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

Neo-Bonapartism? A parallel between Nicolas Sarkozy and Napoleon III
denounced an “unbearable mark of media allegiance to the political power”(2006) while
relating the firing of Alain Génestar, director of Paris Match, because he published a cover story
showing Cecilia Sarkozy with her lover in Paris streets in June 2006. Infuriated, Sarkozy
interrupted his friend’s – Laguardère – holidays in the Bahamas, urging him to return back to
Paris to “handle this impertinence”(Dély & Hassoux, 2008). Actually and as rightly pointed out
by Bénilde during the 2007 presidential race, the will of controlling the media is quite usual
from a politician; what is more puzzling is the self-enslavement of the community of media
owners which she identified as caused by their “overestimation of his politics during their
coverage of its candidacy which make them occult his ministerial failures, and mainly the
eradication of violence, that increased of 12% between 2002 and 2006” (2007). Be it self-
censorship or presidential interference, media control in France’s Sarkozy gave rise to a broad
wave of protests emanating either from professionals like Gozlan, a Marianne editorialist who
declared that Sarkozy is “really a danger for the freedom of expression and critical sense; it
means there is a kind of court around him; it’s the first time we see such a phenomenon” (Kirby,
2010) or from politicians such as Arnaud Montebourg who deplored the fact that the
“mainstream media are becoming markedly concentrated in his (Sarkozy’s) favour” (Willsher,
2010). On that, Sarkozy repeatedly denied any direct interfering in the media sphere, in a time
his spin doctor since the late 1980s, Thierry Saussez, did not contradict this accusation and
declared to the BBC that “the president enjoys keeping the press on its toes” (Kirby, 2008). At
this point, the previously cited Times saying according to which “Louis Bonaparte had put civil
liberties under the heel of his boots” (1907) as reported by Regnault founds some echoes in the
Sarkozy presidency.
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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