The gap might be closing but, on the eve of the first round of France’s presidential elections, Nicolas Sarkozy is still the clear frontrunner. The candidate of ”the France that wakes up early in the morning”, Sarkozy is hailed by the Economist magazine as ”France’s chance”, the man to bring about Thatcherite economic reforms. In the United States, he is lauded for his outspoken admiration of the American dream. But Sarkozy’s authoritarian populism — much of which is designed to court the five million people who voted for Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2002 — is less well-known outside France.
Possessing formidable nerve, Sarkozy holds the record in French politics for the most TV appearances over the past decade and never misses an opportunity to portray himself as the new champion of France. His ruthlessness in pursuit of the ultimate political prize has never been in doubt since he betrayed his long-standing mentor, Jacques Chirac, during the 1995 presidential campaign.
In his book La Petite Demagogue, journalist Jean-Luc Porquet claims Sarkozy’s ability to slay all in his path to self-promotion was in evidence as long ago as 1983, when he was just 28 and righthand man to Charles Pasqua, the frontrunner for the Neuilly-sur-Seine mayoralty. When Pasqua was hospitalised with a hernia, Sarkozy disloyally chose to campaign for himself, allegedly savouring his political victory with the line: ”I’ve fucked them all!” Sarkozy has never denied this rumour.
The man who would be king has always relied on a brilliant populist media strategy and close links with the nation’s press barons. Yet his conception of press freedom alarms many in the profession. Last month, the Society of Journalists from the public TV channel France 3 released a communiqué denouncing the threats Sarkozy made against its management board. Arriving for make-up ahead of an appearance on France 3 to find no place reserved for him, Sarkozy had reportedly snapped: ”The whole board needs firing … I can’t do it now. But it won’t be long.”
Alain Genestar, Paris Match’s former director who in August 2005 published a photo of Sarkozy’s wife, Cecilia, in the company of the man she temporarily left him for, accused Sarkozy of bringing about his downfall. The satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchaine accuses Sarkozy of scuppering a biography of Cecilia: the editor was forced to pulp 25 000 copies. In October last year a journalists’ trade union denounced the interior minister’s dictatorial methods in targeting a freelancer working for the French news agency AFP. She had reported a media-staged raid in a suburb during which 100 police officers ”by mistake” terrorised several families, notably pressing a gun to the temple of a two-and-a-half-year-old child.
Journalists are not the only ones in Sarkozy’s sights. He has intensified attacks on the so-called clemency of judges and magistrates. In June 2005, intervening in a criminal case whose prime suspect was a repeat offender, he declared that the judge who had ”dared to parole such a monster” must ”pay”. After riots in the suburbs he fumed: ”I do find it unacceptable that the juvenile court of Bobigny hasn’t handed out one single prison sentence.” Last month, the union of magistrates condemned Sarkozy’s tenure as interior minister as ”particularly worrying”, stating that ”despite the principle of separation of [executive and judicial] powers, Nicolas Sarkozy has redoubled his demagogic attack” on the judiciary.
But it is in his approach to delinquency that Sarkozy’s authoritarian drift has manifested itself most worryingly. At a Cabinet meeting in June last year he presented a Bill on the prevention of juvenile delinquency, based on an earlier parliamentary report drafted mainly by MPs from his own party. The report’s sinister findings state not only that youth deviancy materialises in infancy, but also appears to associate ethnicity with criminality. According to Le Canard Enchaine, Sarkozy told fellow ministers that ”the kids of 1945 have nothing in common with the giant black under-18s from the suburbs who scare everyone”. Later, facing widespread condemnation, the government jettisoned the most controversial measures, which imposed mental-health assessments at school from the age of three to detect behavioural disorders ”leading to delinquencies”.
But Sarkozy’s retreat was purely pragmatic, and he persists in his belief in genetic pre-determinism. ”I would be inclined … to think that people are born paedophiles and it’s a problem that we can’t cure this pathology,” he said in February.
Sarkozy the candidate pledges more housing for the poor; yet in his 20 years as mayor of Neuilly he refused to increase social housing in this wealthy suburb from 1% of all housing to the 20% required by French law. He vows tough measures to tackle public debt, but during his tenure as budget minister a staggering â,¬121-billion was added to the national debt. Sarkozy has promised more security, but violence and police brutality have consistently risen during his time as interior minister, and his comments threw fuel on the flames in the banlieues. Sarkozy the presidential candidate has promised ”positive discrimination”; Sarkozy the minister has introduced a record number of security measures tending to criminalise migrants, ethnic minorities and travellers.
Sarkozy probably thinks himself genetically predetermined to become France’s supreme saviour. So far he has gambled everything on his ”telegenic virility”. But he is relying on the amnesia of the electorate. — Â