Nicolas Sarkozy has stepped up his courtship of hard-right voters by threatening to pull France out of the EU's borderless, passport-free Schengen zone unless Brussels clamps down on illegal immigration.
Clench-fisted and dripping with sweat, the French president addressed some 30,000 flag-waving supporters at a vast, highly theatrical rally in a hangar on the northern outskirts of Paris on Sunday. Taking to the stage to a thundering, action-movie-style soundtrack, he gave a demonstration of his trademark political showmanship with a hardline speech on securing the borders of Fortress Europe. He said tightening controls was the "only way to avoid the implosion of Europe".
The rally was seen by many as Sarkozy's last chance to fire up his support-base in a faltering campaign for re-election. He is struggling to reverse the trend in the opinion polls which for months have consistently shown the Socialist frontrunner François Hollande easily beating him in the final presidential vote in May.
Sarkozy has been criticised by political opponents for shamelessly courting supporters of the extreme-right leader Marine Le Pen by proposing a referendum on illegal immigrants, complaining there were "too many foreigners" in France and raising the spectre of unsuspecting French people eating halal meat without knowing it.
Sarkozy is the son of Pál István Ernő Sárközy de Nagy-Bócsa a Hungarian aristocrat, and Andrée Jeanne "Dadu" Mallah, who is of Greek Jewish and French (Catholic) origin. They were married on 8 February 1950 and divorced in 1959. Sarkozy said that being abandoned by his father shaped much of who he is today. He also has said that, in his early years, he felt inferior in relation to his wealthier and taller classmates. "What made me who I am now is the sum of all the humiliations suffered during childhood", he said later. Wikipedia – More about his father on The Telegraph