Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarkozy de Nagy-Bocsa, polling at 28.5 percent, was born in 1955 in Paris to a Hungarian immigrant. His political career was launched when he became the youngest mayor of any large French town (Neuilly-sur-Seine) and rose to become one of Europe’s most talked about and visible political figures.
He put France back on the international stage by taking a leading role in resolving last year’s violent political standoff in the Ivory Coast and the foreign intervention in Libya. He and his foreign policy team, led by Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, command respect in European capitals.
Sarkozy’s whirlwind “crisis leader” style has prompted nicknames like “SuperSarko” and the “Omnipresident.” In office he logged numerous French “firsts,” including the youngest elected president, the first to be divorced and re-married, and the first (in February) to ask a German leader to campaign for him.
He attributes his famous drive and competitiveness to humiliations suffered as a child. He was skeptical of the radical student movement of 1968 and aligned himself with the center-right Gaullist tradition.
He became interior minister in 2002, earning a tough reputation for supporting stricter police controls in neighborhoods after riots in 2005. On May 6, 2007, promising a “rupture” from the bloated French welfare state, he defeated Socialist Royal, 53.06 percent to 46.9 percent.
After the 2008 financial crisis, he dropped that platform and is now running as the protector of the ordinary Frenchmen and, in a time of uncertainty and debt, the experienced captain. He supports austerity and a balanced budget. He has seriously flirted with nationalist and populist measures, and passed legislation banning the full-length veil for female Muslims.
He has become more skeptical of the EU and recently said he will cut immigration from 180,000 to 100,000 a year, a sop to the French far right and earning him a description in The Wall Street Journal title as “Nicolas Le Pen.”
While highly visible and rarely out of the headlines, Sarkozy is suspicious of the academic and media world, favoring a direct appeal, president to citizen, “me to you,” as Napoleon Bonaparte did.
