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

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Neo-Bonapartism? A parallel between Nicolas Sarkozy and Napoleon III period; he even escaped (briefly) to the United States in the late 1830s. His successive and aborted early coups (first in Strasbourg in October 1836 and second in Boulogne in August 1840) precipitated his fate. He was consequently imprisoned during eight years by Louis Phillipe’s regime to expurgate his misdemeanors. These desert-crossing periods, identified by Thompson (1955) as “the pretender”s (1831-1840) and “the outlaw”s (1840-1848) periods were not without consequence in the shaping of his soon-to-be-applied ideology. As a matter of fact, these years were devoted to both the refining and the maturing of his political thought; Louis Napoleon was never as prolific in writings, either books (a dozen in total) or newspaper’s columns and articles, as during his struggling years. His most achieved work was by the way the famous Des Idées Napoléoniennes written in jail but published in 1860, more than a decade after his accession to power. The young lawyer Sarkozy was as well far from imagining the turn of events his sudden involvement in politics will hold. Actually, and after a rather « typical » initial political career accelerated by fortuitous yet fruitful encounters, he made a series of political miscalculations that could have costed him presidential horizons. As a matter of fact, and during the presidential election of 1995, he took position for Balladur against his early days’ protector Chirac. He resigned his position of spokesperson of the government in the favor of campaign director of Balladur. The (unexpected- all the polls predicted a comfortable score) defeat of this latter was going to plunge him into a disgrace not only from the newly elected President (who showed by the past a contagious and long-lasting resentment toward his betrayers) but also from the French Right in its entirety who blamed him for both his political treason and his lack of loyalty toward Chirac. This desert-crossing period lasted until the last months of 1998 when A website dedicated to this project is available starting Dec 7 th 2010 at: http://www.aui.ma/personal/~Y.Assaoui/ 6
Neo-Bonapartism? A parallel between Nicolas Sarkozy and Napoleon III the rise of internal divisions within the Right (consequent to the Left victory in the latest regional elections) put him in the political front scene again. This honeymoon was not going to last since in June 1999 his defeat in the European elections sealed a denial from the very voters he was relying on to recover some of his lost legitimacy within the RPR’s (Rassemblement pour la République, ancestor of the UMP dissolved in 2002) ranks. Sarkozy took this defeat personally: during the summer 1999 he officially announced his resignation from French politics. While returning back to his original vocation (lawyer), he launched an incisive era of political writings where, like Napoleon III, he envisaged the headlines of his political thought with hindsight and capitalized upon the lessons he so costly learned to bring into being an enhanced vision of politics. The publication of his book Libre in 2001 and the flattering appraisals it generated, either from his yesterday’s allies within the Right or from the traditionally hostile Left revived his undertaking. The voting-machine Sarkozy was launched; three ministries and five years later, he was to be elected President. To what extent are these cross-centuries interlaced personal settings and accession’s paths responsible in the shaping of this Bonapartist ideology Napoleon III took on to power and Sarkozy is accused of reinstating in modern French politics? If truth been told, and even if the answer to the latter proved that the correlation established did not lead to causation, the real stake remains to academically establish that Sarkozism is in line with the Bonapartist tradition. ***** A website dedicated to this project is available starting Dec 7 th 2010 at: http://www.aui.ma/personal/~Y.Assaoui/ 7
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