What happened next is the subject of a very readable new study by Nick Hewlett (The Sarkozy Phenomenon, Imprint Academic, £8.95). Sarkozy is certainly no ordinary politician and no ordinary President of the Republic. The son of a Hungarian immigrant, he has none of the cultured tastes displayed by Mitterrand or Chirac. He unashamedly surrounds himself with France's wealthy business elite, famously holidaying on the luxury yacht of one of his friends after his election victory. Not for nothing is he known as President Bling-Bling. His personal life is colourful in the extreme. Following scenes worthy of a soap opera he separated from his second wife shortly after taking office and, somehow or other, managed to catch his third, the seductive Carla Bruni. Sarkozy's powerbase remains the wealthy suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, to the west of Paris, and it was from there that he set out on a political career that eventually led to his takeover of the dominant party of the Right, the UMP (Union pour un Mouvement Populaire), created by his rival Jacques Chirac in 2002. Enemies have been dispatched with ruthless efficiency.

To capture a style that is at once populist and progressive, autocratic and conservative, Hewlett argues that Sarkozy might best be seen as a latter-day example of Bonapartism. The same was said of Charles de Gaulle. The beauty of this is that it allows Hewlett to suggest that the function of Sarkozy is to drive forward reforms demanded by France's business and financial elite. If only politics were so simple. It also encourages him — in the idiom of Karl Marx — to imply that Sarkozy is a grotesque mediocrity playing a hero's part. Many of the opponents of France's Second Empire, including Marx, made a similar mistake when underestimating Napoleon III.

Where there can be no doubt is that Sarkozy sees himself as making a decisive break with the recent past. His electoral campaign was littered with references to rupture and the need for action. The authority of the State was to be restored. People were to be allowed to work more in order to earn more. Personal integrity was to be placed at the heart of politics. The intellectual and moral legacy of May 1968 was to be overthrown. France was to recover its sense of national identity and faith in the future. 

As Hewlett shows, to turn these slogans into reality, Sarkozy adopted decidedly     unorthodox strategies. He began by offering a series of high-profile posts to members of the mainstream Left. Bernard Kouchner, former Minister of Health in the government of Lionel Jospin, was only one of the well-known recipients. Breaking with the patriarchal mould of French politics, positions in government were found for women from ethnic minorities (though Sarkozy quickly fell out with Rachida Dati, his controversial Justice Minister). Opponents were disorientated and overwhelmed by the sheer number and range of reforms that were put forward in rapid succession. Compromises were often made but the reforms went through and the government was not derailed by demonstrations in the street or, as it turned out, in the school classroom. Legislation raising the retirement age and harmonising pension provisions between the public and private sectors was passed despite vociferous complaint from the powerful and self-interested public sector unions. 

Sarkozy has also made use of the media in a more systematic and extensive manner than any previous French president. Drawing upon his many friendships in television and publishing, not only has he willingly embraced the demands of a celebrity culture — photos of a bronzed Sarkozy on the beach being a regular summer feature — but also he has not been above attempts to intimidate his critics in the press (threatening, we are told, to punch one disrespectful journalist in the face). In effect, Sarkozy has turned his presidency into one long election campaign.