French Elections ~ Sarkozy

Nicolas Sarkozy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article or section contains information about one or more candidates in an upcoming or ongoing election.Content may change dramatically as the election approaches and unfolds.

Nicolas Sarkozy in April, 2007
France

Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa (born 28 January 1955 in Paris, France), simply known as Nicolas Sarkozy (/nikola saʁkozi/ — French pronunciation (help·info)), is a French politician, and the head of the right-of-centre party UMP, the French conservative party. He is often nicknamed Sarko by both his French supporters and opponents.
Nicolas Sarkozy is a declared candidate for the Presidency of the Republic in the 2007 election and was chosen on 14 January 2007 as the UMP's candidate. He has been the front-runner since then. Until March 26, 2007 he served as the Minister of the Interior of France.
Contents[hide]
1 Personal life
1.1 Family background
1.2 Early life
1.3 Family
1.4 Studies
2 Political career
2.1 General traits
2.2 Career
2.3 Raffarin government
2.3.1 First term as Minister of the Interior
2.3.2 Minister of Finance
2.4 Villepin government
2.4.1 Second term as Minister of the Interior
2.5 Action as UMP's leader
2.6 Criticism and controversy
2.7 Candidacy for President
3 Timeline of career
4 Quotations
5 References
6 External links
6.1 Official websites
6.2 Press
6.3 Related contents
7 Bibliography
//

[edit] Personal life

[edit] Family background
Nicolas Sarkozy is the son of a Hungarian immigrant, Pál Sárközy de Nagy-Bócsa[1] (Hungarian: nagybócsai Sárközy Pál; some sources spell it Nagy-Bócsay Sárközy Pál; Hungarian pronunciation (help·info)), and a French mother, Andrée Mallah. Pál Sárközy was born in 1928 in Budapest into a family belonging to the lower aristocracy of Hungary. The family possessed lands and a small castle in the village of Alattyán (near Szolnok), 92 km (57 miles) east of Budapest. Pál Sárközy's father and grandfather held elective offices in the town of Szolnok. Although the Sárközy de Nagy-Bócsa (nagybócsai Sárközy) family was Protestant, Pál Sárközy's mother, Katalin Tóth de Csáford (Hungarian: csáfordi Tóth Katalin), grandmother of Nicolas Sarkozy, was from a Catholic aristocratic family.
As the Red Army invaded Hungary in 1944, the family fled the country. They returned to Hungary at the end of the war but all their possessions were seized. Pál Sárközy's father died soon afterwards and his mother, fearing that, as a class enemy, he would be drafted into the Hungarian People's Army and sent to Siberia, urged him to leave the country and promised she would eventually follow him and meet him in Paris. Pál Sárközy managed to flee to Austria and then Germany while his mother reported to authorities that he had drowned in Lake Balaton. Eventually, he arrived in Baden Baden, near the French border, where the headquarters of the French Army in Germany were located, and there he met a recruiter for the French Foreign Legion. He signed up for five years, and was sent for training to Sidi Bel Abbes, in French Algeria, where the French Foreign Legion's headquarters were located. He was due to be sent to Indochina at the end of training, but the doctor who checked him before departure, who happened to also be Hungarian, sympathized with him and gave him a medical discharge to save him from possible death at the hands of the Vietminh. He returned to civilian life in Marseille in 1948 and, although he asked for French citizenship only in the 1970s (his legal status was that of a stateless person until then), he nonetheless gallicized his Hungarian name into "Paul Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa".
Paul Sarkozy moved to Paris where he used his artistic skills to enter the advertising industry. He met Andrée Mallah, Nicolas Sarkozy's mother, in 1949. Andrée Mallah, then a law student, was the daughter of Benedict Mallah, a wealthy urologist and STD specialist with a well-established reputation in the mainly bourgeois 17th arrondissement of Paris. Benedict Mallah was originally a Sephardic Jew from Thessaloniki (Salonica), Greece. According to Jewish genealogical societies, the Mallah family of Salonica anciently came from Provence in southern France, which they had probably left at the time of the Jewish expulsions in the Middle Ages. Benedict Mallah, the son of a jeweler, left Salonica, then part of the Ottoman Empire, in 1904 at the age of 14 to attend the prestigious Lycée Lakanal boarding school of Sceaux, in the southern suburbs of Paris. He studied medicine after his baccalaureate and decided to stay in France and become a French citizen. A doctor in the French Army during World War I, he met a recent war widow, Adèle Bouvier (1891-1956), from a bourgeois family of Lyon, whom he married in 1917. Adèle Bouvier, Nicolas Sarkozy's grandmother, was a Roman Catholic like the majority of French people. Benedict Mallah, for whom religion had reportedly never been a central issue, converted to Catholicism upon marrying Adèle Bouvier, which had been requested by Adèle's parents. Although Benedict Mallah converted to Catholicism, he and his family nonetheless had to flee Paris and take refuge in a small farm in Corrèze during World War II to avoid being arrested and delivered to the Germans.
Paul Sarkozy and Andrée Mallah settled in the 17th arrondissement in Paris and had three sons: Guillaume, born in 1951, who is an entrepreneur in the textile industry, Nicolas, born in 1955 and François, born in 1957 (an MBA and manager of a healthcare consultancy company[3]). In 1959 Paul Sarkozy left his wife and his three children. He later remarried twice and had two more children with his second wife.

