Don’t run for second term, says Sarkozy’s father

NICOLAS Sarkozy’s father and his wife aren’t thrilled about the prospect of the French president running for a second term in 2012.

Sarkozy’s father, Pal, 82, told yesterday’s daily Le Parisien the president “would have a calmer life if he doesn’t run again”.

First lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, meanwhile, when asked about a second term for her husband, is quoted in Madame Figaro as saying: “As a spouse, I don’t really want it. Perhaps I’m afraid that he will harm his health, perhaps I want to live what we have left to live in a certain peace?”

She said she would support him regardless.

Nicolas Sarkozy is passing through a rough period — and one where the 2012 elections are looming in many minds.

His low popularity is sinking and his conservative party was trounced last weekend in regional elections by resurgent leftists, the last nationwide voting before the 2012 race. A poll released yesterday shows the once-low-profile socialist party chief Martine Aubry could beat Sarkozy if elections were held now.

And now Sarkozy’s father is releasing an autobiography that describes his own active and turbulent love life and the president’s childhood.

Passages in the book, called So Much Life, published in French media describe Pal Sarkozy’s wedding night with the president’s mother, Andre, nicknamed Dadou. He says he was disappointed to find “she was already a woman”.

The two divorced when Nicolas Sarkozy was a boy, and the president has described the difficulties of growing up in a broken home. Pal Sarkozy is quoted in Le Parisien and L’Express as saying the president saw the book before it came out. Pal Sarkozy says he primarily sees his son at family gatherings. He describes his son as a youth as “eager, a hard worker and sometimes angry”.

He says he doesn’t recommend a second term, as a “father who loves his son and wants him happy”.

Meanwhile, the first lady is speaking out about their relationship, closely watched by French and foreign tabloids. In the Madame Figaro interview, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy said of her husband: “He is someone who protects me from myself and the world. He is someone who calms me. He is perhaps the first man who protects me.”

She joked about her status as “Madame Sarkozy”, noting that for her record label, she is still just “Mademoiselle Carla Bruni”.

She also confirmed she will appear in Woody Allen’s next film, to be shot in Paris in the summer.