So why should France need Mr. Sarkozy in 2017 if it did not want him in 2012? Because, as he explains in his new book, this is not the same country. The situation created by the recent wave of terrorist attacks requires a strong, experienced man at the helm, this argument goes. “I felt I had the strength to lead this battle at such a tormented moment in our history,”
.. Mr. Sarkozy hopes that his new patriotic spirit will erase the worst memories he left — of his obsessive ego, his arrogance, his bragging and his bellicosity.
.. Where Mr. Juppé aims to unify and pacify, Mr. Sarkozy is unabashedly divisive.
.. He advocates stopping economic immigration for five years, reasoning that integrating immigrants is an old-fashioned concept that has failed. He paints France as a country “forced” by “the ideologues of multiculturalism and the sociologists of inequality” to give up the mission of assimilating newcomers. “Assimilate means not only acquiring French citizenship but also France’s values, culture and way of life,” he has written.
.. Just as Donald J. Trump wants to “make America great again,” Nicolas Sarkozy wants to “make France proud again.” Schoolbooks, he says, should “make our country loved, not make it feel guilty.”