Sarkozy’s way

When in June last year Nicholas Sarkozy became the youngest president France ever had, he promised one thing above all: change, change and more change. He insisted that the country was stuck and depressed, that its energy had to be revived and unleashed. Eight months later, his supporters as well as his critics can’t but agree that indeed, change has taken place. Whether in style or in content, the ‘hyperpresident’, as some call him, has redefined the French presidency, while working at reshaping the country and its relationship with the rest of the world.

It started on the day of his victory, with a flamboyant dinner at one of Paris’s posh restaurants and an escapade to the Mediterranean in a billionaire friend’s private jet — and it never stopped since then. After decades of a presidency characterised by a distant and cautious, if not closed and secretive, style, Sarkozy has opened the presidential Elysée palace and infused an almost manic pace to the conduct of affairs. His energy and drive seem never-ending and his get-up-early, think-fast personality has lent a completely different feel to the presidency.

He jogs every day in the Elysée gardens, he often wears relaxed clothes, he does not hide his taste for luxury and rich friends and addresses almost everyone in the more casual form of the French language. Omnipresent in the media, he is — in his own words — the most talked about president ever. And of course, his way of making his private life so public has been one of the most visible changes of the presidency. He is the first divorcé ever to be elected and barely three months after his second divorce, Sarkozy was presenting his third wife. Some see it as reinventing the presidency in the era of star-systems, the Internet and soap operas. Other presidents also led unconventional lives, most were actually believed to have affairs, yet it was always wrapped in complete discretion and secrecy. Instead, Sarkozy proudly declared to have broken a tradition of lies and hypocrisy.

This change of style has also strongly impacted his governing approach. In a significant shift from his predecessors, he has largely overshadowed the prime minister, and surprised everyone with a successful policy of opening up to the opposition, by involving Left-wing personalities in the government.

Beyond stylistic transformations, Sarkozy has tried to reshape French internal as well as international policies. He launched a flurry of reforms from the first month of his presidency, slashing taxes, relaxing labour laws, launching a reform of universities and ambitious initiatives for the environment. He took controversial positions on religion emphasising the Christian roots of the country and the place of God in the heart of every man, something previously unthinkable in a country so proud of its secular nature.

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