest. [1] 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 (Hungarian: csáfordi Tóth Katalin), grandmother of Nicolas Sarkozy, was from a Catholic aristocratic family.
As the Red Army entered Hungary in 1944, the Sárközy family fled to Germany.Weekly Standard, France girds for the Sarko-Ségo showdown 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 and meet him in Paris. Pál Sárközy managed to flee 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, in French Algeria, 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 happened to also be 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, Nicolas Sarkozy’s mother (known as DaduThe tough new president still loves his mum, France’s real first lady - The Guardian - Angelique Chrisafis - May 14, 2007), in 1949.
Andrée Mallah, then a law student, was the daughter of Benedict Mallah, a wealthy urologist and STD specialist with a well-established reputation in the mainly bourgeois 17th arrondissement of Paris. Benedict Mallah, originally called Aaron Mallah and nicknamed Benico, was born in 1890 in the Sephardic Jewish community of Salonica (Thessaloniki), Ottoman Empire. Resettled in Provence, southern France, the family had moved to Salonica a century later. Benico Mallah, the son of a jeweller, left Salonica, then 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 in Paris and had three sons: Guillaume, born in 1951, who is an entrepreneur in the textile industry, Nicolas, born in 1955 and François, born in 1957 (an MBA and manager of a healthcare consultancy company [2]). In 1959 Paul Sarkozy left his wife and his three children. He later remarried twice and had two more children with his second wife.
Olivier Sarkozy, his half-brother, was chosen by Carlyle, in March 2008, as co-head and managing director of its recently launched global financial services division Nick Clarck, Carlyle poaches Olivier Sarkozy, The Independent, 4 March 2008 (English).
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 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 in the Catholic faith of his household. Nicolas Sarkozy, like his brothers, is a baptised and professing Catholic. Sarkozy also said recently that one of his role models was the late pope John Paul II.
Sarkozy’s father Paul did not teach him or his brothers Hungarian. There is no evidence suggesting that there was an attempt to educate the Sarkozy siblings about their paternal ethnic background.
Sarkozy has said that having been abandoned by his father shaped much of who he is today. As a young boy and teenager, he felt inferior in relation to his wealthy classmates.see Catherine Nay’s semi-official biography He suffered from insecurities (his physical shortness of 1.65 m, 5 feet 5 inches, or his family’s lack of money, at least relatively to their 17th Arrondissement or Neuilly neighbours), and is said to have harboured a considerable amount of resentment against his absent father. “What made me who I am now is the sum of all the humiliations suffered during childhood”, he said later.see Catherine Nay’s semi-official biography
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 pupil,Un pouvoir nommé désir, Catherine Nay, 2007 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 organisation where he was very active. 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. Augustin Scalbert, Un soupçon de vantardise sur les CV ministériels, Rue 89, 18 September 2007 (French) After passing the bar, he became a lawyer specializing in business law and family law.See Catherine Nay’s semi-official biography
Sakozy wed 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) and Jean (born in 1987). Sarkozy’s marriage witness 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.
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 of a Russian father), when he officiated at her weddingCécilia Sarkozy: The First Lady vanishes. The Independent (United Kingdom) (2007-06-24). 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[citation needed]. 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.BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Sarkozy soap opera grips Paris 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.[citation needed] Events company Publicis had organised a large UMP meeting in 2004, nominating Sarkozy as party-head There were other accusations of a private nature in Le Matin, which lead to Sarkozy suing the paper.[citation needed] In the meantime, he was said to have had an affair with a journalist of Le Figaro, Anne Fulda. The Sarkozy saga. The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved on 2007-08-12.
Sarkozy and Cécilia ultimately divorced in October 15, 2007AFX News Limited (2007-10-18). French president Sarkozy separation is \'divorce\' - official UPDATE. Forbes magazine.
The French weekly magazine L\'Express published photos of Sarkozy in Disneyland Paris with singer and ex-model Carla Bruni in December of 2007,Elaine Sciolino (2007-12-18). Disneyland Date Has Sarkozy in the Limelight. New York Times. sparking international attention. The couple were later spotted spending Christmas holidays together in Egypt. Paparazzi throng for Sarkozy trip. BBC (2007-12-25). Two months later, the mayor of the 8th district of Paris announced that he had officiated over their marriage.Associated Press, French President Marries Former Model, ABC News, 2008-02-02.
Sarkozy declared to the Constitutional Council a net worth of €2 million, most of the assets being in the form of life insurance policies. “Le patrimoine de Nicolas Sarkozy s\'élève à 2 millions d\'euros”, Libération, 11 May 2007 (read here (French) As the French President, he earns a yearly salary of € 101,000 and is entitled to a mayoral pension because he was mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine until 2002. He also receives a yearly council pension, because he has been previously a member of the council of the Hauts-de-Seine department. Sarkozy’s salary will more than double to € 240,000 as a result of an amendment to the 2008 budget. Sarkozy’s salary will double to match peers
Sarkozy is generally recognised by the right and left as a highly skilled politician and striking orator. “French Populism”, by Ignacio Ramonet, Le Monde Diplomatique, June 2007 Edition, French version (French), English translation (English) His supporters within France emphasise his charisma, political innovation and willingness to “make a dramatic break” amidst mounting disaffection against “politics as usual"; some see him as wanting to depart from traditional French social and economic principles in favour of American-style economic reform. Overall, he is generally considered to be somewhat 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 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 man 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 guise 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.
