Nicolas Sarkozy (1955- )
Nicolas Sarkozy (pronounced [ni.kɔ.la saʁ.kɔ.zi], born Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa; 28 January 1955) is the 23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. He assumed the office on 16 May 2007 after defeating the Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal 10 days earlier.
Before his presidency, he was leader of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP). Under Jacques Chirac's presidency he served as Minister of the Interior in Jean-Pierre Raffarin's (UMP) first two governments (from May 2002 to March 2004), then was appointed Minister of Finances in Raffarin's last government (March 2004 to May 2005) and again Minister of the Interior in Dominique de Villepin's government (2005–2007).
Sarkozy was also president of the General council of the Hauts-de-Seine department from 2004 to 2007 and mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine, one of the wealthiest communes of France from 1983 to 2002. He was Minister of the Budget in the government of Édouard Balladur (RPR, predecessor of the UMP) during François Mitterrand's last term.
In foreign affairs, he has promised a strengthening of the entente cordiale with the United Kingdom and closer cooperation with the United States. During his term, he faced the late-2000s financial crisis (followed by the recession and the debt crisis caused by it) and the Arab Spring (especially in Tunisia, Libya and Syria). He also married singer-songwriter Carla Bruni on 2 February 2008 at the Élysée Palace in Paris.
Quotes·Quotation by Nicolas Sarkozy
Finance
¶ Purely financial capitalism has perverted the logic of capitalism, Financial capitalism is a system of irresponsibility and ... is amoral. It is a system where the logic of the market excuses everything. [At the Symposium "New World, New Capitalism," Paris, Jan. 9, 2009]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Sarkozy