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Libération, Aug. 23
Former right-wing French President Nicolas Sarkozy, 61, announced he’s running for the 2017 presidential election. “What is worse is that he may win,” leftist newspaper Libération lamented on its front page. The daily has a point: Socialist President François Hollande faces record unpopularity, making re-election an uphill battle if he plans to contest.
Sarkozy, who was president from 2007 to 2012, made his big announcement on Twitter by publishing a passage from his forthcoming book Tout pour la France (“Everything for France”). “France demands that we give it everything. I felt that I had enough strength to lead this battle at a troubled time in our history,” he wrote.
Sarkozy, who heads the Republican party, had previously said that he wouldn’t run for a second term if he were unseated in 2012. “You will never hear about me again if I am defeated,” he said at the time. But in a book published last January, Sarkozy wrote about mistakes he made in office, a sign that commentators took to mean that he had a change of heart and would contest again.
They were absolutely right.