After party

PARIS - Throughout our conversation, French philosopher and writer Bernard-Henri Levy was as careful with his words as though they were cluster bombs. In most cases he suggested that I not attribute to him the things he said, to avoid problems with friends, rivals, acquaintances. His friendship with some of them has suffered because of a few words that were said and shouldn't have been, or that were taken out of context.

That is what happened to his close friendship of over 20 years with Nicolas Sarkozy. When asked to name his closest friends, France's president-elect included Levy. Theirs was a highly intimate friendship that did not omit from any of life's pleasures. The two went out on the town together, vacationed together and saw the same women. And then a minor disaster occurred: Sarkozy asked his friend to publicly support his candidacy for the job he wanted more than anything else. Levy hesitated. He has always been a socialist, he has always seen himself as a left-wing intellectual. Although he has frequently criticized the European left and accused it of demonizing Israel, it never occurred to him to abandon it for another camp.

Before replying, Levy discovered that another friend, philosopher Andre Glucksmann, had deserted to Sarkozy's camp. A third friend, philosopher Alain Finkielkraut, declared that Sarkozy was the person most suited to handle the issue of Muslim immigrants in France.

Glucksmann even wrote an article in Le Monde attacking the left and mocking its leadership. Sarkozy pressed his friend again, "Bernard, what about you?" he asked. "We'll see," Levy replied, "I don't want to write any article before deciding."

"And what's your inclination?" Sarkozy asked.

"Nicolas," replied Levy, "I'll be very surprised if I vote for you."

Sarkozy did not conceal his anger, and Levy explained to him that the role of an intellectual is to ask questions before deciding.

A few days later, in February, presidential candidate Segolene Royal phoned. She suggested they meet privately. They had dinner and met several times over the next two months. "I was charmed by her," Levy says. In interviews, he told people to vote for her.

We met in his spacious home on Boulevard Saint-Germain on Monday morning, the day after Sarkozy won the election. On Saturday, Levy was still at his summer home in Tangier, in northern Morocco, working on his 31st book. It will be published this summer. He returned to Paris Saturday night, and on Sunday he appeared before Israeli diplomats at the embassy in the capital.

Levy could not decide how to behave. He considered picking up the phone to his friend, the new president of France, and congratulating him, but Levy was well aware that Sarkozy begrudged his lack of support and failure to vote for him. They first met when Sarkozy was elected mayor of Neuilly, an upscale Parisian suburb, and even then Levy realized that his friend did not like indecision and questions emanating from philosophers of his ilk. He divided the world into those who were with him and those who were against him.

After some consideration he decided to send Sarkozy a letter before flying out to Brazil for an author's tour there and in the United States.

Levy was not surprised that most French Jews voted for Sarkozy, nor was he sorry. It is good that they turned to the right, he thought, and it is good that he has remained on the left. Levy has convinced himself that by staying with the left he can serve as a barrier against the anti- Israeli, even anti-Semitic, tendencies that have begun to take hold in that camp.

He has never refrained from placing Israel and his Jewishness first, and in recent years has defended Israel vehemently in every available media arena. Muslim leaders, led by Swiss philosopher and preacher Tariq Ramadan, have called him an "Israeli agent." Such accusations used to bother Levy, but no longer. With the status he has earned in French society, he feels immune to people who try to harm him or to gain political capital and publicity at his expense.

In the space of only two years, five books have been written about Levy, most of them uncomplimentary. One claimed that his great inherited wealth came from the exploitation of slaves and the destruction of Africa's forests. It was also said that he had withdrawn most of his money from French banks to invest it in those of the Zionist entity.

The books came to his home, but he says he threw them straight into the garbage. That did not prevent a few of them from becoming bestsellers - particularly those that delved into his private life; his relations with women; the gossip surrounding his wife, actress Arielle Dombasle; and his relations with his children from his previous marriage.

Levy's full head of hair and his boyish looks are still his trademarks. He has traded in his open white shirt for a stylish black jacket, also open. He is nearly 60, but still looks like a hedonistic playboy. In fact, he spends most of his time writing books, composing articles published in newspapers the world over and taking trips to embattled regions. The description of his last visit to Darfur appeared in dozens of newspapers world-wide.

His defense of Israel has earned Levy quite a few enemies. He is often greeted with curses and condemnations when he goes to a restaurant or a cafe. A few days ago, at Charles de Gaulle Airport, a French Muslim approached him and spat out that his end was near. "I looked at him and smiled," he said. "What could I do?"