[edit] Early life
During Sarkozy's childhood, his father refused to give his former wife's family any financial help, even though he had founded his own advertising agency and had become wealthy. The family lived in a small mansion owned by Sarkozy's grandfather, Benoît Mallah, in the 17th Arrondissement. The family later moved to Neuilly-sur-Seine, the wealthiest commune of France immediately west of the 17th Arrondissement just outside of Paris. According to Sarkozy, his staunchly Gaullist grandfather was more of an influence on him than his father, whom he rarely saw. His grandfather, a Sephardi Jew by birth, was a convert to Roman Catholicism, and Sarkozy was, accordingly, raised in the Catholic faith of his household. Nicolas Sarkozy, like his brothers, is a baptised and professing Roman Catholic.



Sarkozy's father Paul did not teach him or his brothers Hungarian. No evidence suggests that there was an attempt to enculturate the Sarkozy siblings with their paternal ethnic background.
Sarkozy has said that his father's abandonment shaped much of what he is today. As a young boy and teenager, he felt inferior in relation to his wealthy classmates.[citation needed] He did not feel fully French at the time (his father is said to have told him once that a Sarkozy never could become President of France, that such things happened only in the United States), suffered from insecurities (his physical shortness, his family's lack of money, at least relatively to their 17th Arrondissement or Neuilly neighbours), and is said to have harboured a considerable amount of resentment against his absent father. “What made me who I am now is the sum of all the humiliations suffered during childhood”, he said later.

[edit] Family
Sarkozy is married to Cecilia Sarkozy. They have a son, Louis. The couple separated temporarily in 2005 when Cecilia Sarkozy left her husband for Richard Attias, an events organiser with whom she spent time in New York. Sarkozy for his part became friendly with journalist Anne Fulda. The Sarkozys reunited in early 2006.

[edit] Studies
Sarkozy was enrolled in the Cours Saint-Louis de Monceau, a private Catholic middle and high school in the 17th Arrondissement, where he was reportedly a mediocre pupil. Later he obtained a bachelor's degree in law from the Université Paris X Nanterre. He attended the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (more commonly known as Sciences Po), but did not graduate. After passing the bar exam, he became a lawyer specializing in French business law.

