“Politics is first and foremost a matter of embodiment. We want to believe it, so much does his sentence prove until the reading of his Memoirs. Strange impression of hearing his voice while reading Le Temps des combats (Fayard) and even of seeing him, with his gestures of exasperation and virile camaraderie, his sighs and his eyes raised to the ceiling, his clenched fists and his quivering leg . And then, at times, the same man doesn’t move. It becomes more serious, applied, moved and deep.

A bit as if two authors had been at the origin of these Memoirs: the first, “Sarko”, and the second, Nicolas Sarkozy, one leaving the pen to the other, depending on the events. Sarko, first, enters into microcosmic considerations which will only interest a few observers of political life, fond of portraits, distributions of good and bad points, cruel judgments, excessive praise, marks of friendship and rejection…

Time erases nothing: Sarko still settles accounts, despite his accession to the Elysée, which has in no way appeased the man, who constantly replays the match, remembers the slack, the traitors, the bad, immobile, awkward… many of whom, by their attitude, have hindered or polluted its action.

Jean-François Copé, unreliable, is one of them: “From an early age, Jean-François Copé believed himself destined for the greatest role. He was not the only one in this case, but it had developed in him a rather marked arrogance and a probably disproportionate love of himself! It’s an understatement to say that I didn’t trust him and that I never had an affinity with him. »

Like Rama Yade, ungrateful: “It was the moment that Rama Yade chose to join Borloo by announcing that she would support him in the presidential election. Incidentally, she concealed the fact that I had just appointed her ambassador to Unesco in order to preserve her status after she had lost her ministerial portfolio. Like Valérie Pécresse, simply not at the level: “Whatever her good will, she was not ready. She had neither the team nor the maturity to face such an ordeal. »

Like Alain Minc, too talkative. Like François Fillon, too secretive: “His prudence, his reserve, the idea that, no doubt, he had of his own interest pushed him to take any form of risk in horror. Like Francois Bayrou, too lukewarm and hateful: “The principle of quick decision-making is something that has always shocked this centrist at heart. Procrastination is an alternative for him. »

Conversely, he shows his support and even his recognition for some of his ministers, allies or collaborators, such as Rachida Dati, Xavier Bertrand, Laurent Wauquiez and, as we know, Gérald Darmanin, whose election he wants at the Élysée.

Then, when Sarko gives way to his co-author, Nicolas Sarkozy, immediately, we notice a change in altitude and, in fact, we are suddenly informed of the great affairs of the world. The third volume of his Memoirs then takes on its full meaning, gains in interest, rid of the gossip that strewn it.

His reflection on the Russo-Ukrainian war has been widely commented on. The one on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is illuminating and shows how much this region of the world is the scene of instrumentalisations on the part of countries which have nothing to do with the fate of each other.

Like others before him, he tried to establish dialogue, but failed, noting that “nothing will be possible without the will of the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority. It is they alone who must make peace and who can make it. Without this initial desire for reconciliation and lucidity, nothing will progress. »

“Things went wrong the moment I mentioned Florence Cassez’s name. The violence of the response left me speechless. I wasn’t expecting it at all. President Calderon was now obviously making it a personal matter. He appeared to us to be completely blocked and braced on his certainties. Thanks to Pope Benedict XVI, solicited by Sarkozy, the Mexican Church conducted its own investigation, which resulted in the innocence of the Frenchwoman.

Nothing worked, the Court of Cassation upheld his conviction. France decided to dedicate the year of Mexico in France to Florence Cassez. President Calderon withdrew his participation. The Mexican Supreme Court finally decided to free Cassez, a few months after Calderon left power.

With even stronger emotion, Nicolas Sarkozy recounts the moment when he had to face the families of the victims of the Rio-Paris flight which had crashed at sea. The passage of his most difficult book. “At that moment, I saw women, children, men who began to cry in a cathedral silence. […] It was an experience that profoundly changed me. I really believe that from that moment I was no longer the same. »

Another captivating moment, which will give critics of an imperialist America food for thought, is Barack Obama’s visit to Strasbourg. Sarkozy informs us of the fierce desire of the American president to bring Turkey into the European Union. “From my point of view, this was a rather inappropriate interference. Especially since, later, the French president had the opportunity to verify the gap that politically and culturally separates the European leaders from the Turkish president, Erdogan.

It was during a lunch at the Élysée which turned into a nightmare: “With the best will in the world, we would have had a hard time finding a single subject of full agreement. Even on the form, our exchanges were harsh or in any case far removed from the hushed habits of diplomacy. We surrendered blow for blow. On both sides of the table, neither wanted or could give an inch of ground. The diplomats around me were appalled. Israel, Turkey’s entry into the European Union, recognition of the Armenian genocide, democracy and the ban on wearing the full veil were all differences between the two leaders.

Whoever obtained the creation of the G20 also fought with his peers to obtain, after the economic crises of 2008-2009, the publication of a list of tax havens. The Chinese president was reluctant, like the American president. Merkel, as usual, steps aside when the risk becomes too great.

Sarkozy: “As expected, I therefore announced, before the summit began, that France would not join a G20 that would end in false compromises. Then comes the meeting of Heads of State where the atmosphere is heavy because of the French position. “After a few minutes of total blockage, Barack Obama leaned over to me: ‘I’ll make you happy.’ I answered him with a certain brutality. “It’s not about making me happy. You have been chosen to build a new world! Tax havens are the embodiment of the old world.” A list was finally published.

Regarding the intervention in Libya, the former president has no regrets. “David Cameron and I felt that we had laid the foundations for a new understanding between the peoples of the southern and northern Mediterranean. A phrase that resonates strangely when you know the reality of relations between the two shores. But, to read the memoirist, the person responsible for the Franco-British post-intervention debacle is none other than François Hollande, his successor.

“Along with the nuclear abandonment, Libya’s was arguably the most serious fault. The lover of human portraits, then more Sarko than Sarkozy, tells us about the return by plane from a trip to Benghazi with, on board, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Alain Juppé, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Henri Guaino, adviser president’s special, three men who hate each other.

“We had almost three hours of flight. […] Juppé had warned me that he would not speak to this “jean-foutre” from BHL. The latter told me in return that he would not fear confrontation with my minister who had “always been wrong about everything”. And I couldn’t expect the slightest spirit of conciliation from Guaino since he told me that he “despises the other two equally”. It was promising! […] But the “Libyan miracle” had produced its beneficial effects. We were all aware of being privileged to have been able to experience such moments, the joy we had seen, the hope that had arisen, the happiness of freedom that carried everyone away. »

A bit like Emmanuel Macron, from whom he stands out at times, Nicolas Sarkozy likes grandiloquence, speeches on life, death, the passage of time, the meaning of things, human values. He exhibits his human and cultural favorites, with his wife, Carla, never far away. Interesting thoughts, if often agreed upon, obvious and already read in his previous books.

Finally, Sarko, again him, goes back down into the arena to attack, this time, a man who is no longer there to defend himself: Jacques Chirac, who had called to vote for François Hollande in 2012. The memoirist did not digest this choice, which he attributes to the psychology of a man, Chirac, who was never recognized by his family, who was under the influence of his daughter Claude, ” who does not carry me in his heart”, and who, moreover, was weakened by illness.

“Furthermore, it is no insult to the memory of the former president to assert that he had taken little part in the writing of the second volume of his memoirs. We had written for him. “Memories, his own, which would have definitely benefited from being lightened by a few pages…