An interesting profile of M. Sarkozy in the New Yorker, by Adam Gopnik, who lived in Paris as their correspondent between 1995 and 2000, publishing a collection of essays about life in the city “Paris to the Moon”. Well-worth reading, this profile provides a balanced, intelligent view aimed at the American market avid to learn about the man. Gopnik picks up on an aspect already aired on this blog by ange-scalpel: Sarkozy’s bonapartism – less to do with the Bonaparte featured on the Economist cover back in May, more to do with that man’s nephew. “His rule was by turns statist and entrepreneurial…… with features that set it apart from monarchism or Republicanism or the monarchical-republican hybrid of Gaullism: where those are essentially conservative in rhetoric and rural by ritual, appealing to la France profonde and insisting on continuity even as change takes place, Bonapartism is deliberately disruptive, urban, friendly to large capital, desperate for reform. Nostalgia for an organic, agrarian past has become a left-wing conceit now.” That seems to me to be a useful addition to the debate.

Adam Gopnik also usefully dispels various myths about the new president: that he is 100% Blairite (which apparently many Parisians assume), or “staunchly pro-American, pro-market and sympathetic to the Republican agenda” (apparently a far-right American fantasy). He also reminds us that Sarkozy’s election was not the landslide victory some are starting to imagine (implying his grip may be less secure than some would like). On the other hand, it’s a shame he makes the unnecessary generalisation about “short, ambitious men adoring beautiful women who are taller than they are”, even though in Sarkozy’s case it may be true. I gather Yasmina Reza also bangs on about his smallness of size.

But Adam Gopnik does make a neat writer’s connection between the 1993 Human Bomb episode (see my profile of Sarkozy in the July 2004 Prospect) and Sarkozy’s growing skill at “de-fusing” potential human bombs like DSK and George W. Bush. A shame Gopnik doesn’t dig a little deeper into that (purely journalistic) metaphor: when, in 1993, Sarkozy was alone with the Human Bomb, negotiating in desperation for the lives of the 11 children held hostage, he presumably made him all sorts of promises of safe-conduct, reparation etc. None of which were kept – as soon as the 11 children were safe, the gendarmes finished off their wretched captor in circumstances still not explained. Presumably the young, untried Sarkozy knew, even as he made them, that the promises would not be honoured. Thankfully in that circumstance they were effective, but hot air nevertheless. He has always been supremely convincing.

Gopnik’s remarks about Kouchner and DSK, on the other hand, are off-beam: they were not “the two most potent politicians in the Socialist Party”, and I doubt very much that DSK “could likely have won the election for the left”. When it comes to the Iraq war, Adam Gopnik has been over-taken by events - one of the perennial problems of writing about a man as speedy and unpredictable as Sarkozy for a major magazine. I have to get my copy for Prospect filed two weeks before publication, which often leaves traces of egg on my face.

Digging through my old notes I find that for years every article in the French press about Sarkozy’s character had an obligatory paragraph on the treacherous nature of the man. In those distant days it seemed de rigeur to emphasise his treachery towards his two powerful mentors Pasqua and Chirac. “Treachery,” Nicolas Domenach, editor of Marianne, told me, “is part of the custom and usage of our democratic monarchy.” Since Sarkozy’s election, however, that aspect of his character is no longer mentioned in any of the growing number of profiles written about him. I wonder why.

I also found this Sarkozy quote: “I admire the seamless organisation of Disneyland. No vulgarity, just marvels every second….” Could this be his model for running the country?

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