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

Conclusion
Neo-Bonapartism? A parallel between Nicolas Sarkozy and Napoleon III
“You feel the advent of what Sarkozy is the name of as a blow struck by something, the no
doubt disgusting something of which Sarkozy is the servant (…).
What we are looking for is an ethic, a provisional ethic to avoid becoming either depressed
or rats in Sarkozy’s heavy weather. We want to know how to be dignified, virtuous,
guardians of the future of truths, during this bad patch”
Alain Badiou, The Meaning Of Sarkozy, 2008
Is it legitimate and academically sound to establish a parallel between Nicolas Sarkozy and
Louis Napoleon Bonaparte?
The Saint-Augustine Church in Paris still awaits the repatriation of the ashes of the last
monarch of France -Louis Napoleon Bonaparte- to the majestic vault engraved by the blue
imperial eagle the emperor choose as his last residence. Christian Estrosi’s 2010’s book (Le
Roman de Napoleon III) dedicated to the glory of the engineer of his city’s re-attachment to
France (Nice) revealed that the British authorities provided a positive answer to his 2007’s
query. At that time, the minister of the Overseas Territories and mayor of Nice was entrusted
by the freshly-elected president in person of negotiating the return of the late Bonapartist’s
remains. Now the repatriation procedure is at its last bureaucratic step that is: imminent.
However, Sarkozy did not await the “physical” return of Bonapartism: in his usual eagerness of
getting things done, he proceeded since the early times of his presidency to a “spiritual” revival
of the French Right-wing tradition rooted in the Bonapartist framework. Accordingly, Napoleon
III will certainly be pleased to return back to a country he left politically defeated but where
now his political tradition was so forcefully campaigned for and imposed by the current head of
state. Yet, he might be deceived by the non-pronunciation of his political ideology as such:
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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