[edit] Political career

[edit] General traits

Nicolas Sarkozy speaking at the congress of his party
He is generally recognized by the right and left as a highly skilled politician and striking orator. Supporters of Sarkozy within France emphasise his charisma, political innovation and willingness to "make a dramatic break" amidst mounting disaffection against "politics as usual"; Some see him as wanting to depart from traditional French social and economic principles in favour of American-style economic reform. Overall, he is generally considered to be somewhat more pro-US than most French politicians.
Since November 2004, he has been president of the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP), France's major right political party, and he is Minister of the Interior in the government of Dominique de Villepin, with the honorific title of Minister of State, making him effectively the number three man in the French State after President Jacques Chirac and the prime minister. His ministerial responsibilities include law enforcement and working to co-ordinate relationships between the national and local governments. Previously, he was a deputy to the French National Assembly. He was forced to resign this position in order to accept his ministerial appointment. He previously also held several ministerial posts, including Finance Minister.

[edit] Career
Sarkozy's political career began at the age of 22, when he became a city councillor in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a wealthy and exclusive western suburb of Paris (in the Hauts-de-Seine département). Member of the Neo-Gaullist party RPR, he went on to be elected mayor of that town, after the death of the incumbent mayor Achille Peretti. Sarkozy had been close to Peretti, as he was his secretary's son. The senior RPR politician in the time, Charles Pasqua, wanted to become mayor, and asked Sarkozy to organise his campaign. Instead Sarkozy profited from a short illness of Pasqua to propel himself into the office of mayor.[2] He was the youngest ever mayor of any town in France with a population of over 50,000. He served from 1983 to 2002. In 1988, he became a deputy in the National Assembly.
In 1993, Sarkozy was in the national news for personally dealing with the “Human Bomb”, a man who had taken small children hostage in a kindergarten in Neuilly. The “Human Bomb” was killed that day by policemen of the RAID, who entered the school stealthily while the attacker was resting.
From 1993 to 1995, he was Minister for the Budget and spokesman for the executive in the cabinet of Prime Minister Édouard Balladur. Throughout most of his early career, Sarkozy had been seen as a protégé of Jacques Chirac. However, in 1995 he spurned Chirac and backed Balladur for President of France. After Chirac won the election, Sarkozy lost his position as Minister for the Budget and found himself outside the circles of power. It is widely believed that ever since 1995 Chirac has considered Sarkozy's siding with Balladur as a form of treason, and that the two men now loathe one another.
However, he came back after the right-wing defeat at the 1997 parliamentary election, as number 2 of the RPR. When the party leader Philippe Séguin resigned, in 1999, he took the lead of the Neo-Gaullist party. But it obtained its worst result at the 1999 European Parliament election. With 12.7% of votes, the RPR list arrived after the dissident Rally for France of Charles Pasqua. Sarkozy lost the RPR leadership.
In 2002, however, after his re-election as President of the French Republic (see French presidential election, 2002), Chirac appointed Sarkozy as French Minister of the Interior in the cabinet of Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, despite the widely acknowledged friction between the two. Following Jacques Chirac's 14th of July keynote speech on road safety Sarkozy as interior minister pushed through new legislation leading to the mass purchase of speed cameras and increased awareness of danger on the French road system.
Following the cabinet reshuffle of 31 March 2004, Sarkozy was moved to the position of Finance Minister. Tensions continued to build between Sarkozy and Chirac and within the UMP party, as Sarkozy's intentions of becoming head of the party after the resignation of Alain Juppé became clear. It became increasingly apparent that Sarkozy would go on to seek the presidency in 2007; in an often-repeated comment made on television channel France 2, when asked by a journalist whether he thought about the presidential election when he shaved in the morning, Sarkozy commented, “not just when I shave”.[3]
In November 2004 after party elections, Sarkozy became leader of the UMP with 85% of the vote. In accordance with an agreement with Chirac, he resigned his position as minister. Sarkozy's ascent was marked by the division of UMP between sarkozystes, such as Sarkozy's “first lieutenant”, Brice Hortefeux, and Chirac loyalists, such as Jean-Louis Debré.
Sarkozy was made Chevalier de la Legion d'honneur (Knight of the Legion of Honour) by President Chirac in February 2005. He was re-elected on 13 March 2005 to the National Assembly (as required by the constitution,[4] he had had to resign as a deputy when he had become minister in 2002).
On 31 May 2005 the main French news radio station France Info reported a rumour that Sarkozy was to be reappointed Minister of the Interior in the government of Dominique de Villepin without resigning from the UMP leadership. This was confirmed on 2 June 2005, when the members of the government were officially announced.