I met Hubert Vedrine, foreign minister in the socialist government of Lionel Jospin, by chance in a cafe near his home in the Latin Quarter. He was drinking his morning coffee and perusing Liberation. According to sources close to Sarkozy, the president-elect has Verdine to join his government. The day after the election, the leftist newspaper, which was rescued from closure in the past year, printed a single picture and a single word on the front page: a photograph of a smiling Sarkozy and above it the word "Hard."

In the past year, the voice of the man considered one of the sharpest minds in the Socialist Party went unheard. Vedrine, one of the people closest to former president Francois Mitterand, acquired status and fame thanks to his expertise in int ernational affairs. He served as secretary general of the Elysee Palace and accumulated tremendous power thanks to his close relationship with the president.

For months he expected Segolene Royal to call and consult with him, on Europe, the United States, the Middle East, Turkey, North Africa, black Africa. Nothing. She did not even pick up the phone. That is how she treated all the senior members of the party. Vedrine watched her build a new network for herself, made up of people from within and outside the party, while ignoring those who were called the "elephants." Thus during the entire election campaign he was forced to observe events from the sidelines.

Now he was sipping his coffee and having difficulty swallowing the greatest defeat of a Socialist candidate since 1965. Yes, he knows her well. He finds it difficult to tell a foreign journalist what he thinks of her. Long ago, when she served as a junior minister in Mitterand's government, he took notice of her campaign of revenge for her deprived childhood, for the reign of fear imposed by her father at home. Her feminism stems from hatred of men, Vedrine says: Otherwise, how can one explain her addressing only female voters? He is convinced that behind Royal's ambition are traumas that have yet to be deciphered. As someone who has studied and worked with leader, he has reached the conclusion that they suffer from serious pathologies.

"Do you think Sarkozy has overcome what he heard from his father?" Vedrine asked. "A boy who constantly heard that he would not get anywhere in France because of his origins and his name either gives up eventually or develops a merciless ambition to prove that he can."

Vedrine was not eager to discuss Royal's pathologies, although he ventured that hers were greater than those of other leaders of his acquaintance. "Mitterand had a small portion," he explained. "He was a political magician, and therefore wo n reelection." Miterrand, in contrast to Royal, successfully took the left under his wing. Royal failed to unite the forces, and in the last election nine of the 12 presidential candidates were from the left.

Above all, Vedrine is certain that Royal lost because she presented an archaic economic platform in an era of global and liberal economics. She refused the aid of well-known economists such as former prime minister Laurent Fabius and former finance minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn, her main rivals in the party, whom she defeated on her way to the party leadership.

Now Vedrine plans to join with Strauss-Kahn depose Royal as head of the party. "She got her chance, and failed," he declared.

The traitor

A Jewish Frenchwoman, a socialist, explained to me this week why she abandoned the left in favor of the right in this election. She says many French Jews did so, contributing to Sarkozy's success. She works in the Nation al Assembly and is close to many members of the Socialist Party. In recent months, the greater Royal's status in the party became, the more convinced she became that the time had come to leave.

"I have always been a socialist, and I felt complete identification with the party," she said. "And then something happened that caused me terrible distress. In 2000 a wave of attacks on Jews began in the wake of the intifada in the territories. I felt that my government had deserted me. People I had voted for preferred to ignore the attacks and to abandon us. I came to the conclusion that the government did not want to alienate the North African immigrants and therefore did not call a spade a spade. The country became closer to the Arabs but turned its back on the Jews.

"And then came the stupid law on the issue of the shortened, 35-hour work week. I saw that this law was creating confusion in the workplace. I felt that the shortened week, instead of creati ng more work and increasing growth, was doing the opposite.

"I didn't forgive my party for betraying the Jews. As a Jewish woman I felt so alone, so vulnerable, so abandoned. I didn't have a single relative who hasn't been harmed by Muslims. It was terrible.

"And then Segolene Royal came and hijacked the party. I simply got up and left. Who does she think she is? She's an invention of the women's magazines and the polls. The women's journals turned her into a smiling, pleasant woman, but from working in the National Assembly I knew the party members hated her - because of her dictatorial personality, because she is not a nice person. As opposed to the compassion that she demonstrated outwardly, we knew she was manipulative.

"And I especially didn't like the fact that she described Sarkozy as a fascist. One cannot take credit away from him for reassuring the Jews. Immediately after being appointed interior minister in 2002 he began to ge t tough on those who harmed Jews. That gave us a good feeling, and most Jews didn't forget that."