Only Politics

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has always hugged the headlines for wrong reasons. Be it his whirlwind romance with model Carla Bruni or his virulent attack on the media, Sarkozy is different from his predecessors. Different is what he always wants to be without much attachment to French tradition, after all, he is the son of a Hungarian immigrant and grandson of a Greek. Stepping away from popular French tradition of pride and independence as a global peace broker, Sarkozy has found it safer to follow the Americans. France had never had a more pro-American and pro-Israeli president before. Sarkozy wants to cast himself as a modernizer. He pledged to fight intolerance and racism in the French society but his blunt comments as the Interior Minister in 2005 before the infamous Paris riots, describing young delinquents in French suburbs as rabble put him in league with far-right French leaders. Paradoxical as he is, Sarkozy had offered state help for Muslims to build mosques in France while opposing Turkey’s entry in the EU. Moving away from the French idea of equality, Sarkozy has advocated positive discrimination in employment and at the same time, his strict measures against illegal immigrants had won him enough criticism. Sarkozy is an enigma worth unraveling.