Sarkozy saw his popularity ratings soaring after becoming interior minister in 2002

By Hadi Yahmid, IOL Correspondent

PARIS, December 1 (IslamOnline.net) – When asked what does he want to be  when he grows up, child Nicolas Sarkozy replied right away “the president of this country”. Now outgoing French finance minister Sarkozy, 49, looked set to make his lifetime dream come true.

Sarkozy has taken over earlier in the week leadership of the ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), a concrete step paving a bumpy way for the Elysee Palace in 2007 presidential election.

Winning 85% of the ballots cast by half of the UMP 120,000 members on Sunday, November 28, Sarkozy proved to be the country's most popular politician.

And he made no secret in his acceptance speech about his aspirations to run for the much-coveted post.

He replaced former prime minister Alain Juppe, Chirac's preferred successor who was forced to give up the UMP leadership after being convicted of financial irregularities.

Sarkozy is widely admired by the French people for his vaulting ambition, outspokenness and irresistible charisma.

Hungarian Roots

Born in January 1955 in Paris , Sarkozy is hailing from an aristocratic Hungarian family who fled the communist rule at that time.

Sarkozy’s Hungarian roots, however, were in no way an obstacle to his political ambitions.

In 1977, 22-year-old Sarkozy made is political debut as a dynamic member of the then Republican Popular Movement (now the UMP), thanks to his university degrees in political science and law.

At the age of 28, Sarkozy was catapulted into the limelight becoming the prefect of a Paris suburb and shortly afterwards a Member of Parliament before becoming a minister at the age of 38.

In 2002, Sarkozy was named interior minister in Jane Pierre Raffarin’s cabinet and saw his popularity ratings soaring due to his zero-tolerance policy against organized crime and outlaws.

Enemies of success and destructive criticism were nothing new for Sarkozy, who knew from the very beginning that he was stepping in a wasps’ nest.

Leading newspapers like Liberation have often run front-page articles about the “Sakrophobia” phenomenon sweeping the country’s political landscape.

“A Free Man”

The “Free Man”, as he called himself in his first book, is, in effect, a politician of his own, who never minces words.

He publicly opposed the definition of secularism by the successive French governments and called for amending the “sacred” 1905 secularism law.

Sarkozy have further demanded budge appropriations for worship places, particularly mosques, a demand that was rebuffed by Chirac.

He was one of the staunch supporters for establishing the first French Islamic council in the country and supervised its first election in April 2003.

More and more, he also made reservations at the French law that banned hijab and religious insignia at state schools, drawing diatribes from right-wing politicians that he was trying to “Islamizing” France .

Speaking to the French Muslim Council in October last year, Sarkozy suggested a bandana as a possible alternative to hijab.

Sarkozy also called for integrating immigrants into French society and granting them privileges at places of work and public life like the French.

He further appointed a Muslim man of Algerian descent, Aissa Dermouche, as the prefect of the eastern Jura province, the first time in the history of the northeastern European country.

Sarkozy, however, has jumped on the bandwagon of opposing Turkey’s admission into the expanding 25-nation European Union, noting that he wanted the Muslim country to “associated with” Europe but not “integrated”.

In his party acceptance speech on Sunday, he pledged to remain “free” the way he used to be and bring a wind of change to France if elected president, because the French have got fed up with clichés and exhausted policies.