A TV grab taken from French TV channel France 2 on Sunday night shows Sarkozy speaking his interview.
By Clare Byrne, DPA/Paris
Can Nicolas Sarkozy, one of the most polarising figures in modern French politics, who was dumped by voters after just one term as president, reinvent himself as the healer of the fractured French nation?
After just two years spent wandering the political desert following his defeat by Francois Hollande in 2012 the conservative ex-leader announced a comeback bid at the weekend.
The announcement came as no surprise.
“He never went away,” was the reaction of many in France, who pointed to the steady stream of interviews given by the 59-year-old politician over the past two years as proof he was waiting in the wings for his moment.
As far back in June 2013, less than a year after losing the election, Sarkozy was talking up his comeback as something he would have to do “not out of desire” but “out of duty” to save the country from the clutches of the far-right National Front.
The only unknown factors were the how and when. Sarkozy’s lieutenants had suggested he would wait until 2015 before riding back to the rescue in the manner of a General de Gaulle, returning from retirement in 1958 to pull France back from the brink of a civil war.
In the end he settled for a less spectacular return.
Instead of directly announcing a bid for president in 2017 Sarkozy announced his candidacy for the leadership of the centre-right Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) in November.
The UMP leadership has been vacant since May, when Jean-Francois Cope resigned over a scandal involving millions of euros of overspending by Sarkozy’s 2012 re-election campaign.
Sarkozy, who has denied any knowledge of the affair, vowed to end a bout of fierce factional fighting within the party and create a “new and vast gathering that would speak to all the French”.
The party leadership is seen as merely offering him a springboard for the presidency.
In a primetime television interview on Sunday night Sarkozy cast himself as a would-be saviour of both party and country.
“I have never seen such despair, I have never seen such anger, I have never seen such a lack of prospects,” he said, looking pained as he painted the picture of a nation in ruins two years after Hollande came to office.
Given the choice between “the humiliating spectacle we have today and the prospect of total isolation which is that of the National Front”, he had “no choice” but to offer an alternative, he said with a resigned air.
The man who was dubbed Speedy Sarkozy because of his impetuous style admitted to past mistakes.
With age came “wisdom and perspective”, he assured. But there were flashes of the irascible Sarkozy of old when he was pressed about a plethora of judicial cases hanging over him, including charges of corruption in connection with a campaign financing investigation.
“Do you credit me with two brain cells of intelligence? If I had the least thing to blame myself for, would I be putting myself out there in politics?” he demanded to know of the France 2 interviewer.
His claims to have no thought of “revenge” also faltered as he tore into Hollande, accusing him of telling a “litany of lies” and accused the magistrates who had placed him under investigating of trampling his honour.
The broad consensus among the opposition and media was that of a man who had yet to swallow the bitter pill of defeat.
“Two years of purgatory have changed nothing. Nicolas Sarkozy wants power, all the power, that’s the only thing that is certain after his interview,” Le Monde columnist Francoise Fressoz wrote.
For the Sud-Ouest newspaper Sarkozy was “like Napoleon trying to return from the island of Elba” who was staring at a possible Waterloo at the hands of rivals within his own political camp.
They include former prime minister, Bordeaux Mayor Alain Juppe, whom polls show to be France’s favourite politician, and who has already thrown his hat in the ring for president in 2017.
With polls showing nearly two-thirds of voters opposing Sarkozy’s return, the pugilistic ex-president has a hill to climb to win back hearts and minds.
He admitted as much in an interview with Le Journal du Dimanche paper.
“A long walk has begun,” he conceded.
