For any politician to allow someone full access to them so that they can write an ‘on the campaign trail with’ book is always a risk. It says something about Nicolas Sarkozy’s confidence then, that when the French playwright Yasmina Reza suggested doing this Sarkozy accepted without hesitation. Reza’s account is sympathetic to Sarkozy but also details his impatience and arrogance.
The book also reveals that Sarkozy’s wife was never with him during the election campaign. Inevitably, Reza was asked by the press if Sarkozy had tried to seduce her. Her answer to the question was wonderfully French, as the IHT reports:
“No, he wanted to seduce France.” Then, she added a line that could work well in one of her plays: “It is almost insulting to spend an entire year with a man without him trying to seduce you.”
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