Sarkozy’s political career began at the age of 22, when he became a city councillor in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a wealthy and exclusive western suburb of Paris (in the Hauts-de-Seine département). 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 in the time, Charles Pasqua, wanted to become mayor, and asked Sarkozy to organise his campaign. Instead Sarkozy profited from a short illness of Pasqua to propel himself into the office of mayor.Le Parisien, 11 January 2007 He was the youngest ever 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.Craig S. Smith. "Sarkozy Wins the Chance to Prove His Critics Wrong", The New York Times, 2007-05-07. Retrieved on 2008-01-08. 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 ($260 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 6% of GDP.http://fr.wikipedia.orgDette_publique_de_la_France According to the Maastricht Treaty, the French yearly budget deficit may not be bigger than 3% of France’s GDP.
In 1995, he spurned Chirac and backed 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 came back after the right-wing defeat at the 1997 parliamentary election, as number 2 in 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, November 28, 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.Sauced Sarkozy Felice E. Baker, The Dartmouth Independent, October 31, 2007 Following Jacques 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. It became increasingly apparent that Sarkozy would go on to seek 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”.Broadcast of “France 2", 19 November 2003
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 Legion 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,French Constitution, article 23 he had had to resign as a deputy when he had become 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.
Nicolas Sarkozy, here with then prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, meeting with bicycle-mounted officers of the French National Police, May 13, 2002.
Towards the end of his first term as Minister of the Interior, in 2004, Sarkozy was the most popular and also the most unpopular conservative politician in France, according to polls conducted at the beginning of 2004. His “tough on crime” policies, which included increasing the police presence on the streets and introducing monthly crime performance ratings, were popular with many and unpopular for many others.[citation needed]
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 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 the Muslim Faith”), an organisation meant to be representative of French Muslims.JO associations, 28 May 2003 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 fundsWorldWide Religious News so that they are less reliant on money from outside of France.
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.
Sarkozy as Minister of the Interior with American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, after their bilateral meeting in Washington D.C., September 12, 2006
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. 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. Azouz Begag, principal opposant à Nicolas Sarkozy, Le Monde, 2 November 2005 (French)
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.
Before he was elected French President, Sarkozy was president of UMP, the French conservative party, elected with 85% 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 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 8 September 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.Interview with Le Monde, 8 September 2005 Among other issues:
Such policies are what are called in France libéral (that is, in favour of laissez-faire economic policies, although this judgment is made by French standards) or, with a pejorative undertone, ultra-libéral. Sarkozy rejects this label of libéral and prefers to call himself a pragmatist instead. Besides his dirigisme on economical subjects is far from laissez-faire politics.
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.
Nicolas Sarkozy meeting his supporters in Toulouse for the 2007 French presidential election.
On 14 January 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy was chosen by the UMP to be its candidate in the 2007 presidential election. Sarkozy, who was running unopposed, won 98% of the votes. Of the 327,000 UMP members who could vote, 69% participated in the online ballot.“Sarkozy nod for presidential run”, BBC News, 14 January 2007. Retrieved 14 January 2007.
In February 2007 Sarkozy appeared on a televised debate on TF1 where he expressed his support for affirmative action for minorities 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.It was included in the paquet fiscal that has been one of the first laws passed in Parliament
On 7 February, Nicolas 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.Sarkozy pour un deuxième porte-avions français (AFP)
On 21 March, President Jacques Chirac announced his support for Sarkozy, adding that he had his vote. 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.France’s Jacques Chirac Backs Nicolas Sarkozy. 21 March 2007.
During the campaign, rival candidates had accused Sarkozy of being a “candidate for brutality” and of presenting overly hardline views about France’s future.French confused over the real Sarkozy. April 18, 2007 He was also criticised by opponents for allegedly 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. Nicolas Sarkozy came in first with 31.18% of the votes, ahead of Ségolène Royal of the Socialists with 25.87%. In the second round, Sarkozy came out on top to win the election with 53.06% of the votes ahead of Ségolène Royal with 46.94%. 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.”
