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The sin of Nicolas I By Daniel Ben-Simon Tags: nicolas sarkozy, france The French are willing to forgive President Nicolas Sarkozy many sins, but not this: the sleaziness he brought to the most important and lofty position in the land. True, he failed to fulfill the promises he scattered like sand on the seashore; true, he shattered the hopes of the common citizen; true, he has yet to begin the task of fixing the country; and true, he has not brought the French economy to a better place. But neither were his predecessors noteworthy for fulfilling promises. When Jacques Chirac was elected to his second presidential term in the spring of 2002, the French did not go wild with excitement, nor expect too much of him. There were many at the time who were horrified at the threat of the xenophobic Jean-Marie Le Pen winning support. To stop him, they kept Chirac in office. Sarkozy was seen as something different: A politician who spent three frenetic decades preparing himself for this job. After the eternal Chirac left the stage, there was not a more seasoned and experienced politician around than Sarkozy. He was only 52, and yet he had plowed almost every field of public life. In the eyes of the masses, the royal throne was meant for him. When he promised to cure the ills of French society, they believed him and followed him in droves. The peoples' expectations of Sarkozy were enormous. Not for nothing was he compared to Napoleon Bonaparte. Both suffered from a similar combination: shortness of stature and a boundless ego. Napoleon was hailed after his first military victory, and his genius revered. When he appeared at his mother's side, he toned down his excitement. "Long may it continue," she said. Advertisement It didn't continue. For Sarkozy, it didn't even begin. His term as president opened with an exhilaration that France had not known for decades. Armed with an unprecedented electoral majority, Nicolas I took his country by storm, and put forward planned reforms that touched on virtually every area of public life: tax reform, reform of the law courts, reform of the pampered workers' committees, immigration reform and reform of public transportation. These were in addition to the reforms that were meant to extricate France from its economic quagmire and have it march proudly into the select club of the world's leading nations. Above all else, Sarkozy promised to increase the buying power of French citizens in his first year in office. In reality, buying power decreased, sinking the lower classes into a crisis worse than any they had known in years. But that is not the only reason his support has slumped to just 28 percent, a record low since the beginning of the Fifth Republic. Sarkozy mixed matters of state with his own personal problems. No president before him has exposed his family secrets so publicly. The French, who maintain an absolute distinction between private and public life, were mortified. A cheap pulp-novel romance, conducted by the president of the republic, unfolds before their very eyes, with all its peaks and troughs. Look, he and Cecilia have made up; now they've broken up again; now they're back together; they're heading for divorce; he begs her not to leave him; now they're divorced; and he meets a top model; soon he proposes to her; he takes a romantic holiday with her; he chooses the same route that Cecilia traveled with her lover; now he and Carla are married; he places on her finger a ring similar to the one he once gave Cecilia. And all of this in less than three months. The French were not able to forgive him for that: a president that plays the leading role in a cheap romance novel while his country wallows in an economic crisis that threatens to undermine all future reforms. But mostly their anger burns because of the debasement of his station. If his advisors had referred him to the fascinating research of German-Jewish historian Ernst Kantorowicz, he would have learned that what is permissible for the common man is forbidden for the leader. The king has a divine and an earthly body, wrote Kantorowicz. The divine one is the one that endows him with the people's favor. Herein lies Sarkozy's greatest transgression. He committed the sins of ordinary people and behaved like the masses. But what ordinary mortals may do, a leader may not. The French will not forgive him for sitting on the throne of kings and behaving like a bimbo. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Obscene gestures Alleged 'Heil Hitler' comment lands German lawyer Horst Mahler in court AMOS-3 video Israel's sophisticated new communications satellite launched into orbit.

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