Nicolas Sarkozy

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23rd President of France
From: May 16, 2007-May 15, 2012
Vice President | None
Predecessor | Jacques Chirac
Successor | François Hollande
Information

Party  | Union for a Popular Movement

Spouse(s)  | Carla Bruni-Sarkozy

Religion  | Catholic

Nicolas Sarkozy (born in 1955) is a French neoconservative politician, who was elected President of France on May 6, 2007. He is a strong admirer of the United States.[1] Sarkozy was the target of vicious leftist attacks during his presidency.[2]

Sarkozy championed a policy of foreign interventionalism, particularly in Libya, that is characteristic of neoconservatives in Britain and the United States, while downplaying the significance of social issues like same-sex "marriage". On 6 May 2012, Sarkozy was defeated in the French Presidential Election in his bid for a second term by the Socialist Party candidate François Hollande.

Sarkozy was born in Paris in 1955 to a French mother of Greek Jewish origin (the daughter of a Greek immigrant born to the Mallah family, one of the oldest Jewish families of Salonika, Greece [3]) and a Hungarian father (real name: Sarkozy de Nagy-Bocsa) who had escaped Communism. Sarkozy attended law school at the University of Paris, and also studied at the Institute of Political Studies. In 1983, at the age of 28, he became mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine, a major suburb of Paris. He was elected to the French National Assembly in 1988 and named minister in 1993. From 2002 to 2007 he served as interior minister and budget minister during which time he burnished his reputation as a tough-on-crime and straightforward politician. On January 14, 2007, he was chosen by the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP), France's main conservative party, as its candidate for president.

> The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, is unpopular because of government corruption, because the French economy is weaker than it was supposed to be, because he and his now former foreign minister chose the wrong side in Tunisia, and because he’s erratic and unpredictable.[4]

Divorced twice, Sarkozy is father to three sons and a daughter, Pierre and Jean from his first marriage and Louis from his second.[5] He was married for a third time on February 2, 2008, to model and singer Carla Bruni.[6]

Sarkozy also has engendered much controversy in France with his advocacy of economic reforms, immigration controls, a youth employment law that the government was compelled to repeal by widespread protests,[7] and his notorious comment that his intention was to "wash away the scum", when referring to the 2005 Paris Riots.[8]

## Contents

* 1 Family history
* 2 Immigration issues
* 3 Libyan war
* 4 See also
* 5 External links
* 6 References

## Family history[edit]

> "Sarkozy’s grandfather, Aron Mallah, nicknamed Benkio, was born in 1890. Beniko’s uncle Moshe was a well-known Rabbi and a devoted Zionist who, in 1898 published and edited "El Avenir", the leading paper of the Zionist national movement in Greece at the time. His cousin, Asher, was a Senator in the Greek Senate and in 1912 he helped guarantee the establishment of the Technion – the elite technological university in Haifa, Israel. In 1919 he was elected as the first President of the Zionist Federation of Greece and he headed the Zionist Council for several years." [9]

From a transcription of attorney Isabelle Tahar Miller's talk at the 2007 Temple Beth Hillel-Beth El Torahthon: My passion is politics — writing, defending Israel <sic> against media bias, and giving lectures... I was born in Paris to a traditional Sephardic-Tunisian Jewish family. Tunisia was a French protectorate and my family arrived in the mid-fifties in Paris after Tunisia became independent. I was educated in French public schools and graduated from the Sorbonne law school. I have also lived in Israel for four years where I took the Bar. I speak Hebrew fluently.[10]

## Immigration issues[edit]

Roma children at an encampment in Lille. France has deported a large number of Gypsy migrants back to Bulgaria and Romania in recent years.

Nicolas Sarkozy was accused of racism for ordering closure of 300 illegal gypsy camps and expulsion of Roma after riot.[11] Sarkozy was behind the controversial measure to deport Roma gypsies, breaching European immigration laws. European Union officials accused Sarkozy of "fanning xenophobia " in his move to deport the Roma.[12]

In 2012, French interior minister Brice Hortefeux has been convicted in court of making racist remarks about Arabs. The minister - one of President Nicolas Sarkozy's closest allies - was found guilty uttering of the slur at a political rally.[13]

> "too many foreigners in France." Nicolas Sarkozy.[14]

"Those on the Zionist far right who deliberately and systematically attempt to foment hatred of Muslims, are always in danger of at the same time promoting antisemitism. The same resentments, the same sordid politics and racist rhetoric, come into play for both. Sarkozy, by dirtying the Gaullist tradition with Le-Pen-iste rhetoric, is creating an atmosphere of intolerance in France that may not be entirely unrelated to the murders of innocent children and a man of God in Toulouse." [15]

## Libyan war[edit]

Bernard Henri Levy, a friend of Sarkozy since 1983 but with an extremely complicated relationship, is the man who, some consider, waged a war in Libya. Lévy, 62 (born in Algeria in 1948, to a wealthy Sephardi Jewish family), a Zionist French philosopher is the man behind the French and American War on Libya... After persuading Sarkozy, Mr. Lévy, gives Mr. Sarkozy sole credit for persuading London, Washington and others to support intervention in Libya.[16]

Two French lawyers said they planned to initiate legal proceedings against French President Nicolas Sarkozy for crimes against humanity over the NATO-led military campaign in Libya... Dumas, a former French minister, said "the NATO mission, which was meant to protect civilians, was in fact killing them." [17]

> If Sarkozy hoped intervening in Libya and the Côte d'Ivoire would boost his popularity, it has backfired. He is now by far the most unpopular president in the history of France’s Fifth Republic, according to opinion polls. Sarkozy’s Napoleonic ambitions backfire.

At the end of the "peace" intervention thousands of innocent Libyans died under the NATO bombing. Gaddafi was murdered in cold blood. Obama, Cameron, Sarkozy to Resign for Executing Gaddafi and Bombing Libya.

## See also[edit]

* List of French Presidents

## External links[edit]

* Profile: Nicolas Sarkozy.
* France’s goals in Libya hit a little closer to home. by Anne Applebaum.
* French 'anti-Gypsy policy' denounced by European parliament.
* Libya: NATO's worst crime.

## References[edit]

1. ↑ "Sarkozy vs. Royal", The Washington Times Online
2. ↑ http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/le-pen-brands-sarkozy-as-scum/story-e6frg6so-1111113355628
3. ↑ Nicolas Sarkozy’s Jewish Heritage.
4. ↑ France’s goals in Libya hit a little closer to home.
5. ↑ Nicolas Sarkozy's Biography
6. ↑ Elaine Sciolino, "French president and ex-model wed, quietly," International Herald Tribune 3 Feb. 2008.
7. ↑ "France - The News From France", About.com
8. ↑ "Troubled Suburbs Rally to Stop Sarkozy", The Guardian Online
9. ↑ Ibidem
10. ↑ Sarkozy, Israel and the Jews.
11. ↑ He was accused of racism for ordering closure of 300 illegal gypsy camps and expulsion of Roma after riot.
12. ↑ French President Nicolas Sarkozy, 'too many foreigners in France'.
13. ↑ Sarkozy ally convicted of racist slur on Arabs
14. ↑ Ibidem
15. ↑ Is Anti-Immigrant, Islamophobic Campaign Rhetoric fomenting Antisemitism in France?
16. ↑ B.H. Levy: the man who waged a War in Libya.
17. ↑ French lawyers plan Libya lawsuit against Sarkozy.

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Presidents of France

Charles de Gaulle • Georges Pompidou • Valéry Giscard d’Estaing • François Mitterrand • Jacques Chirac • Nicolas Sarkozy • François Hollande • Emmanuel Macron