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Sarkozy shown as power-hungry
24/08/2007 20:22 - (SA)
Paris - An eagerly awaited new book tracing a year in the life of Nicolas Sarkozy shows the French president as a never-resting, power-hungry statesman with a weakness for sweets and luxury watches.
Critics are divided over whether Yasmina Reza's ML'Aube le soir ou la nuit (Dawn in the evening or at night) on Sarkozy's presidential campaign should be labelled a political memoir, a poetic portrait or just a flattering tribute.
Reza, whose play Art has been performed in dozens of countries, has compiled a collection of amusing and mostly harmless anecdotes gathered on the campaign trail in French villages and factories and during meetings with heads of state.
"I support some of his ideas. Others, I profoundly disagree with," Reza told the weekly Le Nouvel Observateur in an interview.
"On the other hand, the politician has left me impressed. I challenge anyone who has met him not to be."
The book, which immediately topped an Amazon bestseller list when it came out on Friday, reveals no political secrets.
'Beautiful Rolex'
Neither does it satisfy those readers who had hoped for juicy details on Sarkozy's widely debated relationship with hi wife Cecilia, whose role has puzzled many French since she helped to end a diplomatic stand-off with Libya last month.
In one anecdote, Reza describes Sarkozy taking a newspaper off her that contained articles on Iran and on himself.
"At the bottom of the page, to the right, an ad. After looking at it for several seconds, he says: 'It's beautiful, that Rolex'," Reza writes.
The book, which frequently relates Sarkozy's appetite for sweets, also says he was less than complimentary about a number of diplomats during a breakfast meeting with foreign experts.
He called the former ambassador to Russia an "idiot" and the one in Lebanon a "moron".
After a meeting with then British prime minister Tony Blair, Reza said Sarkozy told his aides: "Tony and I have made a decision. We're going to conquer Europe."
Sarkozy said on Friday that he had not yet read the book, and as a rule never read books about himself. But commentators said he would probably like it.
"(It) is a pretty book, full of the joy of being there, of astonishment, of life," said the daily Le Point.
Seducing France
"A little literary monument to the glory of an evolving president, who will certainly adore seeing himself in this beautiful mirror."
The left-wing daily Liberation, normally a trenchant critic of the president, called the book a "failed portrait", while Le Monde said it offered "a personal, sidelong, merciless and terribly human view on Nicolas Sarkozy".
Asked by Le Nouvel Observateur whether Sarkozy had tried to seduce her during the year she shadowed him, Reza said:
"No. He wanted to seduce France."
- Reuters
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