[edit] Raffarin government

[edit] First term as Minister of the Interior

Nicolas Sarkozy, here with then prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, took pains during his first stint as Minister of the Interior to show that he cared about law enforcement (here, with some bicycle-mounted officers of the French National Police).
Towards the end of his first term as Minister of the Interior, in 2004, Sarkozy was the most popular conservative politician in France, according to polls conducted at the beginning of 2004. His “tough on crime” policies, which included increasing the police presence on the streets and introducing monthly crime performance ratings, were popular with many. However, he was criticised for putting forward legislation which can be questioned as an infringement on civil rights, and adversely affected disadvantaged sections of the population.
Sarkozy has sought to ease the sometimes tense relationships between the general French population and the Muslim community. Unlike the Catholic Church in France with their official leaders or the Protestants with their umbrella organizations to speak for them, Islam, with its lack of structure did not have any group that could legitimately deal with the French government on their behalf. Sarkozy felt that the foundation of such an organisation was desirable. He supported the foundation in May 2003 of the private non-profit Conseil français du culte musulman (“French Council of Muslim Worship”), an organisation meant to be representative of French Muslims.[5] In addition, Sarkozy has suggested amending the 1905 law on the separation of Church and State, mostly in order to be able to finance mosques and other Muslim institutions with public funds.[6]

[edit] Minister of Finance
During his short appointment as Minister of Finance, Sarkozy was responsible for introducing a number of policies. The degree to which this reflected libéralisme (a hands-off approach to running the economy) or more traditional French state dirigisme (intervention) is controversial.
In September 2004, Sarkozy oversaw the reduction of the government ownership stake in France Télécom from 50.4% to 41%.[7]
Sarkozy backed a partial nationalisation of the engineering company Alstom decided by his predecessor when the company was exposed to bankruptcy in 2003.[8]
Sarkozy reached an agreement with the major retail chains in France to concertedly lower prices on household goods by an average of 2%; the success of this measure is disputed, with studies suggesting that the decrease was closer to 1%.[9]
Taxes: Sarkozy avoided taking a position on the ISF (“solidarity tax on fortune”). This is considered an ideological symbol by many on the Left and Right. Some in the business world and on the Liberal Right, such as Alain Madelin, wanted it abolished. For Sarkozy, that would have risked being categorised by the Left as a gift to the richest classes of society at a time of economic difficulties.[10]

[edit] Villepin government

[edit] Second term as Minister of the Interior

Secretary Rice with Sarkozy, Minister of Interior of the French Republic after their bilateral at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building
During his second term at the Ministry of the Interior, Nicolas Sarkozy was initially more discreet about his ministerial activities: instead of focusing on his own topic of law and order, many of his declarations addressed wider issues, since he was expressing his opinions as head of the UMP party.
Main article: Response to the 2005 civil unrest in France
However, the civil unrest in autumn 2005 put law enforcement in the spotlight again. Nicolas Sarkozy made a number of tough declarations. He was accused of having provoked the unrest by calling young delinquents from housing projects "racaille" (chavs) in Argenteuil, near Paris. After the accidental death of two kids, which sparked the riots, Sarkozy first blamed it on "hoodlums" and gangsters. He was then criticized by many on the left wing, and including by a member of his own government, Azouz Begag, Delegate Minister for Equal Opportunities, who disagrees with his policies.[11]
After the rioting, he made a number of announcements on future policy: selection of immigrants, better tracking of immigrants, and a reform on the 1945 ordinance government justice measures for young delinquents.
In spring 2006, Nicolas Sarkozy was to present a bill to Parliament which would reform French immigration rules and procedures.

