A different take on Sarkozy
To accompany Adam Gopnik’s New Yorker profile of Sarkozy, I am putting up this contribution from ange.scalpel as a self-contained blog. If anyone else wishes to submit a piece I shall be delighted to read and, if it seems intelligently to add to the debate, publish.
ange.scalpel writes:
Since my comments seem to attract a lot of animadversion, let me try to explain. Mind is revealed by actions and by language. Some people find Mr Sarkozy vulgar because he jogs at any occasion, or because his first action when elected was to go for souper fin at Fouquet’s on the Champs Elysées with people, instead of saluting his electors , or because he went on a yacht hired by a billionaire as soon as elected ( I am thinking here of Alain Finkielkraut ’s article in Le Monde in May , “L’état de disgrâce”) . Others find his language vulgar. That is not so new in politics. Back 30 years ago, when people in the US heard Nixon’s language in the Watergate tapes, they were surprised, but we are not surprised today by off the record speech of political men. I do not find Mr Sarkozy vulgar because of all these things, even though they display an evident and unbuttoned nouveau riche style (and Mr Sarkozy would be ill advised to regret that the paparazzi follow him, since he does everything to attract them), nor because I disagree with his political views or actions. I just find vulgar a person who is president of the Republic and who explicitly behaves as if the only important thing were his ego. The book by Mrs Reza, which I confess to know only through the excerpts in the press, seems to me to confirm this. If Mr Sarkozy’s permanent self assertion were simply a “Com” operation and a means of government ( as it obviously is ) I would not find him vulgar. But he actually seems to like to self promote himself and he can’t help it. Some, like Mrs Reza, find it touching and cute, because that reveals a childish, and in her view very moving, desire to be loved. I am unimpressed, because there is as much calculation as sincerity in all this. I do not find saying this insulting or arrogant, unless of course one judges that any disapproval of his political behaviour is an insult or a manifestation of arrogance.
I went to Charles Bremner ’s blog and to articles in the Times about Sarkozy, and I read the French press about his performances. People seem to me quite harsh about him. About the person revealed by Reza’s book, Bremner says : “Ego-mad, ruthless and rather cruel to those around him, Sarkozy in private is everything that we suspected.” So it seems that those who find my comment insulting are quite tender minded.
Tim King adds:
I particularly like the connection between the last words of ange.scalpel’s first paragraph (“some, like Mrs Reza, find it touching and cute, because that reveals a childish, and in her view very moving, desire to be loved”) and the section in Adam Gopnik’s New Yorker profile where he writes about the TV debate just before the second-round election: “Royal harangued Sarkozy for two and a half hours about his weaknesses and flaws as a man and as a politician. This allowed Sarkozy to look wistfully harried and play the one part that he had never had the chance to play before—a sympathetic, erring middle-class French husband being blasted by a furious wife.” Gopnik believes that Sarkozy’s somewhat sheepish look as the “sympathetic, erring middle-class French husband” is what tipped the balance: French voters found it irresistible. Ms Reza seems to say much the same thing. In other words, as soon as things start going wrong at the top, that is the performance we can look forward to.
August 27th, 2007 at 11:21 am
And many people hesitating who to vote for opted for Sarkozy because of Mme Royal’s bullying manner, talking down and constantly interrupting.
They also suspected her anger was faked and, moreover, she lied about government policy for the handicapped.
August 27th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
If Sarkozy seized on the opportunity to act the victim, that would not have been inconsistent with being a bully, of course, if he is indeed one. As Tim King reports it, it sounds as though Sarkozy was able to repeat Reagan’s “There you go again” dismissal of Jimmy Carter.
I’m interested in ange.scalpel’s idea of what is and isn’t vulgar in a President: electorally-oriented politicians, especially in today’s 24-hour media and celebrity-personality-obsessed world, are not likely to find it easy to suppress their ego at the best of times, and those elected with a nation-wide personal mandate will feel every justification for putting their ego at the centre of their thoughts. An argument for a parliamentary system with a figurehead President, perhaps?
August 27th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
Blaise Pascal said: “Le moi est haissable”. But of course, it is impossible for a politician today not to show off his ego, and I agree that it’s difficult ( and possibly dangerous) not to have an ego and almost impossible to hide it completely. In the case of Mr Sarkozy, it is the overinflation and the spread, if I dare say, of his ego over France that I find vulgar. There is no decision which he does not present as his own decision. Even the Prime minister Mr Fillon, has no other ambition than executing his orders. We had an example last night: Mr Sarkozy said that *he* wanted a revision of the penal law in order judge even people who are recognised as not responsible for their acts. So he wants all by himself reform one of the pilars of the penal law. “Nec pluribus impar” was Louis the XIV ’s motto. Was he vulgar in that ? No, because he was a King. Unless one considers that France has become a monarchy, it seems to me to be a category mistake to consider that every decision turns around a single person. When, in addition this person is present everywhere and over reactive. This is, as I understand, to this feature that Charles Bremener refers when he calls him “ego-mad”. A little bit of superego would be useful. But it seems that people like this. As the polls presently report, 71% of the public in France like this style and approves of this egotism. No doubt they would not be very happy with Gordon Brown’s style!
August 28th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
>>No doubt they would not be very happy with Gordon Brown’s style!du moment is what it is precisely because Tony Blair’s me-me-me style had outstayed its welcome: the mood began to turn when there was a famous leak of a document in which he described something as the kind of headline-grabbing initiative with which he should be associated. The Superman style works for a while (may even be necessary for a while), but inevitably there is a reaction against it - and if you’ve made yourself the centre of everything positive, you inevitably attract all the negatives in the end. It’s all too understandable when there’s a strong personal mandate, as in both Blair’s and Sarkozy’s cases, but it will end the same way.
August 28th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Unfortunately I think you’re right - the added factor in France at the moment is that Sarkozy seems determined to do everything himself - not trusting his government. That will probably hasten the over-kill. I am sure that ego and that energy are necessary to kick-start any country, and not bad in themselves, but they are then difficult to put away to get on with the essentially thankless job of running a country.
August 31st, 2007 at 10:13 am
The task of running a country is not just thankless - it calls for thinking things through and paying attention to detail, not least by delegating responsibility. Sarkozy’s weakness may well be that he doesn’t disinguish sufficiently between ‘activity’ and ‘action’. Once again, the cartoon depiction of him as ‘The Roadrunner’ seems to hit it on the head (sorry to repeat this allusion, but it seems to me to be not only engagingly funny, but deeply accurate).