Why do french hate sarkozy

RFI is not responsible for the content of external websites. No one would dispute that Nicolas Sarkozy has stamped his considerable personality on the French presidency in a way few other presidents have. On the world stage, he is admired for his energy and ability to take control in a crisis, but also criticised for his abrasive style and tendency to claim credit too readily.

Back at home in France, he is a polarising figure who seems to attract fervent support or passionate rejection, and by , a year after his election, he had plummeted to almost record levels of unpopularity. This is the man who made his name at 28 by becoming one of the youngest-ever French mayors, winning the post in the wealthy Neuilly suburb of Paris in Ten years later, he hit the headlines when a deranged man strapped a bomb to himself and took a class of children hostage in a state-run Neuilly nursery school.

The minister of the interior at the time monitored events from the comfort of his Paris office. Not Mayor Sarkozy. With his trademark hands-on approach, he went straight to the school and personally negotiated with the man who became known as the 'human bomb', finally emerging from the school building with a child in his arms. His supporters say he showed immense personal courage, a cool head in a crisis. His detractors suggest a headline-grabbing stunt.

Nearly twenty years later the drama is rarely mentioned but it was an early illustration of pure Sarkozy — and many conclude that he is at his best in a crisis. Even his critics applauded his handling of the recent tragedies in Toulouse and Montauban. He was later budget minister, minister of finance and interior minister, and with each job he dealt with situations head-on and rarely shied away from a challenge.

But the same direct approach has caused him huge image problems. Many French people loathe what they see as his self-promoting style and even worse, feel that he has compromised the office of the presidency. Some commentators insist Sarkozy badly misunderstood the French people when he took office in He also made his private life a matter of choice for tabloids. He was a terrible ambassador for the French reputation. What do you expect from Hollande?

I voted against Sarkozy. I hope he'll keep a low profile, govern in a more dignified way. What did you hate most about Sarkozy? His arrogance. What made you most upset with him? What do you expect from the next five years with Hollande? We were really pissed off with Sarkozy. Why do you hate Sarkozy? Those schools are full of inexperienced people, whereas it should be the opposite. Do you have hope for our new president? Sarkozy really fucking messed up everywhere, especially with the teachers, and I really hope that Hollande will fix it.

What are you up to? I am here by chance. Are you worried about your future? I am, yeah, a bit. For the right-wing lawyer and polemicist Gilles-William Goldnadel, the roots of the anti-Sarkozism lie in a public culture still in thrall to the allure of the left.

He says the real reason people dislike the president is not "Fouquet's or bling-bling or all that nonsense. It's because he broke the rules of how to be president.

And since then all presidents, of left and right, have been happy to go along with that. I want to be like a football coach. For Bercoff, the other reason why the president is loathed is that he has told the French some inconvenient truths. Look at the success of far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon. Ferjou, Goldnadel and Bercoff all believe that Sarkozy has already lost the election, and that the prevailing anti-Sarkozism is a major cause.

But at Sorbonne University, sociology professor Michel Maffesoli is not so sure. He agrees that Sarkozy is the butt of an official culture whose exponents in the media, universities and the arts are overwhelmingly hostile. But he draws a distinction between published opinion - the views of the intelligentsia - and public opinion.

And with the mass of the population, he argues, the president has far more of a rapport than is ever acknowledged. He is far more in phase with ordinary people than are the intellectuals who govern public life.