Before his presidency, he was leader of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP). Under Jacques Chirac's presidency he served as Minister of the Interior in Jean-Pierre Raffarin's (UMP) first two governments (from May 2002 to March 2004), then was appointed Minister of Finances in Raffarin's last government (March 2004 to May 2005) and again Minister of the Interior in Dominique de Villepin's government (2005–2007).
Sarkozy was also president of the General council of the Hauts-de-Seine department from 2004 to 2007 and mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine, one of the wealthiest communes of France from 1983 to 2002. He was Minister of the Budget in the government of Édouard Balladur (RPR, predecessor of the UMP) during François Mitterrand's last term.
Sarkozy is known for wanting to revitalize the French economy. In foreign affairs he has promised a strengthening of the entente cordiale with the United Kingdom and closer cooperation with the United States. He married singer-songwriter Carla Bruni on 2 February 2008 at the Élysée Palace in Paris.
In his first three years in office, Sarkozy has cut taxes on the rich, loosened labor laws to water down the 35-hour week introduced by a former Socialist government and introduced a landmark pensions reform to raise the retirement age to 62 from 60 by 2018.
On the international stage, he improved relations with the United States, returning French forces to NATO's military command in 2009 in a move that reversed President Charles de Gaulle's 1966 decision. He negotiated a cease-fire in a brief war between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia in 2008 when France held the rotating presidency of the European Union.
He also used the EU presidency at the height of the global financial crisis to press for the creation of G20 summits, expanding the world's economic leadership forum, and for pan-European banking supervision, financial regulation and economic policy coordination among euro zone member states.
Sarkozy campaigned for office promoting a strong work ethic with the slogan "work more to earn more," comfortably beating Socialist candidate Segolene Royal by 53 to 47 percent.
He adopted a more anti-capitalist tone after the global financial crisis began in 2008, vowing to punish speculators and advocating a strong state role in the economy.
Before he was elected president, Sarkozy served as a tough-talking law-and-order interior minister in 2002-04 and 2005-07, separated by a period as finance minister in 2004-05. He won control of the governing center-right UMP party in 2004.
-- A precocious political talent, Sarkozy became mayor of the wealthy Paris suburb of Neuilly in 1983 and made it his power base. He gained national attention in 1993 by offering himself as a hostage to help save the lives of nursery school children taken hostage in his district by a man known as "Human Bomb," who was shot dead by police after a two-day siege.
He became the right-hand man of Prime Minister Edouard Balladur in 1993-95, serving as budget minister and spokesman of Balladur's unsuccessful presidential campaign. That earned him the enduring hostility and suspicion of Gaullist Jacques Chirac, who was president from 1995 to 2007.
Born in the Paris suburb of Neuilly on Jan. 28, 1955, son of a Hungarian father and a French mother of Greek Jewish origin, who divorced in 1960, he was raised a Roman Catholic. He studied law and politics and qualified as a lawyer. In 2007, he divorced his second wife Cecilia Ciganer-Albeniz -- whom he met when he officiated at her wedding and married Italian-born singer and model Carla Bruni in 2008.
Personal life
Sarkozy has been married three times. His married his first wife, Marie-Dominique Culioli, in 1982. They had two sons, Pierre and Jean. Pierre is now a hip-hop producer and Jean is a politician in the city of Neuilly-sur-Seine. Sarkozy and Culioli divorced in 1996. He met Cécilia María Sara Isabel Ciganer-Albéniz, a former fashion model, when he officiated at her wedding in 1984. She left her husband for Sarkozy in 1988 and the pair married shortly after his divorce in 1996. They had one son, Louis. Among accusations of infidelity on both sides, she served only five months as France's first lady before they divorced. Less than four months later, Sarkozy married Carla Bruni, an Italian-French singer and former model. As of this writing, they are expecting a child together.
Political affiliation
Sarkozy was a member of the Rally for the Republic party, a right-wing party founded in 1976 by Jacques Chirac to defend Gaullist identity. It was dissolved in 2002 with its merger into the Union for a Popular Movement, a center-right party opposite the other major political party, the Socialist Party. Through his presidency his party has had ups and downs in municipal and cantonal elections and seen strains with centrists in the coalition.
Career
Sarkozy was a lawyer specializing in business and family law before going into politics full time. At age 23, he sat on the city council of Neuilly-sur-Seine. In 1983, at the age of 28, he was elected as the youngest mayor in France when he took the helm at Neuilly. He would continue to be mayor until 2002, and gained media attention in 1993 for negotiating with a man who had taken a nursery school hostage in the town. He became a member of the National Assembly in 1988. Sarkozy, who had been viewed by many as a Jacques Chirac protege, became budget minister in 1993. After Chirac's 2002 re-election, he appointed Sarkozy interior minister. He would serve in this position from 2002 to 2007. In 2004, he became head of the ruling UMP party and also finance minister. Polls around this time called him the most divisive politician in France.
Future
Sarkozy rules France at a time when immigration and terrorism are key issues, as well as keeping the French economy from heading downward to the same fate as some of his EU allies. Despite his support of a ban on Islamic veils (niqab), Sarkozy has encouraged relations with France's growing Muslim community and eased mosque funding over his career. Sarkozy is more pro-U.S. and pro-Israel than his predecessors, and has brought the country into a position of greater military authority with, for one, the country's leadership role in the NATO assistance of Libyan rebels. His personal life and brashness continue to be the stuff of tabloids. Sarkozy is eligible to run for a second term in 2012, where he'll face another challenge from Socialists including Segolene Royal and possibly Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who appeared to be out of the running when facing sexual assault charges in New York but had those charges against him dismissed.
Quots
“What is dangerous is not minarets, but basements and garages that hide clandestine places of worship. Thus we must choose between mosques, where we know that the rules of the republic are respected, and secret places where extremism has been developing for too long."
All about: Carla Bruni, Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel, David Cameron. Silvio Berlusconi
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