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“... delegation. It was presided over by two politicians who were giving out a very mixed message. Nicolas Sarkozy told the world in the run-up to the meeting that this was the moment of truth not just for the currency but for the future of democracy. Europe only had a few days to save itself: ‘Never has Europe been in so much danger,’ he ...”

“... done and an inkling of confidence among the political class that the ‘crisis’ is surmountable, Nicolas Sarkozy – who’d begun to look isolated in the government – has seen his position steadily improve. The public, no longer quite so nervous, has rewarded him for his outspokenness with a boost in his popularity rating and the ...”

“... Mitterrand to power. The Ministry of the Interior, lately the domain of the right-wing candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy, has announced that the figure is normal, but a glance at percentage rises in the electorate in 1988 (1.9 per cent), 1995 (2.1 per cent) and 2002 (2.3 per cent) suggests this is Interiorspeak. Paris proper has seen a big voter boom, and so ...”

“... back. At least Hans-Adam II actually lives in the country, unlike the co-princes of Andorra (Nicolas Sarkozy and a Catalan bishop, since you ask). I sometimes wonder if the microstates play up this side of their polities, deliberately making themselves appear odd so that nobody will scrutinise their affairs too closely. Perhaps to lower its ...”

“... chosen at random but in response to a series of disparaging remarks made by the French president. Nicolas Sarkozy’s lack of regard for culture has marked a sea change in the French establishment. Dominique de Villepin, Chirac’s last prime minister, wrote and published poetry in his spare time, and as recently as 1981 François Mitterrand posed for ...”

“... Last September​ Nicolas Sarkozy was found guilty of criminal conspiracy. He went through the gates of La Santé prison in Paris a few weeks later. The judge found that in 2005 he had approved an agreement between his political aides and the Gaddafi regime for massive cash transfers from Libya into his campaign coffers for his crack at the presidency in 2007 ...”

“... Protestants from France who fled in fear of our lives and were welcomed in by England.’ As with Nicolas Sarkozy, who never lets his part-Jewish ancestry or Carla Bruni’s status as an Italian immigrant stand in the way of his anti-immigration policies, Farage doesn’t register the irony of his own migrant history. Presumably the fact that his family ...”

“... a power substation. The riots in the banlieues that followed their deaths lasted for three weeks. Nicolas Sarkozy, then the minister of the interior, described the rioters as ‘scum’ and three thousand protesters were arrested. In the years after the riots, journalists would occasionally visit the estate and write about the broken lifts and the poor ...”

“... an open-ended attitude to the veil. There are narrower political considerations, too. Last spring, Nicolas Sarkozy, the well-oiled, tough-talking rhetorical engine that now powers the Ministry of the Interior, attended a conference of the Union des Organisations Islamiques de France. It was an important moment, because the Union – an Islamist grouping ...”

“... force, offering no glimmer of consolation: on the one hand, a côterie of scheming politicians (Nicolas Sarkozy, president of France at the time of the intervention, gets a name check); on the other, a constant threat from the air over the Brotherly Guide’s dwindling dominions. In a waking dream, he is visited by the ghost of Saddam Hussein, and they ...”

“... The Vatican has tried to block co-operation with Ireland’s inquiry into paedophile priests. Nicolas Sarkozy is a short man with a Napoleon complex. When the Duke of York goes abroad to tub-thump for British business, he behaves with exactly the vulgarian bluster that one would expect of his ex-wife’s ex-husband. Angela Merkel is really a man. And ...”

“... call it Scalp). The Declaration on Defence and Security Co-operation signed by David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy at their summit on 2 November specifically anticipates Anglo-French collaboration on ‘an assessment of enhancements to the Scalp/Storm Shadow cruise missiles’ and joint development ‘of the equipment and technologies for the next ...”

“... majority (this hope was disappointed in 2022, when Macron only obtained a plurality). Nicolas Sarkozy, president from 2007 until 2012, was known as the ‘omnipresident’ due to his day-to-day involvement in domestic affairs. His successor from 2012 until 2017, François Hollande, propounded a less assertive presidency – and went on to see ...”

“... later, with the agreement of the then home secretary, David Blunkett, and his French equivalent, Nicolas Sarkozy, the camp was closed. Blunkett called the Sangatte site ‘a festering sore in Anglo-French relations’. Sarkozy spun its closure as an act of goodwill towards migrants: ‘We have put an end to a ...”

“... we cannot cobble together a European solution then it will be a debacle,’ the French president Nicolas Sarkozy remarked, ‘but it will not be my debacle, it will be Angela’s.’ It isn’t that Germany had no banking problems; its resistance reflected its more general reluctance to do things at the Eurozone level if that might lead to transfers ...”