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

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Neo-Bonapartism? A parallel between Nicolas Sarkozy and Napoleon III entire book is dedicated to the Rich friends of the president. Renaud Dély and Didier Hassoux explain that Sarkozy’s flirting with powerful and influent friends is not a novelty but rather a long-term process started since he was elected mayor of Neuilly. Accordingly, influential and extremely wealthy people such as “Martin Bouygues (CEO of the Bouygues Group, salary of 2,4 millions Euros per year, 21 st fortune of France), Bernard Arnault (owner of the LVMH Group, 1 st fortune of France with 23 billion Euros), Arnaud Lagardère (owner of the Laguardere holding, personal fortune estimated to 314 million Euros), François Pinault (businessman, 7 th French fortune), Jean-Claude Decaux (fortune of 3256 million Euros in 2010), Daniel Bouton, Edouard de Rotschild, Vincent Bolloré, and Alain Minc” (Dély & Hassoux, 2008) are closely related to him; Martin Bouygues is nothing less than the godfather of his son Louis, while Bernard Arnaud is one of his best clients (he defended his interests as a lawyer) for example. The red line was crossed between the personal and professional circles of the president more than once as pointed out by The Economist while denouncing “the appointing of rich friends to prominent business jobs” (2010). The publication cites three controversial appointments, and namely: Francois Perol as head of the BCPE (the second largest banking group in France), Stéphane Richard at France Telecom (the largest telecommunications company in the country), and finally Henri Proglio at EDF (Electricité de France, a firm owned at 85% by the state). The supposedly networking of Nicolas Sarkozy with the affaires milieu extends to his own family, with the harsh reception of his son’s candidacy to the EPAD (cf chapter I), and more recently a scandal revealed by an information website. As a matter of fact, the 14 th of October, Médiapart unveiled the fact that the pensions’ reforms is going to benefit the “Malakoff Médéric” giant, whose CEO is the president’s brother, Guillaume Sarkozy (Le Nouvel Observateur, 2010). A A website dedicated to this project is available starting Dec 7 th 2010 at: http://www.aui.ma/personal/~Y.Assaoui/ 50
Neo-Bonapartism? A parallel between Nicolas Sarkozy and Napoleon III confidential business plan of this insurance company published by Médiapart revealed that Guillaume Sarkozy‘s firm plans to realize huge benefits from this reform (evaluated to 40 to 100 billion Euros). In an overall environment already dominated by the Bétencourt’s scandal (still in court, but dealing with a supposedly illegal financing of Sarkozy’s presidential campaign involving his Labor minister Eric Woerth), the latest revelation of Médiapart is not helping in laundering Sarkozy from the accusation of putting his personal friendships at the mercy of his political agenda and vice versa. Another likeness between the last emperor of France and its latest president is worth highlighting: their magnanimous relation to money. They both relied on the transparent accounting of the money they use vis a vis their electorate with a similarly liberalized relation to it. As rapported by Brézol and Crozière, the emperor addressed to the Belgian l’Indépendance “a long letter detailing the use his civilian list, and stipulated that His Majesty allocated to himself an annual sum of 5 millions of French Francs to be dispensed according to his own wish” (1912). In parallel, one of Sarkozy’s earliest amendments proposed to the Parliament was a personal raise of his annual salary from 101 488 to 240 000 Euros, what corresponds to a pay rise of 140 % as reported by L’Express (2007). In an overall context of crisis, and with “a slumping economy and soaring inflation, this did not help in” getting any sympathy neither from the opposition or the population (Harris, 2008) and was considered as indecent in a country were half of the country barely earns a monthly salary of 1500 Euros. In addition, and as outlined by Matlack and Fouquet, “Sarkozy’s approach to political finance seemed refreshingly different: To prepare A website dedicated to this project is available starting Dec 7 th 2010 at: http://www.aui.ma/personal/~Y.Assaoui/ 51
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