Sarkozy channeling Napoleon as president of France -The iPINIONS Journal

Even though I endorsed his opponent, Segolene Royal, I admired the way Nicolas Sarkozy maneuvered his way through France’s notorious political caste system to become president of France. After all, he had neither the family nor the academic background of a would-be president.

But I soon realized that what made the diminutive Sarkozy so successful was his Napoleonic determination to overcompensate for his abiding inferiority complex(es):

What made me who I am now is the sum of all the humiliations suffered during childhood [at the hands of his more privileged classmates]

(Nicolas Sarkozy)

And it was not long into his presidency before he began acting imperiously – like his emotional namesake. In fact, here’s how I commented on one of his Napoleonic fits in August 2007, just three months after his election:

I was a little dismayed when I read about the international incident he caused on Sunday afternoon. Because Sarkozy assaulted two photographers from the Associated Press who were trying to capture money shots of him sun bathing on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire…

[M]ost Americans would understand this kind of outrage if he were charging after them for taking topless photos of his wife (or his mistress as the case might be). But the notion of any man throwing this kind of hissy fit over being photographed is as unseemly as it is incomprehensible.

[Sarkozy throws a Napoleonic fit on US vacation, TIJ, August 7, 2007]

Now comes word that he’s bestowing nepotistic favors on his family that would make even Emperor Napoleon blush. Specifically, he has reportedly appointed his 23-year-old son Jean (whose poor grades are forcing him to repeat his second year of undergraduate law studies) as chairman of EPAD, the development agency that administers one of the wealthiest business districts in Paris.

(To appreciate how truly galling this is, just imagine President Bush having the imperial balls to appoint one of his daughters as chairman of the National Endowment of the Arts….)

More to the point, it seems Sarkozy’s inferiority complex is every bit as acute today as it was when he was in high school. Because here’s how he dismissed those who dared to criticize this royal appointment during a speech “in praise of France’s egalitarian tradition” before a group of high-school students:

It is never right for someone to be thrown to the wolves without reason… Napoleon Bonaparte rendered France a great service in ending the privilege of birth. That means that what counts in success in France is not being well-born, it is to have worked hard and proved by one’s studies and worth.

The naked and self-incriminating irony here is too painfully obvious for much comment. Frankly, this makes the imperial cluelessness Marie Antoinette exhibited with her infamous “let them eat cake” seem, well, egalitarian.