96 Facts About Nicolas Sarkozy

Nicolas Paul Stephane Sarkozy de Nagy-Bocsa is a French politician who served as President of France from 2007 to 2012.

Nicolas Sarkozy was the leader of the Union for a Popular Movement party from 2004 to 2007.

Nicolas Sarkozy initiated the reform of French universities and the pension reform.

Nicolas Sarkozy married Italian-French singer-songwriter Carla Bruni in 2008 at the Elysee Palace in Paris.

Nicolas Sarkozy was charged with corruption by French prosecutors in two cases, notably concerning the alleged Libyan interference in the 2007 French elections.

In 2021, Nicolas Sarkozy was convicted of corruption in two separate trials.

In May 2023, Nicolas Sarkozy lost an appeal to his corruption conviction.

Nicolas Sarkozy said that being kept at a distance by his father shaped much of who he is today.

Nicolas Sarkozy has said that, in his early years, he felt inferior in relation to his wealthier and taller classmates.

Nicolas Sarkozy was enrolled in the Lycee Chaptal, a well regarded public middle and high school in Paris' 8th arrondissement, where he failed his sixieme.

Nicolas Sarkozy completed his military service as a part-time Air Force cleaner.

Nicolas Sarkozy married his first wife, Marie-Dominique Culioli, on 23 September 1982; her father was a pharmacist from Vico, her uncle was Achille Peretti, the mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine from 1947 to 1983 and Nicolas Sarkozy's political mentor.

Nicolas Sarkozy divorced Culioli in 1996, after they had been separated for several years.

In 1988, she left her husband for Nicolas Sarkozy, and divorced one year later.

Between 2002 and 2005, the couple often appeared together on public occasions, with Cecilia Nicolas Sarkozy acting as the chief aide for her husband.

Less than a month after separating from Cecilia, Nicolas Sarkozy met Italian-born singer, songwriter and former fashion model Carla Bruni at a dinner party, and soon entered into a relationship with her.

Nicolas Sarkozy is recognized by French parties on both the Right and Left as a skilled politician and striking orator.

From 2004 to 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy was president of the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire, France's major right-wing political party, and he was Minister of the Interior in the government of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, with the honorific title of Minister of State, making him effectively the number three official in the French State after President Jacques Chirac and Villepin.

Nicolas Sarkozy was forced to resign this position in order to accept his ministerial appointment.

Nicolas Sarkozy previously held several ministerial posts, including Finance Minister.

Nicolas Sarkozy had been close to Peretti, as his mother was Peretti's secretary.

In 1993, Nicolas Sarkozy was in the national news for personally negotiating with the "Human Bomb", a man who had taken small children hostages in a kindergarten in Neuilly.

Nicolas Sarkozy's ascent was marked by the division of UMP between sarkozystes, such as Nicolas Sarkozy's "first lieutenant", Brice Hortefeux, and Chirac loyalists, such as Jean-Louis Debre.

Nicolas Sarkozy was made Chevalier de la Legion d'honneur by President Chirac in February 2005.

Nicolas Sarkozy was re-elected on 13 March 2005 to the National Assembly.

On 31 May 2005 the main French news radio station France Info reported a rumour that Nicolas Sarkozy was to be reappointed Minister of the Interior in the government of Dominique de Villepin without resigning from the UMP leadership.

Towards the end of his first term as Minister of the Interior, in 2004, Nicolas Sarkozy was the most divisive conservative politician in France, according to polls conducted at the beginning of 2004.

Nicolas Sarkozy has sought to ease the sometimes tense relationships between the general French population and the Muslim community.

Nicolas Sarkozy supported the foundation in May 2003 of the private non-profit Conseil francais du culte musulman, an organisation meant to be representative of French Muslims.

Nicolas Sarkozy resigned the day following his election as president of the UMP.

Nicolas Sarkozy was accused of having provoked the unrest by calling young delinquents from housing projects a "rabble" in Argenteuil near Paris, and controversially suggested cleansing the minority suburbs with a Karcher.

Nicolas Sarkozy rejects this label of liberal and prefers to call himself a pragmatist.

Nicolas Sarkozy opened another avenue of controversy by declaring that he wanted a reform of the immigration system, with quotas designed to admit the skilled workers needed by the French economy.

Nicolas Sarkozy wanted to reform the current French system for foreign students, saying that it enabled foreign students to take open-ended curricula in order to obtain residency in France; instead, he wanted to select the best students to the best curricula in France.

