(((Gee whiz, this really *is* a gaudy soap opera. It's all
I can do not to hand out popcorn.)))
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3953693.ece
Link: France falls for Nicolas's golden boy, Jean Sarkozy - Times Online .
France falls for Nicolas's golden boy, Jean Sarkozy
Matthew Campbell, Paris
"THE French may have lost their affection for Nicolas Sarkozy, the reform-minded president, but they are falling under the spell of his son Jean, whose eye-catching initiatives in an affluent suburb of Paris have put him under the spotlight.
"With his golden locks and dazzling smile, Jean Sarkozy looks like a film star - he happens to be a keen amateur actor - (((no kidding))) and has inherited his father’s political ambition. Now he is playing the leading role in a drama that they are calling “the rise of the dauphin”.
"As tens of thousands of students and teachers took to the streets last week to protest at the president’s plans to cut teaching jobs and streamline the civil service, Jean, a town councillor in Neuilly, the affluent Parisian suburb in which he was born, staged his own piece of political theatre. It was designed to show that not all young people were against his father’s economic reforms.
He launched the first in a series of meetings called “jeudis jeunes” - “young Thursdays” - in a cafe where young conservatives were invited to question prominent government members and other celebrity guests.
“The idea is to show young people that you can get involved in politics,” said Jean, 21, referring to youths who did not feel attracted to the left. “It irritates me that when you are young it’s always easier to carry the banner of the left or the extreme left. But it is possible for young people to have other convictions.”
With his family connections, Jean, one of two sons from Sarkozy’s first marriage to Marie-Dominique Culioli, the daughter of a Corsican chemist, need only click his fingers to summon a star speaker. The first on his list was Rama Yade, the undersecretary for human rights and, at 31, the youngest minister in Sarkozy’s “rainbow government”.
“Thank you for coming in such numbers,” he told the adoring student audience.
“I know it’s for Rama, not for me,” he added, drawing a laugh from the crowd, “and it’s a terrible blow to my ego.”
"With his telegenic charm and good looks, Jean is expected to go far in Neuilly, one of the country’s richest districts which his father used as a springboard to power after serving as mayor there for two decades.
"Some have claimed an uncanny resemblance between Jean’s voice and glad-handing verve and those of his hyper-active father who, since his divorce from Cécilia, his second wife, in October and marrying Carla Bruni, the Italian singer, has been accused of turning the French presidency into the back-drop for a gaudy soap opera...." (((At least he's got an extensive list of dazzling talents to pitch in to the cast.)))