[edit] Action as UMP's leader
Sarkozy currently is the president of UMP, the French conservative party, elected with 85% of the vote. During his presidency, the number of members has significantly increased. In 2005, he supported a "yes" vote in the French referendum on the European Constitution.
Throughout 2005, Sarkozy became increasingly vocal in calling for radical changes in France's economic and social policies. These calls culminated in an interview with Le Monde on 8 September 2005, during which he claimed that the French had been misled for 30 years by false promises, and denounced what he considers to be unrealistic policies.[12] Among other issues:
he called for a simplified and “fairer” taxation system, with fewer loopholes, and a maximum taxation rate (all direct taxes combined) at 50% of revenue;
he approved measures reducing or denying social support to unemployed workers who refuse work offered to them;
he pressed for a reduction in the budget deficit, claiming that the French state has been living off credit for some time.
Such policies are what are called in France libéral (that is, in favour of laissez-faire economic policies, although this judgment is made by French standards) or, with a pejorative undertone, ultra-libéral. Sarkozy rejects this label of libéral and prefers to call himself a pragmatist instead.
Sarkozy opened another avenue of controversy by declaring that he wanted a reform of the immigration system, with quotas designed to admit the skilled workers needed by the French economy. He also wants to reform the current French system for foreign students, claiming that it enables foreign students to take open-ended curricula in order to obtain residency in France; instead, he wants to select the best students to the best curricula in France.
In early 2006, the French parliament adopted a controversial bill known as DADVSI, which reforms French copyright law. Since his party was divided on the issue, Sarkozy stepped in and organized meetings between various parties involved. Later, groups such as the Odebi League and EUCD.info alleged that Sarkozy personally and unofficially supported certain amendments to the law, which enacted strong penalties against designers of peer-to-peer systems.

