Talk:Nicolas Sarkozy

man that is sure a seriously an ugly pic i mean can any politicians take good pictures nowadays i wouldnt even let them publish that mess

OK what do you think of the one at [http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Sarkozy]? We could see about the permissions on that one and use it instead... Politicians aren't movie stars, remember...

--Kessler 13:33, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Frenchify

There is no such word in English. It should be something like "Francosize" or "Franconize', or perhaps "Franconise", I am not sure, but definitely not Frenchify. If I did know, I would have changed it.

wouldn't it be "turned French" instead? by the way he acquired French citizenship and his name was officially Frenchified into "Paul Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa" are you sure the accent was kept? This "ö" character is not used in French language (though "ô" & "ë" exist). Considering the French usages (common/traditional way of doing things) I think the character would had been replaced by "o", hence the Minister is known as "Sarkozy". Not using the particle is common in some French noble/bourgeois (bourgeois: particle acquirer) and as nothing to do with "ô". Shame On You 06:02, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Photo

Man, that is one ugly photo for some guy who likes to get in view a lot. Seems to be a trend here, bad photos for politicians.

Obvious reasons for this:

• We don't have access to such people. They are generally behind barriers/reporters/police/bystanders/supporters/opponents. Only accredited journalists and photographers have a chance of getting good photographs, in general. The few Wikipedians that meet high-level politicians for work/official purposes (yes, that happens) don't want to look like "weirdoes" by taking photographs.
• We can't use the photos of accredited photographers, with few exceptions (Agencia Brasil or US government, but not every politician makes top-level official visits to the US or Brazil).
• So we use the photographs on, say, their official parliamentary site or similar. Perhaps the parliament services take these photographs from the same mug shots as the acces badges? David.Monniaux 17:22, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

I had forgotten about the part about copyrights. I happen to live in France, and this guy seems to have his face everywhere, so the example shown on the page seemed subpar to his standards. Didn't mean to ruffle your feathers. Apologies

Oh, my feathers are not ruffled! I'm thinking of simply emailing all major parties and ask for authorized photographs of their leaders. If they refuse, we'll stick with crappy photographs. David.Monniaux 19:14, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Talking about photos from official political party sites... This photo and this one are from u-m-p.org and are far more Sarkozy's style... Exaton 02:46, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Much better foto, this new one on the site... :-)

--Kessler 17:22, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Studies

Overtranslation: I did not know that you could obtain a "bachelor's degree" in France. I guess he obtained a "License", which then could be said to be the equivalent of a "bachelor's degree" in America. Not to confuse with the baccalaureate degree, equivalent to the American high-school diploma, only a lot harder. --WhiteEcho 15:20, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

careful, it's "licence" -- not with an S.--ponyboy 00:50, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Caution

Nicolas Sarkozy is a probable contender for the next presidential election in France. He has attracted much attention from the national and international press, with some evident bias for or against him. This, I think, should incite us to prudence when relating information about him.

I have strived to provide precise factual information, quoting articles in the mainstream press. On some occasions, I have removed vague statements (like things about Sarkozy confronting France's powerful unions), because they do not mean much. David.Monniaux 16:30, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Minister of Interior again in 2005

I hesitate to update the page myself, as David.Monniaux seems to be pretty protective of it (and undoubtedly rightly so), but after President Chirac's official speech at prime time this evening, it is practically official that Sarkozy is Minister of Interior again, in addition to having the honorific title of Minister of State (as already indicated)... Exaton 02:50, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I admit that I'm somewhat protective, because Sarkozy is quite a controversial personality and lots of biased things are written on him in either direction.

So far, Chirac has announced that Sarkozy would be minister of State (honorific title), but his exact attributions are yet unknown — remember that Sarkozy has already been twice in Finances, once in Interior. It is rumored that he is again at Interior, but nothing public is known for sure.

