The appetite of the former president’s son now extends beyond the small screen, with a book due in April and politics on the horizon.
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Louis Sarkozy, who spent much of his childhood in the United States, plans to take a page out of the playbook of an even more prominent politician: Donald Trump. | Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images
This article is also available in: French
December 14, 2024 4:01 am CET
PARIS — Like father, like son?
Louis Sarkozy, the son of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, is positioning himself to launch a political career after having already made a splash as a conservative TV commentator.
But rather than just emulate his father, Sarkozy, who spent much of his childhood in the United States, plans to take a page out of the playbook of an even more prominent politician: Donald Trump.
The 27-year-old has made it clear in recent weeks that a strategy like Trump’s, fusing a campaign focused on a no-holds-barred approach to immigration with bold rhetoric, could find a receptive audience in France given the Republican candidate’s success siphoning Black, Latino and female voters from the Democratic party.
“The Muslim vote, in particular, offers an opportunity, as this population is often more conservative and at odds with the sexual wokeism of the left,” Sarkozy wrote on a Belgian news website that had just made him its star columnist.
On Saturday, Sarkozy will enjoy something of a coming-out party. He is to be the guest of honor at the Paris Christmas party of the Jeunes Républicains, the youth wing of his father’s political party, Les Républicains. Organizers have been widely promoting his appearance.
But while Sarkozy has gained attention among the right’s young intelligentsia, he’s yet to prove to the old guard that he is a natural leader.
Behind the scenes, Sarkozy has already been building connections with key figures on the French right, including outgoing Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, signaling his ambition for a future in politics, several political operators familiar with his plans told POLITICO.
He met with Retailleau last month at the interior ministry, during which he was treated to a tour of the building’s private flats where he had lived as a child when his father was interior minister, two people with knowledge of the visit said.
Sarkozy thinks that Retailleau’s tough, yet slightly less inflammatory approach on migration issues will enable the right to return to power as opposed to Bardella’s more inflammatory strategy.
Not that Sarkozy has lost his father’s taste for provocation.
He recently said in a private conversation that “Mohamed must become a French first name. If in four centuries the French are all the color of my coffee, I don’t care … If they drink wine and pay their taxes, we’ll have succeeded.”
The young pundit recently made a name for himself with several high-profile, if somewhat cringy, media appearances.
Today a commentator, tomorrow a candidate?
Sarkozy came into the public eye very young, cheering his father in meetings in the run up to the 2007 presidential election and posing for family pictures on the Élysée palace’s front steps. He then spent some 15 years in the United States after his parents’ high-profile divorce and his mother Cécilia Attias’ remarriage to a New York-based public relations executive. Nicolas Sarkozy went on to remarry model and artist Carla Bruni.
Sarkozy has been a regular commentator on U.S. politics on TV channel LCI since he first appeared there in April, invited by Darius Rochebin, a prominent TV host with whom he shares a passion for French writer Chateaubriand.
Sarkozy also has a passion for Napoleon. His book about the French emperor will be out in April in France.
Louis has since become a polarizing figure, with critics questioning his credibility and ties to TF1, LCI’s parent company, where his godfather, Martin Bouygues, is the main shareholder.
Far from backtracking, Sarkozy is turning the volume up.
In September, he caused some uproar by saying live on air, in reference to Israel’s retaliatory attacks on Hamas and Hezbollah : “Let them all die! Israel is doing the work of humanity here.”
He later called his godfather to apologize for the negative impact on his TV network’s reputation, a person briefed on the call said.
Louis credits his father with a piece of political wisdom he often quotes: “To succeed, you have to come close to ridicule, but you must never fall into it.”
As he balances ambition with provocation, it remains to be seen whether he will transition from commentator to candidate.
