Sarkozy makes a comeback

Nicolas Sarkozy is making a political comeback in France.

The man who led France from 2007 to 2012 announced on Facebook he’s joining the race to lead his conservative UMP party in elections next month. The widely expected move is seen as a first step toward running for president in 2017.

He left the Élysée Palace in 2012. Since then, his successor, Socialist François Hollande, has become the most unpopular French leader of modern times over his handling of the economy.

Sarkozy wrote last night: “I have decided to propose a new political choice to the French.”

“I love France too much. I am too passionate about public debate and the future of my compatriots to see them condemned to choose between the desperate spectacle of today and the prospect of dead-end isolation,” he wrote, in apparent reference to Hollande’s weak presidency.