Nicolas Sarkozy joins a series of European leaders who have been booted out of office because of public anger over government spending cuts and the economic crisis.
Love him or hate him, he was a character. When Sarkozy skipped up the steps of France’s presidential palace in jogging shorts and shoes on his first day in office five years ago, many realised that something was different. His idea of change wasn’t exactly what many French had in mind.
What seemed to be a refreshing change at first, ultimately epitomised what many French came to see as jejeune, self-centred antics unbefitting of a president at a time when economic troubles and persistently high joblessness were on most minds.
“I take full responsibility for this defeat,” he said after the results came out on Sunday night. It was personal style, many pollsters said, that largely sealed Sarkozy’s fate. After his 2007 victory speech on Place de la Concorde, Sarkozy sped over to one of the ritziest restaurants on the Champs-Elysees to celebrate; then he jetted off to the yacht of a tycoon friend here in Malta. Critics pounced on the showiness and it hounded him all through the election campaign.
In many ways, Nicolas Sarkozy was an anomaly as France’s president. The French Presidency was always an image one had to live up to. Sarkozy had a foreign-sounding surname. He didn’t attend the most elite French university for public servants. He seemed to relish in chucking out the regal niceties of the presidency. His off-the-cuff remarks, like calling a somewhat belligerent passer-by at a Paris farm fair “a poor jerk,” got him in trouble.
Politically, he was a mix. But it was his personal choices that damned him. Right or wrong, Sarkozy is the first French president to divorce and remarry while in office. He is the father of three sons and, as of last year, a daughter with former supermodel Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, his third wife.
Before this election, Sarkozy said he’d quit politics if he lost. Whether he does so, remains to be seen. In being voted out of office, he joins the likes of Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi, Greece’s socialist leader George Papandreou, Spain’s socialist PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Britain’s Labour PM Gordon Brown, Ireland’s Brian Cowen, Portugal’s Jose Socrates and other leaders in Denmark and Finland.
Sarkozy though, will always be remembered as a character and an entertainer. Sometimes, he had whole media circuses in rapture at the EU council meetings. He was quotable, witty, funny and charismatic. But he was also disliked. He was too flashy and too full of himself. One of his worst snubs was during a summit meeting in Brussels during the Rugby World Cup; there was no media circus to greet his arrival, they were all in the press bar – one eye on the final between France and New Zealand, the other on the live feed from the Justus Lypsius entrance – a collective cheer went up when Sarkozy got out of his car and waved to no one – New Zealand scored a try at exactly that time.
On a bigger stage, Sarkozy was an excellent leader and politician – especially in Europe. But at home, he alienated voters and made people dislike him.