Neo-Bonapartism? A parallel between Nicolas Sarkozy and ...
Neo-Bonapartism? A parallel between Nicolas Sarkozy and ...
Neo-Bonapartism? A parallel between Nicolas Sarkozy and ...
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
<strong>Neo</strong>-<strong>Bonapartism</strong>? A <strong>parallel</strong> <strong>between</strong> <strong>Nicolas</strong> <strong>Sarkozy</strong> <strong>and</strong> Napoleon III<br />
mainly the Muslim community (via the creation of the CFCM: French Council of the Muslim<br />
Cult) as detailed by Baillet (2007).<br />
From the latter, it seems difficult (not to say impossible) to find a populist ground <strong>between</strong> such<br />
different stakeholders. Neither Napoleon III nor <strong>Sarkozy</strong> had to create such a conciliatory<br />
approach: it was France itself who undertook it. As a matter of fact, France in both cases<br />
dreamed of escaping a “fatal period: Terror <strong>and</strong> Directory for the 19 th century France, <strong>and</strong><br />
threats of the economic globalization <strong>and</strong> exasperation of the social tensions for the 21 st century<br />
one: with a two-centuries interval, the stake is to know how <strong>and</strong> with whom to face a world that<br />
seems menacing” (Duhamel, 2009). France in both cases is thorn by its internal divisions, <strong>and</strong> is<br />
consequently eager to the lead of an authoritarian leader whose guidance is likely to erase<br />
decades of disenchantments <strong>and</strong> political disappointments. The France <strong>Sarkozy</strong> inherited from<br />
the successive double m<strong>and</strong>ates of both Mitter<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> Chirac was in need of big changes at the<br />
governance level: it awaited a “president personifying a youthful <strong>and</strong> winning authority, an<br />
unpredictable head of state, with strengths <strong>and</strong> weaknesses, but still a lively, unusual, <strong>and</strong> bold<br />
charismatic president” (Duhamel, 2009).<br />
From this perspective, the Bonapartist winning recipe requires the answering to such<br />
expectations via ambitious political discourses emphasizing even further the societal malaise.<br />
As rightly predicted by Grant few weeks before the presidential race of 2007: “if the French<br />
choose <strong>Sarkozy</strong>, they will be acknowledging that France is in a hell of a mess, <strong>and</strong> that they need<br />
an unusual sort of leader - in this case, a populist with a bit of a Napoleon complex (like the<br />
Corsican, he is a hyper-active, rather authoritarian, diminutive outsider) - to sort it out” (2007).<br />
A website dedicated to this project is available starting Dec 7 th 2010 at: http://www.aui.ma/personal/~Y.Assaoui/<br />
18