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  SPIEGEL Interview with French Historian Max Gallo: 'Sarkozy's Victory Is that of Reality over Utopia'

SPIEGEL Interview with French Historian Max Gallo 'Sarkozy's Victory Is that of Reality over Utopia'

Part 2: How Sarkozy Is the Heir to Napoleon

Gallo: Leaving the national question up to Le Pen was absurd -- for the left as well as for the right. The nation, Joan of Arc, all that disappeared in the cellar of history, and all Le Pen had to do was help himself to that history. Sarkozy has taken up the issue again. To secure the votes of ordinary people, he had to address a topic that affects them -- France.

SPIEGEL: Apparently with success. Happily, Le Pen's supporters have declined in number. But won't Sarkozy ultimately have to pay a price for this?

Gallo: I don't think so, but this is partly the result of a peculiarity of the president's that I find important: Sarkozy is the son of an immigrant. This means that his chosen ties to France are probably stronger than those of other citizens. He is a patriot through and through. I am convinced that he believes what he is saying when he describes himself as a "short Frenchman with mixed blood." He is grateful to the nation and proud to be a Frenchman. And perhaps it is ultimately more important for the future of our country that an immigrant's son is becoming our president than a woman.

SPIEGEL: If Sarkozy is truly the patriot and pragmatist you describe him as, why was he the most hated and demonized candidate, one who polarized instead of unifying?

Gallo: Throughout the entire campaign, I believed that he could only lose for one reason: not being "French enough." The son of immigrants, his father from Hungary and the mother's family Jews from Thessaloniki? Throughout the history of the Fifth Republic, presidents, including Georges Pompidou, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac, have always emphasized their rural roots. All came from the geographic heart of France and maintained their roots there. In contrast, Sarkozy lives in Neuilly, an affluent suburb outside Paris. In other words, he doesn't come from anywhere, not even the capital.

SPIEGEL: This didn't seem to hurt him, especially among older voters, in smaller cities and in rural areas.

Gallo: Young people between 18 and 24 voted for Ségolène Royal, while those in the next few age groups chose Sarkozy, including a clear majority of voters over 60. This is why it will be critical for the new president to rectify his relationship with young people, especially in the suburbs.

SPIEGEL: But immediately after the vote, they began setting cars on fire again. Wasn't it counterproductive for Sarkozy to have criticized the May 1968 student unrest during the campaign?

Gallo: He emphasized one aspect of May '68: that the student movement did not manage to build ongoing solidarity with the workers. At the time, the students were not even allowed through the gates at Renault. Elsewhere they were greeted with stones. Politically speaking, the revolt was a failure, because the reaction it prompted was the powerful majority achieved by right-wing politicians like Georges Pompidou and later Giscard d'Estaing. In France, the first thing the May '68 student unrest achieved was a restoration.

SPIEGEL: Is this the message Sarkozy wants to convey to protesting youth: Resistance is pointless; the important thing now is to reestablish order, authority and morality?

Gallo: The slogan "just order," which Ségolène Royal used, means exactly the same thing. The return of order is the issue, because disorder and chaos are a threat to democracy.

SPIEGEL: Does this mean that we will see an end to the endless intellectual debate over the supposed decline of France?

Gallo: I was never a believer in decline, because I am convinced that we are not heading toward decline, if only because of our demographic development. Unlike neighboring countries, our birth rate is unusually high. There is confidence in the future. And when you look around in France, you'll see a people filled with inventiveness and creativity, tenacious not sniveling. Only our politicians have not satisfied expectations.

SPIEGEL: Does that apply to the representatives of both the left and the right?

Gallo: Just take a look at Mitterand and Chirac. There are many similarities between the two terms, which cover a quarter century filled with dramatic changes. Together they form a unit, a period of sitting it out and waiting. Mitterand and Chirac were two men who loved their country and only wanted the best for it, but ultimately felt that they were dealing with such a fragile, complex society that it would be best not to touch it, much less expect anything of it.

SPIEGEL: Sarkozy, by contrast, believes in France's awakening, its dynamism and its unbroken greatness?

Gallo: He has proven that France is willing to accept deep-seated reforms and even make sacrifices if a politician can present a clear, coherent and well-argued concept. I was surprised that Sarkozy repeatedly referred to France as a being made of flesh and blood. This comes from the first part of de Gaulle's memoirs, where the general refers to France as a "person," even a "princess."

SPIEGEL: Is this why Sarkozy refused to address the dark chapters in France's history -- the slave trade, colonialism, collaboration with Nazi occupiers, participation in the Holocaust -- and, like Chirac, apologize for them?

Gallo: De Gaulle and Mitterand also repeatedly rejected such statements of regret. One cannot build a future based on the description of a criminal past. And France was not criminal, as some have claimed.

SPIEGEL: Does this mean that Sarkozy would be even more like De Gaulle than Chirac, who also served under de Gaulle?

Gallo: Political scientists have often described Gaullism as a sort of Bonapartism. I myself have occasionally compared Sarkozy to Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon was simultaneously a man of change and one of unity and continuity. He emerged from the revolution armed. For some he was a Jacobite, a sort of Robespierre for horses, and for others he was a reactionary, because he said: "Neither red caps (the Revolution) nor red heals (the aristocracy) -- I am purely national." This is the source of Bonapartism, which has not yet run dry, as a political current, and Sarkozy appears to be its heir.

SPIEGEL: Monsieur Gallo, thank you for this interview.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan