The Republic of Sarkozy

Un Pouvoir Nommé Dési
(A Power Named Desire)
By Catherine Nay
480 pages: Paris, Grasset & Fasquelle, 2007 (in French)

A week before being enthroned at the Élysée, Nicolas Sarkozy invited Tony Blair for a private dinner in Paris — the first foreign leader he would welcome since his resounding victory on May 6. The outgoing British Labour prime minister had been gracious enough to compliment Sarkozy in French in a video message posted on the Web — a justified snub to the defeated Ségolène Royal and her Socialist comrades, who never acknowledged Blair as a champion of the true, virtuous European Left they are supposed to represent.

Sarkozy’s fascination with Blair is not new: same generation, similar legal training, a common taste for spin, a preference for action rather than procrastination, comfortable with success and money. During his presidential campaign, Sarkozy highlighted the British accomplishments of the past decade: economic growth, jobs, education, and even public services, which surprised a few experts. What he meant to convey was his admiration for a politician who had been able to sideline ideology, transform his party, tame the unions, conduct significant reforms, and be reelected twice.

"Sarkozy, the Blair of the right!" some French commentators exclaimed. The right? They should have listened more carefully to the uncharacteristic victory speech that the president-elect delivered to his party faithful after the election results flashed on television screens. Looking withdrawn, almost somber in the midst of such exuberance, Sarkozy thanked them briefly and asked them to consider that the victory was not theirs but that of all French people, including those who had not voted for him. He then proceeded to list all the evils he aimed to fight — violence against women, denial of human rights around the world, poverty in Africa, hostage-taking in Colombia. The crowd looked slightly disconcerted, even confused, by the quick transformation of a battling, divisive candidate into a well-meaning visionary devoted to changing the country and improving the state of the world. The metamorphosis of Nicolas Sarkozy had begun.

Perhaps no group was more surprised than the biographers and critics who have published sketchy and often openly hostile accounts of Sarkozy’s restless rise to power. In the run-up to the elections, journalist Philippe Cohen and screenwriter Richard Malka created a comic strip called The Hidden Face of Nicolas Sarkozy — a reference to brutal comments he made as interior minister about "cleansing" the suburbs of France’s rebellious youths. The man is depicted as a political serial killer, a cynical felon, a lackey of big business, and a champion of police brutality and ethnic segregation — a caricature so heavy-handed that it obscures otherwise serious criticisms of his leadership. Sarkozy even released a third autobiography; after all, you are no real statesman in France if you haven’t published. In that best-selling work, Testimony, Sarkozy paints himself as the freedom-loving, globally aware heir to France’s conservative conscience.

But among the many books devoted to the sixth president of the Fifth Republic, the best is undoubtedly that of journalist Catherine Nay. Un Pouvoir Nommé Désir (A Power Named Desire) was published just four months before Election Day: perfect timing, great sales, and a useful complement to the candidate’s own books. A witty and effective storyteller and an avid observer of the Paris political scene, Nay is as recognized for her journalistic talents as her conservative inclinations. She started her career at L’Express newsmagazine and was trained by respected journalist Françoise Giroud to charm politicians into spilling their deepest secrets. With this new work, though, Nay has chosen to be seduced herself.

Fascinated by her hero’s drive and destiny, Nay spent two years collecting material, turning Sarkozy’s rather plain, if ruthless, obsession with political power into an epic of modern times. Two key episodes are narrated with almost Napoleonic ardor. First, there’s the “capture” of Neuilly, where, at 28, Sarkozy snatched the mayorship of the richest suburb of Paris from his own mentor, Charles Pasqua, a formidable wheeler-dealer close to the party leader, Jacques Chirac. Nay picks up some 20 years later, when, excluded from the president’s inner circle for having supported his conservative rival, Edouard Balladur, Sarkozy managed his comeback and attained the leadership of the new political movement forged by Chirac and his heir apparent, Alain Juppé. The move would later prove decisive in Sarkozy’s eventual conquest of the Élysée.

Nay doesn’t attempt to predict what a Sarkozy administration may mean for a France struggling to redefine its role in Europe and the world. What she does offer in arguably the most interesting part of the biography are the psychological, if not the psychoanalytic, explanations of Sarkozy’s personality. In doing so, she gives us the groundwork for understanding the new leader of one of Europe’s most important countries.

Her assumptions are based on the wounds of early childhood. Nicolas was four when his mother was abandoned by his father — a handsome, flirtatious Hungarian-born advertising executive who had fled communism. Dadu, his strong-willed mother whom Nay strangely compares to Rose Kennedy, passed the bar exam and worked hard to raise her three sons. Though she managed to buy a small apartment in Neuilly, Nicolas suffered from his family’s lack of social standing and the arrogance of wealthy neighbors. Overcompetitive, short in stature, and quick to anger when he did not get his way, he would carry that sense of humiliation throughout his life.

Nay’s book spares no detail about Sarkozy’s maneuvering, cunning, and plotting from the tender age of 19 to reach, at 52, the pinnacle of La République. Sharing the same ferocious appetite for politics, Nay empathizes with her subject completely. She tells his story in vigorous strokes, recounting the hard work, the energy, the eloquence, the leadership, the moments of doubt, and the self-confidence. "I’ll f*** them all!" was Sarkozy’s favorite way to refer to his political contemporaries. Even though he has now won them over, the sentiment may still apply.

But there is no room, no time, in Nay’s narrative for theories about the French political system, the changes in French society, and the unpopularity of its elites. Sarkozy has never been an admirer or a prisoner of ideology. He is too much of a pragmatist. Hence his Blair-like admiration for the United States and, as he sees it, its boundless energy, its obsession with success, its individualism, its patriotism. In fact, if Sarkozy does subscribe to any ideology, it is an American-style love of country. "France has given me all I have," Sarkozy would say during the campaign. "It is now time for me to give back." Perhaps, like so many Americans, the son of immigrants may feel more connected to his adopted country than most.

But Sarkozy is a new kind of French leader. He was just 13 in May 1968, when students threw stones at the establishment. Sarkozy does not belong to that generation, whose imprint has run so long and deep in French politics and culture. In fact, he defined himself by reacting against it, joining the youth section of the Gaullist Party and demonstrating for the first time against college strikers. He would eventually denounce the spirit of May 1968 as the cause of many French evils, the decline in educational standards and the loss of discipline and family values — conveniently forgetting that he is very much the product of that era, which allowed for greater permissiveness and self-centered ambitions.

No, with his decisive win, Nicolas Sarkozy hopes to chart a new course for France. "Bravo, Nicolas!" his mother soberly said when he officially became president of the French Republic on May 16, 2007. Just as soberly, he kissed her on the cheek. The metamorphosis of Nicolas Sarkozy — and of France — has just begun.