That's why I think we should stick to our current formulation: he's going to be minister of state (sure) and he's rumoured to be in charge of Interior. David.Monniaux 15:44, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Living in France, I can assure you that what with the political situation, with Sarkozy (and his own goals for the 2007 presidential election) battling the new Prime Minister de Villepin (forever a Chirac supporter) for the choice of other ministers et al... There really wasn't ever any doubt on the inside, only from the outside -- it's been as official as it was going to get, because he (Sarkozy) has very simply maneuvered himself into a quasi-Vice Prime Minister position :) Anyway, now it is official, since we're going to be such sticklers : http://www.elysee.fr/elysee/francais/actualites/a_l_elysee/2005/juin/nouveau_gouvernement.30037.html for example. Exaton 20:04, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've added the relevant information. I'm sure there will be discussion about this sentence : His collaborators do not all agree that his return to the government in June of 2005 will help him in this, although it is widely recognised that his position, influence and popularity currently make him the third man at the country's head.. Now, that is perfectly true and neutral. Some excellent editor might want to make it appear more so, however. Exaton 20:04, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Jewish origins

I'm not quite sure that Sarkozy's mother is a Jew. I read she had Jewish origins — but this may simply mean her father was a Jew. David.Monniaux 18:10, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

According to Jewish law, a Jew is someone whose mother was a Jew; there is no dispute about this. However, if only Sarkozy's mother's father was a Jew, then neither she nor her son were Jews by Jewish law. By the way, did Sarkozy's mother have a name? Right now the article makes it appear that the the father was the only parent who had a name, and that the mother was merely an anonymous egg donor. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:12, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

These sources indicate that she is a Greek Jew: [1][2] Jayjg ^(talk) 18:20, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Actually, these sources don't say that his mother was a Jew. I quote: his mother is of Greek-Jewish descent. Being of Jewish descent means being a descendant of Jews — perhaps only from the father line. Deriving from this that she was a Jew is an audacious step.

As for her name, I really don't know.

I see one good method for settling this: how about asking Sarkozy himself? David.Monniaux 18:33, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

In the meantime, I've removed all speculations about Sarkozy being a Jew, because we do not have any source saying his mother was a Jew. David.Monniaux 18:38, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

"Greek-Jewish origin" means Greek Jew in English idiom. I'm restoring it. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:47, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

That's simply not true: it could easily mean that her ancestry was part Greek and part Jewish (Sephardic, Ashkenazi, whatever), with the source of the "parts" unspecified. --Saforrest 23:26, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

First, if his mother is a Jew, then he is a Jew; and she is a Jew if her mother was a Jew. There's no dispute about that. I found a source here [3] but don't know how authoritative it is. Does he say anything about it in his book? The article I found says:

Sarko’s father, Pal Nagy Bosca y Sarkozy, was a Hungarian aristocrat who fled Budapest in 1944, settled in Paris, acquired French citizenship, married a Parisian lady whose father was Greek and mother was Jewish. SlimVirgin 18:51, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

Hem. The "source" quoted is an article that is an obvious editorial piece (with an open anti-French feeling). I would not consider it a source of information. David.Monniaux 19:27, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I agree that it doesn't look particularly authoritative. SlimVirgin 19:41, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

His mother's name seems to be Andrée Mallah. [4] A lot of the stories I'm finding say that Sarkozy refers often to his background, because he wants to stress that he himself has an immigrant background, so he's likely to have mentioned it in his book. I've also found a couple of sources saying that his mother's father was Benedict Mallah from Salonica, who emigrated to France in the early 20th century and converted to Catholicism, but again it's hard to judge how authoritative these sources are. David, do you have a way of e-mailing Sarkozy to ask him? SlimVirgin 19:56, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

Well, Sarkozy is the head of a well known party, with a web site and a surface mail address. On the other hand, in this country, inquiring about one's religion and personal details is often considered to be rude. An alternative should be to read Sarkozy's book (is that the one where he discusses faiths and the republic?). David.Monniaux 05:49, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes, in English it would be Republic, Religions, Hope, and I believe it's a collection of interviews he gave to Thibaut Collin, a philosopher, and Philippe Verdun, a monk. It doesn't seem to have been translated into English based on searching Amazon (U.S., UK, and Canada). SlimVirgin 06:17, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)