[edit] Criticism and controversy

Since his famous Kärcher remark, Nicolas Sarkozy has been lampooned about his fondness for cleaning out the riff-raff; here, electoral posters of Sarkozy were posted on a Kärcher car wash
Sarkozy's political views have been the subject of some controversy. Generally speaking, he is the bête noire of the left (see below), and is also criticised by many on the right, most vocally by the supporters of Jacques Chirac and Dominique de Villepin, such as Jean-Louis Debré, but also by social Catholics such as Christine Boutin; Boutin however, in the end, gave up her presidential bid and became a political advisor to Sarkozy.[4][5]
Critics on the Left have accused him of being an authoritarian demagogue, ready to trade away civil liberties for political gains. Some of these accusations are echoed by French civil rights organisations. He is also accused, by the Left, of being a populist who favors far-right ideas.[13]
His political style, which relies heavily on communication,[14] and controversial statistics, is highly criticised as combatative and aggressive. Responding to a shooting that killed a 11 years old boy in the banlieue of La Courneuve in June 2005, he vowed to clean the area out “with a Kärcher” (nettoyer la cité au Kärcher), Kärcher being a well-known brand of pressure cleaning equipment), and two days before the 2005 Paris riots he referred to troublemakers of poor suburbs as voyous, and racaille, a slang term which can be translated into English as dregs or riff-raff; this was criticised as sounding uncomfortably close to ethnic cleansing, demeaning to the people that Sarkozy was supposed to help, and potentially stoking unrest.[15][16]
As a Minister of the Interior, Sarkozy systematically has made bold statements following heinous crimes reported in the media. As a consequence, he has been accused in certain cases of failing to respect the separation of powers between the executive and the judiciary, by trying to apply pressure in certain cases. Most famously, he was criticized not only by the left-wing Syndicat de la magistrature judges' union, but also by the centrist Union syndicale des magistrats, for attacks on the independence of the judiciary.[17]
In September 2005 some youths were acquitted of an arson attack on a police station in Pau, for lack of proof, and Sarkozy was accused of having pushed for a hasty enquiry — Sarkozy had vowed that the perpetrators would be arrested within 3 months.[18] On 22 June 2005, he announced to law enforcement officials that he had questioned the Minister of Justice about the future of “the judge” who had freed a man on parole, enabling him to commit a murder.[19] These comments were criticised by both moderate and left-wing magistrates, especially since Sarkozy, Minister of the Interior and a former attorney, must have been aware that this decision had been taken by 3 judges.
Sarkozy has personal friendships with some of the most powerful figures in the French business world; for example, Martin Bouygues (from the Bouygues group, owner of the TF1 channel, as well as telecommunications and public works companies) and Bernard Arnault (from LVMH) were his marriage witnesses. His brother, Guillaume, is a senior executive of the MEDEF, the foremost business union in France; in 2005, he renounced running for the top position of that union because he said he did not want to hinder his brother's political career.
Sarkozy, a Roman Catholic, has caused controversy because of his views on the relationship between religion and state. In 2004, he published a book called La République, les religions, l'espérance (“The Republic, Religions, and Hope”),[20] in which he argued that the young should not be brought up solely on secular or republican values. He also advocated reducing the separation of church and state, including the government subsidy of mosques in order to encourage Islamic integration into French society.[21][22] He flatly opposes financing of religious institutions with funds from outside France. There has also been controversy over his attitude to the Church of Scientology — which has itself been the subject of significant controversy in France — after meeting with Tom Cruise.[23]
Nicolas Sarkozy is also known for a memorandum bearing his name (the 'circulaire Sarkozy'), that he signed as a Minister for the Interior, on June 13th, 2006. In this decision sent to all prefects of France (his representatives in the provinces), he proposed to hand some immigration papers (eq. of the US green card) to immigrant families with kids integrated in French schools. A strict series of conditions were listed in order to accept the regularization of the situation of these families (proofs of integration in the country, proof of job, etc.). This offer attracted a large number of applications (around 25.000) handed to police services, usually under the advice of charities of specialized social associations. Unfortunately for the applicants, most of the files were refused, while still matching the 'Sarkozy memo' criteria. It appeared later that the minister had fixed, beforehand, a number of "about 6000" files to be accepted, whatever happened. The remaining 20,000 or so people have however been carefully registered in police files, including their personal address, and moreover the kid's school (one of the criteria was providing school certificates). Most criticism is expressed about that 'trap' that these immigrants were sent in. As a matter of fact, the number of manu militari expulsions have increased a lot, since this circular, including shocking cases of parents being arrested when collecting their kids in front of their schools. A couple of cases of kids being arrested in schools have also been reported, as well as teachers usually hiding them in from the police. Some relatively violent arrest attempts lead to resistance from other parents and/or teachers or school headmasters, in particular in Paris (March 2007).[citation needed]
A few weeks before the first round of the 2007 presidential elections, Nicolas Sarkozy started an important controversy when he said, during an interview with philosopher Michel Onfray[24], that he inclined to think that character was largely genetic, famously stating "One is born a pedophile, and it is actually a problem that we do not know how to cure this disease."; he also claimed that suicides among youth was linked to genetic predispositions. These claims were strongly criticized by scientists, including famous geneticist Axel Kahn.[25]; [26]
Sarkozy's marriage was the subject of heavy hints by Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the right-wing Front National. Sarkozy's wife Cecilia left him in 2005 for Richard Attias, an events organiser with whom she spent time in New York. The split made headlines in France at the time. The Sarkozys reunited in the spring of 2006. [27]

[edit] Candidacy for President

This article or section needs to be updated.Parts of this article or section have been identified as no longer being up to date.Please update the article to reflect recent events, and remove this template when finished.

