Neo-Bonapartism? A parallel between Nicolas Sarkozy and ...

Neo-Bonapartism? A parallel between Nicolas Sarkozy and Napoleon III
Sarkozy relied on his accomplishments during his ministerial years, and gathered around him
France’s main political parties in a strategic calculation aiming at being consensual, then
representative of the people. As a matter of fact, startling resemblances are to be found
between the two leaders electorates. As explained by Milza, Napoleon III’s electorate is “the
fusion of a natural electorate, the one of the Orleanists, of the Right Wing which needed to
establish order in troubled times, and of popular classes” (2009). For his part, Sarkozy extended
his “natural electorate” to the extreme wings and Center’ voters during the second round of
the 2007’s presidential election to reach his score of 53%: “according to TNS SOFRES polls, 60%
of Le Pen voters supported Sarkozy, along with about 40% of the Bayrou supporters, and the
quasi-totality of De Villiers and Nihous voters” (Cautrès & Cole, 2007). As stated above,
Napoleon III was highly plebiscited in rural zones, and highly contested in big urban centers:
Sarkozy, still quoting Cautrès and Cole, “obtained his best scores mainly in rural or semi-rural
zones, in Alsace and the Mediterranean in particular, (…) and was very dominant in older
segments, and particularly a significant segment of Le Pen voters” (2007). A final criteria needs
to be outlined here to have a comprehensive physiognomy of Sarkozy’s voters: the wealthiest
classes supported him heavily with more than 85% of the expressed suffrages, just like
Napoleon III’s natural support of the privileged who feared the revolutionary will of the
Legitimists.
The social circumstances of the societies that elected Napoleon’s nephew and Sarkozy are here
important to compare. As stated by Garrigou, Louis Napoleon “rallied to him a peasantry that
was distressed by the social crisis of the Second Republic” just like what Sarkozy did when he
called upon the wealthiest, oldest, and mostly-rural profound France; the very “Vieille France”
A website dedicated to this project is available starting Dec 7 th 2010 at: http://www.aui.ma/personal/~Y.Assaoui/
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