"Benedict Mallah" doesn't sound like a very Greek name to me. It should be remembered that, before World War II, Salonica was a city with a (Sephardic) Jewish plurality. Seems plausible that the Mallah's were Sephardic Jews from Salonica. john k 02:55, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The thing is, we so far haven't seen anything saying his mother was a Jew. Serious sources say "of Greek Jewish origins", which is very vague — for instance, the Debrés (Jean-Louis Debré, Michel Debré etc.) are of Jewish origin, yet are not Jews themselves. David.Monniaux 06:32, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think the information brought in by Hardouin (kudos!) settles it all: Nicolas Sarkozy's mother's father was a Jew, but not his mother's mother, and thus his mother is not a Jew, and thus he is not a Jew. (See what I was saying: "Greek-Jewish origins" does not mean "Greek Jew".) David.Monniaux 20:51, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Someone continue adding the category French Jews and Sarkozy to a list of French Jews despite this being 1/4th of his racial ancestry, and none of his cultural or religious background. Can someone help stop this? It is giving off the impression that Sarkozy is Jewish by religion as well.

"However, his grandfather, a Sephardic Jew who converted to Roman Catholicism and married a Roman Catholic woman, was said never to have passed on his own religious roots to his grandchildren, having turned his back on his Jewish roots when he migrated to France in the beginning of the 20th century."

Quotes and such...

• "cozy with big business" - If that's what they say then quotes are in order. Question: does Wiki prefer curly quotes? (And if so, what kind?)
• ...in France. - Cut the sentence because only everything before the dot appears to be a ‘fact’ (quote from article).
• They also state... - this implies that the rest of the sentence is the opinion of the left-wing opposition. The rest of the quotes are therefore unnecessary and can be misinterpreted as ‘sarcasm quotes’ (sorry for the disfortunate term).

Let's all do our best to make this article as neutral as a politics-related article can be! Gambatte! Shinobu 21:33, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Reverting Origins section

I am reverting the Origins section at the beginning of the article, for the sake of chronological order. For the most part, this section is just a translation of the French Wikipedia article, where the Origins section is also at the beginning of the article. The argument that people are more interested in his political career than in his past is a bit fallacious. After all, if people are not interested in the Origins section, they can just skip it. That's why there's a summary table at the beginning of the article, so that people can access directly the section they are most interested in. Also, note that the Origins section is important to understand some key aspects of Nicolas Sarkozy's personality and mentality. Last but not least, this article has already attracted a lot of people wondering about Nicolas Sarkozy being a Jew or not, and surely there will be still more people in the future coming in the article just for that Jewish question. The Origins section answers that Jewish question quite clearly, so I think that's another reason to leave it at the beginning of the article. Hardouin 15:51, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

One option for writing articles is to order things by decreasing importance. This section on origins contains some undoubtedly interesting bits, but also contains some pathos as well as some revelations about Nicolas Sarkozy's father that sound like out of the tabloid press. Indeed, I wonder how much about this is from authoritative sources; whether Nicolas Sarkozy himself acknowledges it; etc. Are Wikipedia readers primarily interested in Paul Sarkozy's philandering? David.Monniaux 16:22, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Decreasing importance is totally POV. Different people may have different ideas about what's important, and what's not. Chronological order, on the other hand, is NPOV. Another NPOV ordering would be reverse chronological order, but so far I have never seen any Wikipedia article adopting reverse chronological order. As for Paul Sarkozy's "philandering", as you call it, it is a word I'm sure many native English speakers don't even know the meaning. If you mean Nicolas Sarkozy father's abandonment of his family, it is certainly important in the sense that it helps understand Nicolas Sarkozy's personality today. I would totally oppose the mention of the father's behavior if it wasn't relevant to understand the son's personality. But in this case it is important.Hardouin 16:35, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"Philandering" is a polite term for "womanizing" or, more vulgarly, "screwing around". Google for "Clinton" and "philandering", you'll be enlightened. :-) David.Monniaux 16:45, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I have lived for many years now in English speaking countries, with only English speaking friends and English speaking relatives around me, and I have never ever heard the word "philandering", not even once. So it must really not be a very frequent word. Hardouin 18:02, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've never heard it spoken. It tends to be used as a kind of hypocritical, polite term... David.Monniaux 18:26, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Also, the sources are not fuzzy as you seem to impply. Quite the contrary, they are public and available to all: official état civil records which show the various marriages of the father, and the books of Nicolas Sarkozy himself, where he talks about his childhood and his family situation. Hardouin 16:35, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Official records certainly don't say Paul Sarkozy was a "Don Juan". Was this information found in a book written by Nicolas Sarkozy, or by "investigative" (i.e. muckracking) journalists?

