NANTERRE, France, Oct 23 — The 23-year-old son of French President Nicolas Sarkozy today won a seat on a powerful business district board, staying on track for a high-flying political career despite renouncing a bigger post.
Jean Sarkozy had wanted to run the Epad agency, which manages the La Defense district on the western fringe of Paris, but this caused such a huge outcry that last night he went on television to say he was dropping the bid.
However, he maintained his candidacy for a place on EPAD’s board, and today he was elected by his peers on a council of local representatives from the Hauts-de-Seine administrative district, where La Defense is located.
“It was trying, of course. It’s always trying when you are at the centre of controversy. But that’s life, it forges your character and your determination,” Sarkozy told journalists after the vote in the Paris suburb of Nanterre.
His bid to run Epad had dominated the public debate in France for two weeks, with critics arguing that an undergraduate law student was unqualified to take responsibility for a corporate hub that generates about 10 per cent of French GDP.
Nicolas Sarkozy was accused of abusing his power by making arrangements behind closed doors for his son to take over a strategic post that he himself once held on his way to conquering the French presidency.
The younger Sarkozy, who is blond and taller than his father but has similar self-assurance, said during his television appearance yesterday that he was dropping his candidacy because he wanted to remove any suspicion of nepotism.
Today, he gave a calm and confident performance during the tense debate that preceded the vote, ignoring heckling from left-wing opposition councillors and lacing his speech with carefully worded comments that hinted at a broader meaning.
“I will give up none of my ambitions for this business district,” he said.
Jean Sarkozy entered politics last year when he was elected as an Hauts-de-Seine councillor in Neuilly, a rich suburb near La Defense where his father was mayor for 19 years and which remains a rock-solid power base for the president.
Opinion polls showed a majority of voters opposed the younger Sarkozy’s bid to lead Epad. The plan went down badly among young people in a country with high youth unemployment and where many graduates struggle to find jobs.
Politicians from the ruling centre-right UMP party tried to justify Jean Sarkozy’s ambitions by arguing that he was very talented and had won his legitimacy through the ballot box like any other councillor. — Reuters
Critics responded that getting elected in Neuilly was hardly a feat for someone with his surname and that catapulting Jean to the board of EPAD made a mockery of his father’s claim to support meritocracy and a break with the elitism of the past.
A group of protesters made that point outside the Hauts-de-Seine council headquarters during the vote by dressing up in Ancien Regime costumes and holding banners that likened the president to a king and Jean Sarkozy to his Dauphin.
But the protesters were held at a distance of several hundred metres from the building by dozens of riot police who had cordoned off the entire area and imposed security checks worthy of a visiting head of state.
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