On 16 May 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy became the sixth person elected President of the French Fifth Republic (the seventh overall; Alain Poher served twice in an interim role as President of the French Senate), and the 23rd president over all five Republican governments in the history of France. 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 and presented with the Grand Master’s Collar, symbol of his new function of Grand Master of the Legion of Honour. At that point, he formally became president. Leyenda, by Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz was played in honour of the president’s wife, who is Albeniz’s great-granddaughter. Both Sarkozy’s mother Andrée, who sat on a regal chair, and his formerly estranged father Pal – with whom Sarkozy had reached a reconciliation – attended the ceremony, as did Sarkozy’s children.Radiant Cécilia puts Sarkozy in the shade The presidential motorcade, with the President on board the presidential Peugeot 607 Paladine,Peugeot 607 Paladine, Outrefranc, retrieved on May 17, 2007 then travelled from the Élysée to the Champs-Élysées for a public ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe. Then the new president went to the Cascade du Bois de Boulogne of Paris for a homage to the French Resistance and to the Communist resistant Guy Môquet – he proposed that all high-school students read Guy Moquet’s last letter to his parents, which was criticised by a number of leftists as a cynical form of reappropriation of French history by the right. La lettre de Guy Môquet à la veille de sa mise à mort, Le Figaro, 16 May 2007 (French) Guy Môquet en toutes lettres, Libération, 6 June 2007 (French)Guy Môquet – the Courageous Struggle, L\'Humanité, 18 May 2007 (translated 1 June 2007) (English)Nicolas Sarkozy has been busy manipulating the history of France, L\'Humanité (translated 8 May 2007) (English)
In the afternoon, the new President flew to Berlin to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin was replaced by François Fillon.Communiqué de la Présidence de la République concernant la nomination du Premier ministre. Élysée Palace, May 17, 2007 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).France’s New Government - A study in perpetual motion, The Economist, June 23, 2007 (English) 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, President 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.Llama G8 a FARC contribuir a liberación de rehenes, La Cronica, June 8, 2007 (Spanish) Furthermore, he announced on 24 July, 2007, that French and European representatives had obtained the extradition of the Bulgarian nurses detained in Lybia 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. Molly Moore, France’s Sarkozy Off to a Running Start, Washington Post, August 4, 2007 (English) 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”. Tripoli annonce un contrat d\'armement avec la France, l\'Elysée dans l\'embarras, Le Monde, 2 August 2007 (French) 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% by 2050 in order to prevent global warming. He then pushed forward the important Socialist figure of Dominique Strauss-Kahn as European nominee to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). FMI: Strauss-Kahn candidat officiel de l’Union européenne, Le Figaro, 10 July 2007 (French) 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. Reuters, “France’s Sarkozy wants Strauss-Kahn as IMF head” Sat July 7, 2007 2:38PM EDT read here (English)
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. Les députés votent la quasi-suppression des droits de succession, Le Figaro, 13 July 2007 (French) Les droits de succession (presque) supprimés, Libération, 13 July 2007 (French) The inheritance tax formerly brought eight billion euros into state coffers. Droits de succession : pour une minorité de ménages aisés, L\'Humanité, 7 June 2007 (French)
After winning the election, Sarkozy’s UMP majority has 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. Furthermore, 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 Molly Moore, France’s Sarkozy Off to a Running Start, Washington Post, August 4, 2007 (English)
Sarkozy then went on vacation to the United States, taking his family to Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. He stayed in the 11-bathroom shorefront mansion of former Microsoft executive Michael Appe. He was brought there by a commercial jet, however, after the death of Cardinal Lustiger, archbishop of Paris, whose funeral he was to attend, Nicolas Sarkozy assistera aux obsèques du cardinal Lustiger, L\'Express, 9 August 2007 (French) one of his presidential planes flew him on 10 August to Paris and then back to America. On 21 August he returned to France by a commercial jet.
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 CNIL protested against this new decree, opposing itself to the recording of fingerprints and to the interconnection between the SIS and the FPR. Généralisation du fichage biométrique volontaire des voyageurs dans les aéroports français, Le Monde, 8 August 2007 (French)
He was named the 68th best dressed person by the Vanity Fair magazine, alongside David Beckham and Brad Pitt. French President Is Best Dressed Pol, CBS, August 9, 2007 (English) Beside publicizing, at times, and at others, refusing to publicise his ex-wife’s image, Frédéric Pagès, “Cécilia, dame d\'enfer” in Le Canard enchaîné, 22 August 2007 (French) Sarkozy takes care of his own personal image, sometimes to the point of censoring (such as in the Paris Match affair, when he allegedly forced its director to resign following an article on Cécilia and her affair with Publicis executive Richard Attias, or pressures exercised on the Journal du dimanche, which was preparing to publish an article concerning Cécilia’s decision not to vote in the second round of the 2007 presidential election. Cécilia Sarkozy n\'a pas voté... scoop censuré du JDD, Rue 89, 13 May 2007 (French) In its August 9, 2007 edition, Paris Match retouched a photo of Sarkozy in order to erase a love handle. Sarkozy: les poignées de l\'amour, L\'Express, 22 August 2007 (French) Un bourrelet relance le débat sur la retouche d\'images, Rue 89, 23 August 2007 (French) Topless Sarkozy’s love handles airbrushed away, Foreign Policy blog, 22 August 2007 (English) His official portrait destined for all French townhalls was done by SIPA photographer Philippe Warrin, better known for his paparazzi work. Chloé Leprince, Pour le nouveau Président, la rupture commence par l\'image, Rue 89, 21 August 2007 (French)
Former Daily Telegraph journalist Colin Randall has however highlighted Sarkozy’s tighter control of his image and frequents interventions in the media: “he censors a book, or fires the chief editor of an hebdomary."
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."Production Diary (8)", MI6.co.uk, 2008-01-30. Retrieved on 2008-01-30.
