Sarkozy Plans to Encroach Further on His Boss's Territory

While Jacques Chirac thinks of running for a third term (perhaps mainly because he cannot find another way to avoid a trial after leaving office?), Katrin Bennhold reports that

After taking over President Jacques Chirac's center-right party late last year, Nicolas Sarkozy plans to encroach further on his boss's territory, focusing his 2005 agenda on diplomacy, the traditional roaming ground for the head of state in France.

… Since his election as leader of the Union for a Popular Movement in late November, the ambitious 50-year-old has pledged to travel abroad once a month — more than any other French party leader.

… According to political analysts like [Stéphane Rozès, director of political studies at the Paris-based CSA polling institute], raising his profile internationally is also an attempt by Sarkozy to keep the media interested — particularly since Chirac might be less present abroad this year, judging from the unusually domestic focus in his New Year addresses last week.

Meanwhile, the rumor is that Chirac favors the opposition socialists' François Hollande in the 2007 election to his own party's Sarkozy, which, if true, would be a rehash (in reverse) of the 1995 presidential election, during which the incumbent President François Mitterrand supposedly favored Paris mayor Chirac over both his (Mitterrand's) own (socialist) party's Lionel Jospin and his cohabitation prime minister, the conservative Edouard Balladur (whom Sarkozy preferred over fellow RPR party leader Chirac, which is one of the main reasons France's current president is hardly on friendly terms either with him or Balladur)…

But, by no means should you let this back-stabbing make you in any way doubt that France is the land of principles and principled leaders!…