("Fussy" is not the word I would have used here. "Dubious" is probably better.) David.Monniaux 16:45, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

If you don't like the word Don Juan, feel free to replace it with another word. There are plenty of choices in English: womanizer, woman chaser, Casanova, masher, flirtatious man, etc. Let's not have one tree hiding the forest from our view. The fact remain that this man was a womanizer, and we are not here to libel him, but we are here to explain a family context in which Nicolas Sarkozy grew up (a family context that Nicolas Sarkozy has fully disclosed in his books). Hardouin 18:02, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That's the answer I wanted to hear: Paul Sarkozy's womanizing was explained by Nicolas Sarkozy himself. That makes it worthy of being mentioned on Wikipedia (I would have hesitated if it were material from the trash tabloid press). David.Monniaux 18:26, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

While I think the origins section is probably a bit long, I find it annoying that people are simply reverting back to the older version. There's a lot of information there, and there should at least be discussion here as to why it shouldn't be in the article. If some of it is to be removed, I'd prefer a fine-tuned approach rather than simply reverting to the old version. john k 04:49, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I myself didn't revert to the old version - just moved the section down the article. David.Monniaux 07:20, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Nagy-Bosca

Are you sure about this Nagy-Bosca thing? I mean, the article says the name was originally Nagy-Bocsa, and then Paul changed it to Nagy-Bosca. This sounds strange to me, is the name more French-looking just because he switched the s and the c?--80.98.236.197 20:22, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There was an error. In the French name it is Bocsa, c preceding s, as in Hungarian. I have corrected it. The difference between the Hungarian and the French name is that in the French name there are no more accute accents, and also Sarközy precedes Nagy-Bocsa, and finally "y" was replaced by "de". Hardouin 22:40, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Style

Hi all. I tried to make the article flow a little more smoothly without altering the meaning of the text. I would much appreciate it if someone more knowledgeable would check for me on this. Thanks. Psp 23:07, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Separate article for Paul Sarközy?

I just looked up this article after reading about Mr Sarkozy in the news, and my view as a neutral observer is that the background section is more about his father than himself. His father appears to have lead an interesting life, so perhaps he deserves his own article. --JRawle 13:15, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Paris riots

I appreciate that the article is incredibly informative, which is why I was hesitant about editing - and admittedly, I haven't yet read the article all the way through. I didn't even know who Nicolas Sarkozy was until I saw the recent media coverage of the Paris riots.

Normally Wikipedia is incredibly good for in-depth commentary on recent news events, as is evidenced by this article in The Register. However, I was frustrated about not being able to find anything about the Paris riots until recently. I haven't checked the history of the Paris Riots redirect page - but I know that, for whatever reason, I was struggling to find information at first.

But I did find this article on Nicolas Sarkozy. I thought I'd find out more about his response to the Paris riots - so, rather than reading the whole article, I thought I'd do a Mozilla/Firefox find-as-you-type for the word riot. I didn't find anything. It surprised me that such a long article about Nicolas Sarkozy might not mention the recent riots.

Now I appreciate that there is some controversy over what to call the event - is it a riot, is it civil unrest, is it urban violence? I believe that the discussion to resolve this issue is useful and I don't wish to discourage it. However, the word most commonly splashed over the English media headlines is riot, and I believe that many other people might use CTRL-F or find-as-you-type to try to find the word riot in the Nicolas Sarkozy article.

So, even if we don't actually call it a riot - it is very important that the word riot appears in the article close to any points where the recent unrest is discussed. So I have edited the article accordingly.