Main article: French presidential election, 2007

Nicolas Sarkozy in 2006

In Toulouse for the 2007 presidential campaign
On 14 January 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy was chosen by the UMP to be its candidate in the 2007 presidential election. Sarkozy, who was running unopposed, won 98% of the votes. Of the 327,000 UMP members who could vote, 69% participated in the online ballot.[28]
As of 2005, many think that Sarkozy is the French Right's best hope for the presidential election in 2007. Polls often credit him with being one of France's most popular politicians. His precise electoral platform is unknown at this point, but Sarkozy's various 2005 declarations give a confident idea of its probable general lines. It is conjectured that he will run on a platform of lower taxes and flexible labour markets; this has been presented as representing a move towards the social and economic model of the United States of America, particularly in the press of that latter country,[29][30][31] which used to present Alain Madelin in a similar favorable light. Sarkozy has sought the advice of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and this is seen by many in France as underlining his intention to pursue an Atlanticist foreign policy and a Thatcherite economic policy.[32][33][34] Sarkozy says he wants to win back the votes of those who "lost their way" swinging towards the Front National, as well as normally left-wing voters frustrated with a lack of action on the Left.[35]
On the other hand, Sarkozy's presidential ambition does not sit well with Chirac. Chirac once hoped to promote Alain Juppé as his successor.[36] However, this plan collapsed when Alain Juppé was condemned by the criminal court in Nanterre for corruption in January 2004. Subsequently Chirac started to push Dominique de Villepin. Villepin became popular in France for eloquently expressing France's opposition to the Iraq war in 2003. But this popularity totally collapsed due to Villepin's handling of the CPE-reform and his supposed involvement in the Clearstream scandal. Michelle Alliot-Marie, also a Chirac protégée, gave up in December 2006.[37]
Sarkozy's ambitions face strong left-wing opposition. He has been portrayed as a political showman “cozy with big business”. The left has also stated that Sarkozy has given tax breaks to the wealthy and to corporations, and that he preys upon the security fears of citizens and uses the police forces for publicity purposes. The left was previously fractured, as seen with the defeat of Lionel Jospin in the 2002 presidential election. However, the election of Ségolène Royal as nominee of the Socialist party for the 2007 presidential elections will likely prevent any new fracture.
On February 2007 Sarkozy appeared on a televised debate on TF1 where he expressed his support for affirmative action for minorities and the freedom to work overtime, but his opposition to homosexual marriage.
On February 7, 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy finally decided in favour of a projected second, non-nuclear, aircraft carrier for the national Navy (adding to the nuclear Charles de Gaulle), during an official visit in Toulon with Defense Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie. "This would allow permanently having an operational ship, taking into account the constraints of maintenance", he explained.[38] This new view on the second aircraft carrier issue comes in conflict with a January report, where he was against a second carrier.[39]
On March 21, 2007 French President Jacques Chirac announced his support for Sarkozy, adding that he had his vote. Chirac pointed out that Sarkozy had been chosen as presidential candidate for the ruling UMP party, and said: "So it is totally natural that I give him my vote and my support." To focus on his campaign, Sarkozy stepped down as interior minister on March 26, 2007.[40]

[edit] Timeline of career
1977, becomes councillor in the town of Neuilly-sur-Seine.
1977, member of the central committee for the RPR.
1978 – 1979, national youth delegate for the RPR.
1979 – 1981, president of the national youth delegates under Jacques Chirac for the presidential election of 1981.
1983, becomes mayor in the town of Neuilly-sur-Seine
1988, national secretary of the RPR, in charge of youth and teaching issues.
Co-director of the list "Union pour les Élections européennes".
1992 – 1993, secrétaire général-adjoint du RPR, chargé des Fédérations. (Assistant secretary of the RPR in charge of constituent interest groups)
Since 1993, member of the RPR political office.
1993 – 1995, Minister for the Budget in the cabinet of Edouard Balladur.
1995 – 1997 spokesman for the RPR.
1998 – 1999, Secretary General of the RPR.
1999, interim president of the RPR.
1999, head of the RPR-DL electoral list of the European elections in June
May 2000, elected President of the committee of the RPR for the département of Hauts-de-Seine
2002 – March 2004, Minister of the Interior in the cabinet of Jean-Pierre Raffarin.
March 2004 – November 2004, Minister of the Economy, Finance and Industry in the cabinet of Jean-Pierre Raffarin
November 2004, elected the new head of President Jacques Chirac's governing UMP party.
June 2005 – March 2007, Minister of State and Minister of the Interior in the cabinet of Dominique de Villepin.
January 2007, nominated by the Union for a Popular Movement for the 2007 presidential election.
March 2007, quits as Minister of Interior to get fully involved in the 2007 presidential campaign

