He has outed himself as an immigrant’s son, a jogger, an unashamed right-winger and an Elvis-loving pro-American. But on Tuesday, under the twinkling chandeliers of the Elysée Palace, Nicolas Sarkozy unveiled his latest taboo-breaking persona: President in Love.
”It’s serious,” he swooned from a lectern at his biggest press conference, letting it be understood that Carla Bruni, the supermodel-turned-popstar he met less than two months ago, would soon be France’s new First Lady.
The maths was giddying — less than a year in office, barely three months after his divorce, Sarkozy was presenting his second First Lady and his third wife.
When Sarkozy lovingly uttered the word Carla from his platform in front of the French and European flags, he deliberately brought decades of French presidential precedent crashing around his shoulders. There would be no more Jacques Chirac-style secret 15-minute late-night rendezvous across Paris, and none of François Mitterrand’s second family hidden away with his mistress. The Sarko Show, as his starry photo-opportunities with Bruni have become known, was no longer a question of naff, celebrity-style jaunts in aviator shades around the Pyramids or watching the Mickey Mouse parade at Disneyland. It was all in the name of Sarkozy taking the moral high ground and ending the vile French trend of leaders who were dishonest about their private lives.
”I’ve reflected a lot on this question, I didn’t want to lie,” the president preached from his lectern. ”I have been a part of a break with a deplorable tradition in our country: hypocrisy and lies.”
He alluded to Mitterrand who while married kept a secret mistress and child which the press covered up. ”I don’t judge — life is so difficult, so painful,” he said of the late Socialist president. But Sarkozy found it ”very satisfying” that under his leadership, France had ”evolved”. A sign of that evolution was that at his lengthy press conference to set out his political agenda for the economically ailing France of 2008, the second question from French journalists was, ”When are you getting married?”
”With Carla, we’ve decided not to lie. We don’t want to exploit things, but neither do we want to hide,” he said. As for the wedding date, ”It’s highly likely that you’ll hear about it when it’s already happened,” he smiled, waving his currently ring-free left hand.
Sarkozy in Love had a distinct look from Recently Divorced Sarkozy. He appeared slimmer, calmer, and his physical tics of shoulder-shrugging and leg-twitching were under control.
His move to rebrand himself as a crusader against hypocrisy was typical of the Sarkozy determination to turn failure to his advantage. Six months earlier, in the same room, Sarkozy had celebrated his inauguration, kissing his wife, Cécilia, and posing for photographs with his children and step-children.
Having ushered his private life into the spotlight, Sarkozy told the press of his holidays canoodling with Bruni: ”If you’re afraid of being exploited, don’t send a photographer.”
Polls have shown that the seemingly endless pictures of Sarkozy and Bruni hugging on the Nile at Christmas turned off some of the older voters who elected him. Sarkozy on Tuesday said his dip in the polls didn’t worry him and promised a year of labour, health and state reform while balancing a flagging economy.
His speech was peppered with his new soundbite, ”The politics of civilisation”, but he also uttered the word ”love” repeatedly. ”The president of the republic doesn’t have any more right to happiness than the average person,” he said. ”But no less right either.” – Guardian Unlimited Â