I would appreciate it if someone could check that it still conforms to a Neutral Point of View, and make any necessary amendments - but without removing the word riot in the process. Thanks. Squashy 11:30, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Ambitions for the Future

Is it just me or is this section (particurlaly the last paragraph or so) inanely repetetive? It is unnecessary to repeat one politcal observer's opinions twice, as if presenting new information?

Its not new but more importantly its not infomation from any reliable source, someones blog predicting the future isn't worth the paper its not printed on.

I think this section "A political blogger(see [[5]]) predicts a defeat for Nicolas Sarkozy against the socialist candidate in a second round showdown of the next presidential election held in 2007. Julien Tolédano asserts that Sarkozy has no "economical programme at all" and that most of the far-right National Front voters will swing to the left because of the defiance of its leader toward the classical right since the mid-1980s." should be removed as its speculation on the future based on a single opinion.

The whole article seem imbalanced with a large amount of anti Sarkozy material. Certainly doesn't feel neutral POV at allAlci12 11:00, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, removed the bit about the blogger. --RaiderAspect 11:15, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I feel that the article seems to have used negatively charged words instead of the preferable neutral words in describing Sarkozy's views, to the point where it seemed that the negative words were added as an after thought, possibly by another editor. I'd actually try to balance the article myself, but it is very, very late for me.

--4.154.6.244 07:16, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Things missing

• The intense rivalry with Dominique de Villepin.
• The Clearstream affair.
• His reactions to CPE.

David.Monniaux 13:20, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

urban gangsters

"Many of his speeches and interviews are famous for their frankness, humor and plain-spoken character; opponents, however, contend that he uses demeaning language,especially when the epiteths he uses against urban gangsters (notably calling them "racaille," or "scum") are interpreted as targeting youth from poor urban areas in general" this sentence is as pov as it gets. can this be said in more neutral way, without the term urban gangster for example? trueblood 07:49, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Since Sarkozy uses such terms himself, no, not without edulcolouring reality. Rama 20:07, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

i don't think he used the term urban gangsters, also as you can see in the quote from the article above, it was not quoting sarkozy, it used the term as a manner of speach. what is edulcolouring? trueblood 07:21, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

edulcoloring means to whitewash, or to water down.

and i agree, while he does use "racaille" and "voyou" frequently, this is not within a quote. the sentence could certainly use rephrasing, otherwise it comes off as less than neutral (since the article then is throwing around the phrase "urban gangsters"). furthermore, urban is problematic in that it denotes race in a PC (or edulcolored) way. if we want to say that they're not white, we should just say it.

NB: i believe the correct translations are as follows: for racaille = rascal/gangster, and voyou = hood(lum). "hood" covers both well.--ponyboy 01:03, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

recent changes early life

Similar to his maternal grandfather, his father Paul Sarkozy never taught him or his brothers Hungarian, or made any effort to teach them about their ethnic background. Sarkozy says that his father wanted the children to be fully assimilated into French society, considering Hungary too small a country, and, said he, the Hungarian language and culture useless in the modern world. Thus, despite its heterogeneous ethnic origins (50% Hungarian, 25% French, 25% Ottoman Jewish), the Sarkozy family can culturally be described as a mainstream, middle class, Roman Catholic family, albeit one without a father, i found these recent changes badly written and cannot see what sarkozy father's ranting about hungary are doing in this article. this passage needs to be rewritten or deleted trueblood 12:08, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

in fact there is more in this section that i want to delete. this whole analyzing of sarkozy's ambitions being compensation for his youth ... did sarkozy say this himself? otherwise i am going to delete it. trueblood 11:34, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Sarkozy wrote so in several books. Don't delete things before discussing them here in the first place. This article has seen enough of back and forth. Hardouin 16:53, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

how about discussing before adding larger bits. can you come up with a quote and put an exact reference. trueblood 18:19, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

criticisms

This whole section is unsourced, and the whole article is as well. A lot of the crictism reads like a character hit piece. Sep 20 2006

All these events are well-known by anybody follows French news. I agree, though, that the article may lack sources suitable for foreigners. David.Monniaux 20:06, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

What's his position to USA and EG?

What's his position to USA and EG? Did he made any clear comments about that? Greetings GC