Nicolas Sarkozy was a likely candidate for the presidency in 2007; in an oft-repeated comment made on television channel France 2, when asked by a journalist whether he thought about the presidential election when he shaved in the morning, Nicolas Sarkozy commented, "Not just when I shave".

On 14 January 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy was chosen by the UMP to be its candidate in the 2007 presidential election.

Nicolas Sarkozy, who was running unopposed, won 98 percent of the votes.

In February 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy appeared on a televised debate on TF1 where he expressed his support for affirmative action and the freedom to work overtime.

Nicolas Sarkozy came in first with 31.18 percent of the votes, ahead of Segolene Royal of the Socialists with 25.87 percent.

On 6 May 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy became the sixth person to be elected President of the Fifth Republic, and the 23rd President in French history.

Nicolas Sarkozy appointed Bernard Kouchner, the left-wing founder of Medecins Sans Frontieres, as his Foreign Minister, leading to Kouchner's expulsion from the Socialist Party.

Nicolas Sarkozy appointed seven women to form a total cabinet of 15; one, Justice Minister Rachida Dati, is the first woman of Northern African origin to serve in a French cabinet.

Nicolas Sarkozy broke with the custom of amnestying traffic tickets and of releasing thousands of prisoners from overcrowded jails on Bastille Day, a tradition that Napoleon had started in 1802 to commemorate the storming of the Bastille during the French Revolution.

In October 2008, Nicolas Sarkozy became the first French President to address the National Assembly of Quebec.

Nicolas Sarkozy said that, to France, Canada was a friend, and Quebec was family.

Shortly after taking office, Nicolas Sarkozy began negotiations with Colombian president Alvaro Uribe and the left-wing guerrilla FARC, regarding the release of hostages held by the rebel group, especially Franco-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt.

On 8 June 2007, during the 33rd G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Nicolas Sarkozy set a goal of reducing French CO2 emissions by 50 percent by 2050 in order to prevent global warming.

Nicolas Sarkozy then pushed forward Socialist Dominique Strauss-Kahn as European nominee to the International Monetary Fund.

Critics alleged that Nicolas Sarkozy proposed to nominate Strauss-Kahn as managing director of the IMF to deprive the Socialist Party of one of its more popular figures.

The Union for a Popular Movement, Nicolas Sarkozy's party, won a majority at the June 2007 legislative election, although by less than expected.

Nicolas Sarkozy was criticised by the European Commission for doing so.

However, as a result of the global financial crisis that came to a head in September 2008, Nicolas Sarkozy has returned to the state interventionism of his predecessors, declaring that "laissez-faire capitalism is over" and denouncing the "dictatorship of the market".

Nicolas Sarkozy's government issued a decree on 7 August 2007 to generalise a voluntary biometric profiling program of travellers in airports.

On 21 July 2008, the French parliament passed constitutional reforms which Nicolas Sarkozy had made one of the key pledges of his presidential campaign.

Nicolas Sarkozy has claimed that these reforms strengthen parliament, while some opposition socialist lawmakers have described it as a "consolidation of a monocracy".

Nicolas Sarkozy wielded special international power when France held the rotating EU Council Presidency from July 2008 through December 2008.

Nicolas Sarkozy has publicly stated his intention to attain EU approval of a progressive energy package before the end of his EU Presidency.

In further support of his collaborative outlook on climate change, Nicolas Sarkozy has led the EU into a partnership with China.

On 3 April 2009, at the NATO Summit in Strasbourg, Nicolas Sarkozy announced that France would offer asylum to a former Guantanamo captive.

On 5 January 2009, Nicolas Sarkozy called for a ceasefire plan for the Gaza Strip Conflict.

In March 2011, after having been criticized for his unwillingness to support the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions, and persuaded by the philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy to have France actively engage against the forces of the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, Nicolas Sarkozy was amongst the first Heads of State to demand the resignation of Gaddafi and his government, which was then fighting a civil war in Libya.

On 10 March 2011, Nicolas Sarkozy welcomed to the Elysee Palace, three emissaries from the Libyan National Transitional Council, brought to him by Bernard-Henri Levy who mediated at the meeting.

Nicolas Sarkozy promised them a no-fly zone would be imposed on Gaddafi's aeroplanes.

On 19 March 2011, Nicolas Sarkozy officially announced the beginning of a military intervention in Libya, with France's participation.

Nicolas Sarkozy was one of ten candidates who qualified for the first round of voting.

