Nicolas Sarkozy has become a grandfather.
According to Associate Press, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has become a grandfather. The wife of Sarkozy's 23-year-old son Jean gave birth to a baby boy in the posh western Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine. Jean is a law student and regional councilor west of Paris. He married former high-school classmate Jessica Sebaoun-Darty, an heiress of a French electronics-vending empire, in 2008.
Nicolas Sarkozy’s Wives
Marie-Dominique Culioli
Sarkozy married his first wife, Marie-Dominique Culioli, on 23 September 1982; her father was a pharmacist from Vico (a village north of Ajaccio, Corsica). They had two sons, Pierre (born in 1985), now a hip-hop producer, and Jean (born in 1986) now a regional councillor in the city of Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. Sarkozy's best man was the prominent right-wing politician Charles Pasqua, later to become a political opponent. Sarkozy divorced Culioli in 1996, although they had already been separated for several years.
Cécilia Ciganer-Albéniz
As mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine, Sarkozy met former fashion model and public relations executive Cécilia Ciganer-Albéniz (great-granddaughter of composer Isaac Albéniz and daughter of a Moldovan father), when he officiated at her wedding to television host Jacques Martin. In 1988, she left her husband for Sarkozy, and divorced Martin one year later. Sarkozy married her in October 1996, with witnesses Martin Bouygues and Bernard Arnault They have one son, Louis, born 23 April 1997.
Between 2002 and 2005, the couple often appeared together on public occasions, with Cécilia Sarkozy acting as the chief aide for her husband. On 25 May 2005, however, the Swiss newspaper Le Matin revealed that she had left Sarkozy for French-Moroccan national Richard Attias, head of Publicis in New York. There were other accusations of a private nature in Le Matin, which led to Sarkozy suing the paper. In the meantime, he was said to have had an affair with a journalist of Le Figaro, Anne Fulda.
Sarkozy and Cécilia ultimately divorced on 15 October 2007, soon after his election as President. She was his second wife.
Carla Bruni
Less than a month after separating from Cecilia, Sarkozy met Italian-born singer Carla Bruni at a dinner party, and soon entered a relationship with her. They married on 2 February 2008 at the Élysée Palace in Paris.
Jean Sarkozy
Jean is the second of President Sarkozy's three sons. Jean Sarkozy de Nagy-Bocsa (born 1 September 1986) is the son of the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy from his first marriage, to Marie-Dominique Culioli. Jean is a regional councillor in the city of Neuilly-sur-Seine, France and (still) registered as a 1st year Law student at Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne University in 2007. He is a backroom activist for his father's Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), a right-wing party.
Neuilly-sur-Seine mayorship
Nicolas Sarkozy attempted to parachute David Martinon, his protégé and presidential spokesman, into the mayorship of Neuilly-sur-Seine, the richest town in France, where the president had formerly served as mayor. It was seen as one of the UMP's safest seats because 86% of the voters supported Sarkozy in the 2007 presidential election. Jean Sarkozy was asked to persuade the voters to support his father's choice. After a poll showed that Martinon was so unpopular that he would lose the election, Jean publicly broke rank and said it was impossible to continue backing his father's mayoral choice. He and other politicians from the president's centre-right UMP party decided to campaign on their own ticket. Martinon stepped down as the party’s candidate for mayor. Jean Sarkozy announced he was running for office himself as the UMP candidate for regional councillor in the electoral district of Neuilly-Sud. He was born, raised and now lives in Neuilly-Sud, which includes the Bagatelle quarter, a neighbourhood of 27,000 people, the richest part of Neuilly. He faced three other candidates, Marie Brannens from the Socialist Party, and candidates from the Democratic Movement (MoDem) and the Front National.
La Défense controversy
In 2009 Jean was offered to become head of Epad, the development agency for La Défense, just west of Paris. La Défense is an important office center, with 43 high-rise buildings, and its development agency controls an annual budget of more than 1 billion euro. French and many international newspapers reported this as a new case of nepotism. Much criticism has been made about the obvious lack of academic qualities and professional experience for such a high position. An online petition against the nomination has been diffused in all of the major news outlets and receives some 10,000 signatures a day. In October 2009, a survey found that 64% of French people oppose the arrival of Sarkozy at the Epad.
The controversy prompted various ironic comments from the international press. The Daily Mail noted that "when asked whether the President's son might be a bit young for such a relatively prestigious job, [EPAD's current president] responded using the traditional French political foil of quoting classic literature: 'In souls nobly born, valour does not depend upon age'". The Times calls the nomination an "astonishing act of nepotism by Nicolas Sarkozy" and reminds that "[Jean], who is repeating his second year of undergraduate law at the Sorbonne, after having repeated the first year. was elected to a Neuilly seat on the notoriously sleaze-ridden departement council last year. He was immediately given the job of heading Dad's Union for a Popular Movement on the body."
The President of Medef replied to these criticisms saying she believed it was "fantastic that a young and motivated man" may want to be at the head of the largest business district in France. Likewise, Nicolas Sarkozy defended his son by saying that "it's never good when someone is attacked in an excessive manner for no reason", not long however after having been mocked by some French medias for having fiercely underlined during an unrelated speech on high school reform that "what matters in France to succeed does not anymore relate to birth privileges, rather, to succeed, it is important to work hard and to have demonstrated significant skills at school, at work." Jean Sarkozy said he is not going to give up the position , and demanded on French television not to be judged on his name, but on his acts. He received the support of David Douillet, a former champion of the world of Judo, newly elected as a député under the banner of the UMP.
Personal life
Sarkozy was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine. He married Jessica Sebaoun on September 10, 2008 at the Neuilly-sur-Seine city hall. She gave birth to their first child a son on January 13, 2010. His wife is the daughter of Marc-André Sebaoun and Isabelle Maruani (nee Darty). Maruani is heiress to a major electronics company, the Darty group. He has denied reports that he intends to convert to Judaism, Sebaoun's religion. The cartoonist Siné came under sharp criticism and was fired from his magazine after accusing Jean Sarkozy of converting out of ambition and being sued by the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (LICRA).
In 2007, Le Canard Enchainé, a satirical weekly newspaper, reported that French police had gone to extraordinary lengths to try to find his scooter when it was stolen, including taking DNA samples from his helmet. The scooter was recovered in 10 days.
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