Nicolas Sarkozy: Voluntarism, Hyper-Presidency and Contestation

In this chapter, Marius Mitrache approaches the unique term in office of Nicolas Sarkozy. For the third time in a row, the right wing won the presidential election in 2007. An ambitious reformist leader of the liberal Neo-Gaullists, Sarkozy defeated Ségolène Royal, the Socialist candidate. The main innovation he introduced during his five-year term was to dust off the presidential function by openly assuming the leadership of the political majority and not limiting himself to the position of a constitutional arbitrator, as General de Gaulle had imagined the role of the president. He made ample use of the media to focus the political debate on his personality, stretching the institutional and individual role of the President to a maximum, a stance that came to be known as the “hyper-presidency”.