French Front-Runner's American Style

He supports affirmative action-style programs to give minorities equal opportunities -- a radical departure from the country's traditional stance that inequality does not exist within its borders. But during the riots in the immigrant suburbs of Paris in fall 2005, he referred to rebellious youths as "scum." Critics said that remark fueled the violence.

As the son of an immigrant, Sarkozy understands that immigrants must integrate into French society, but also the necessity to "control clandestine immigration," according to political adviser Patrick Devedjian, a former industry minister.

"He is not 'the last one in who wants to close the door,' but he doesn't want the house to explode," Devedjian said. More than anything, he added, it is America's history as a "mythical country for immigrants" that drives Sarkozy's admiration for the United States.

Sarkozy's security detail is so concerned about his safety that he was unable until last week to stage a campaign event in a poor suburban area. When he held a rally in one of Paris's more upscale suburban neighborhoods several weeks ago, campaign workers refused to allow young French residents of African and Arab descent from a nearby community into the meeting, where Sarkozy addressed an audience of white, largely middle-age voters.

Yet last month he invoked Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech at a Paris rally and urged French minority youths to look to the U.S. civil rights leader as a role model.

"That dream of brotherhood and justice he spoke of changed America," Sarkozy told thousands of young supporters packed into a Paris auditorium on March 18. "If the dream could change America, why might it not change France?"

"He is indeed full of contradictions," said Ridet, the biographer. "His personality is as contradictory as his ideas. Some people are afraid of him because he is not a reassuring person -- because of his contradictions, but also because he is not easy with people in general."

That "fear factor" is one of Sarkozy's greatest liabilities, according to political analysts, pollsters and aides to the candidate.

His personal appearance -- hooded eyes framed by bushy eyebrows on an often dour face -- contributes to the stern image. Speechwriter Henri Guaino, one of Sarkozy's most trusted advisers, said some voters see him as "harsh" or describe him as "a neo-con." But "people are contradictory" too, he said.

"On the one hand, they want authority, and on the other, they do not want aggressiveness," Guaino said during a recent interview at party headquarters, as campaign workers unloaded mountains of boxed posters and fliers in advance of the final campaign blitz. "We don't know how to answer this fear. The only solution we found is for Sarkozy to be himself."

The candidate frets repeatedly in his autobiography that people who don't know him doubt he has a "human side." Seeking to soften that impression, early in the campaign he opened his personal life to public view, posing with his wife, Cécilia, and their children for magazine spreads and cover shots. (They have one son together, and Sarkozy has two children from a previous marriage.) Such U.S.-style exposure of a politician's family was unheard of in France.

Sarkozy's efforts backfired several months later when the magazine Paris Match ran a cover photograph of his wife strolling in New York hand-in-hand with a man it identified as her lover. According to close associates and by his own accounts, Sarkozy was devastated, and rumors leaked of an extramarital affair of his own. French newspapers reported that he was so distraught over his collapsing marriage that he failed to show up for a major cabinet meeting.