Nicolas Sarkozy abandoned his private equity plans when he decided to make a political comeback in 2014.

On 19 September 2014, Nicolas Sarkozy announced that he was returning to politics and would run for chairman of the UMP party.

In January 2016, Nicolas Sarkozy published the book La France pour la vie.

Nicolas Sarkozy decided to endorse Fillon and signaled that he was retiring from politics.

Nicolas Sarkozy was charged with corruption by French prosecutors in two cases, notably concerning the alleged Libyan interference in the 2007 French elections.

At issue for Nicolas Sarkozy were campaign costs exceeding the maximum allowed, and how they were paid.

In 2021, Nicolas Sarkozy was convicted of corruption in two separate trials.

Nicolas Sarkozy is still a force in conservative politics in France.

Nicolas Sarkozy was named the 68th best-dressed person in the world by Vanity Fair, alongside David Beckham and Brad Pitt.

However, Nicolas Sarkozy has been named as the third worst-dressed person in the world by GQ.

In 2009, a worker at a factory where Nicolas Sarkozy gave a speech said she was asked to stand next to him because she was of a similar height to Nicolas Sarkozy.

Nicolas Sarkozy lost a suit against a manufacturer of Nicolas Sarkozy voodoo dolls, in which he claimed that he had a right to his own image.

Nicolas Sarkozy was nicknamed as Hyper-president or hyperpresident by some French media after his 2007 election as president, to describe his desire to control everything.

Whereas in the history of the Fifth Republic, the successive presidents were traditionally focused on the foreign policy of the country and on international relations, leaving the Prime Minister and the government to determine the domestic policy, as the Constitution states it, Nicolas Sarkozy appeared to determine both the foreign and domestic policy.

Nicolas Sarkozy is generally disliked by the left and has been criticised by some on the right, most vocally by moderate Gaullist supporters of Jacques Chirac and Dominique de Villepin.

In 2004 Nicolas Sarkozy co-authored a book, La Republique, les religions, l'esperance, in which he argued that the young should not be brought up solely on secular or republican values.

Nicolas Sarkozy advocated reducing the separation of church and state, arguing for the government subsidies for mosques to encourage Islamic integration into French society.

Nicolas Sarkozy has opposed financing of religious institutions with funds from outside France.

Nicolas Sarkozy was criticized by some after he claimed "the roots of France are essentially Christian" at a December 2007 speech in Rome.

In September 2005 Nicolas Sarkozy was accused of pushing for a hasty inquiry into an arson attack on a police station in Pau, of which the alleged perpetrators were acquitted for lack of proof.

On 22 June 2005 Nicolas Sarkozy told law enforcement officials that he had questioned the Minister of Justice about the future of "the judge" who had freed a man on parole who had later committed a murder.

On 27 July 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy delivered a speech in Dakar, Senegal, written by Henri Guaino, in which he claimed that "the African has never really entered into history".

On 30 July 2010, Nicolas Sarkozy suggested a new policy of security, and he proposed "stripping foreign-born French citizens who opted to acquire their nationality at their majority of their citizenship if they are convicted of threatening the life of a police officer or other serious crimes".

Nicolas Sarkozy called for coercive methods to promote "metissage," cultural mixing, which he called an "obligation" during a press conference on 17 December 2008.

On 23 February 2008, Nicolas Sarkozy was filmed by a reporter for French newspaper Le Parisien having the following exchange while visiting the Paris International Agricultural Show:.

In October 2009, Nicolas Sarkozy was accused of nepotism for helping his son, Jean, try to become head of the public body running France's biggest business district EPAD.

On 1 July 2014 Nicolas Sarkozy was detained for questioning by police over claims he had promised a prestigious role in Monaco to a high-ranking judge, Gilbert Azibert, in exchange for information about the investigation into alleged illegal campaign funding.

On 16 February 2016, Nicolas Sarkozy was indicted on "illegal financing of political campaign" charges related to overspending in his 2012 presidential campaign and retained as witness in connection with the Bygmalion scandal.

On 23 November 2020, the trial of Nicolas Sarkozy started who is accused of corruption and influence peddling, for an attempted bribery of a judge.

Shortly after his inauguration as President of France in 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy invited Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to France over the objections of both the political opposition, and members of his own government.

Djouhri was an associate of Nicolas Sarkozy and had refused to respond to a French judicial summons for questioning over allegations he had helped launder Libyan funds on behalf of Nicolas Sarkozy.