[edit] Quotations
Merit and labour are values that should be rewarded more and more. We must applaud and be thankful to the France that gets up early.
To be a young Gaullist is to be a revolutionary! (National meeting of UDR in Nice, June 1975)
The Chiraquian EEG is flat. This is no longer [Paris] City Hall, this is the antechamber of the morgue. Chirac is dead, only the 3 last shovelfuls are needed. (before the 1995 presidential elections)
We live in a world where people don't all have the same scruples, where all blows can be given, and where, in order to down somebody, all means can be used. Nothing will lead me astray from the path that I have chosen. (Le Monde, 2005)
How can one be fascinated by those fights of obese guys with brylcreemed buns? Sumo is not an intellectual's sport! (Hong Kong, 9 January 2004; Jacques Chirac has a taste for watching sumo)
June 2005: following these two declarations, Nicolas Sarkozy was reprimanded during the Council of Ministers by president Chirac and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin
We shall clean the Cité des 4000 [in La Courneuve] with a Kärcher
The judge who freed Mrs. Cremel's murderer will pay for his mistake.
Success and social promotion are not some right that anybody can claim after queuing at some [government office]. It is better: it is a right, a right that one can merit because of one's sweat. (Summer meeting of the Young Populars in La Baule, 4 September 2005)
All these squatted habitations, all these buildings must be closed in order to prevent these tragic events, and this is what I asked of the Prefect of Police because these people are poor human beings who are housed in unnacceptable conditions. After accepting people to whom, sadly, we cannot offer work or housing, we end up in a situation that results in tragedies like these. (France Inter, 30 August 2005, after several cases where poor black immigrant families from Africa had died when the derelict buildings in which they lived burnt down)
Answering a woman asking him if he would help them “to get rid of this scum”: You've had enough, haven't you? Enough of this scum? Well, we're going to get rid of them for you. (Comments preceding the three weeks of urban violence, 25 October 2005)
If you come to France and you wear a veil, if you go to one of the administrative buildings, then that's not acceptable. If you don't want your wife to be examined by a male doctor, then you're not welcome here. France is a country that's open. (Interview with Charlie Rose, televised 31 January 2007)
If living in France bothers some people, they should feel free to leave the country. (UMP meeting 22 April )
Do not assume I would have such a fatitude (sic) (France Inter interview, 18 April 2007). In French, Ne me prêtez pas une telle fatitude. The word fatitude does not exist in French.

[edit] References
^ Pál Sárközy de Nagy-Bócsa is not his French name. It is the "westernized", or "internationalized", version of his Hungarian name, in which the given name is put first (whereas in Hungarian given names come last), and the French artistocratic particle "de" is used instad of the Hungarian aristocratic ending "-i". This "westernization" of Hungarian names is frequent, particularly for people with an aristocratic name. Check for example the leader of Hungary from 1920 to 1944, whose Hungarian name is nagybányai Horthy Miklós, but who is known in English as Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya. The French name of Pál Sárközy de Nagy-Bócsa is Paul Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa, where the given name Pál has been translated into Paul in French, and the acute accents on the "a" of Sarközy and the "o" of Bocsa were dropped as these letters never carry an acute accent in French. The trema on the "o" of Sárközy was kept, probably because French typewriters allow this combination, whereas it is impossible to write "a" or "o" with an acute accent using a French typewriter.