Brash loner poised to redefine France - by Doug Saunders
Throughout his life, Nicolas Sarkozy, 52, has fit awkwardly into the comfortable club of French leadership, like a brassy character actor dropping one-liners in the midst of a regal drama. In photos taken a decade ago, he stands out from the crowd like an awkward interloper: Surrounded by fellow ministers, he has always looked and acted like an outsider.
“He is the heir to the French political tradition of Bonapartism, and makes that argument for himself all the time,” says his biographer, Frédéric Charpier, who sees Mr. Sarkozy as an avid student of the Napoleonic method. “It is an authoritarian tradition within a democracy, in which France has a private economy but it is very state-focused, and the state remains at the centre of public life, and the leader is the centre of the state.”
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