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Thursday, April 08, 2010
Sarkozy’s father in kiss and tell
BY FINBARR SLATTERY
RIDING on the crest of a wave is always dangerous and that’s just what Nicolas Sarkozy has been doing ever since he was elected President of France in 2006.
Last month the President was brought down to earth in earnest when voters in the national regional council election there showed signs of disapproval of his administration by routing his Union for a Popular Movement Party (UMP) and his poll ratings are near record lows. The cover of the latest issue of Le Point, a leading news magazine in France, was devoted to The Tragedy of Sarkozy.
On top of that, his father has just published his life story and he has quite an embarrassing tale to tell. In the regional elections, the centre-right UMP party got just 36 per cent of the national vote in the second round elections. The leftgreen alliance, led by the socialists got 54 per cent while Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front scored a couple of notable successes.
While Nicholas Sarkozy is doing his best to distance himself from the result, claiming they were local elections, this was France’s last major contest before the 2012 presidential elections.
The Socialist leader Martine Aubry has now emerged as the president’s main rival when the French go to the polls in 2012. One person who might be delighted if the president doesn’t seek a second term is his wife, Bruni, as she fears for his health under the pressure of the job.
He fainted after jogging last summer and that will worry her. Bruni let it be known in an interview she gave last month that she despised media that published unsubstantiated rumours that her marriage was in trouble.
It’s sad to see rumours like that being aired. The couple seem to be attached and happy together. As she stated in her interview, she would like to live what time we have left in some peace. She described her marriage as "unique, unhoped-for in terms of tenderness, trust, communication and understanding."
It would be hard to surpass that and I must say these two looked the ideal, happy couple on their visit to the US last week.
Pal Sarkozy is neatly 82. He published his life story at the end of last month and there was no beating about the bush. He told it straight out as it happened with no holds barred. Only in France it seems would the father of the head of state be able to do this – bedding his nanny in Hungary at the age of 11, running away with the widow of an SS Officer in war torn Germany at the age of 17, before eventually settling down in his fourth Parisian marriage with Dadue Mallah, the president’s mother.
He delivered the memoirs to Nicolas, 50 pages at a time, and he read it all.
"He asked me to change absolutely nothing," Pal said. Sarkozy senior was appalled at the media treatment given to his son, the latest tabloid fantasy over the state of the president’s marriage was dreadful.
"When the press goes wild, not so much in France but abroad in England and Germany, it is very unpleasant, not just for him, it wounds the whole family," he said. Pal gives the height of praise to the president’s wife, Carla: "she is pure sweetness, kindness and beauty and an artist to boot. She’s an ideal wife."
After all that it looks like President Sarkozy of France has one great asset by his side which will help him overcome many of the setbacks that usually befall a president in office.
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