*Egotistical, vain, sentimental and hedonistic... France is in the grip
of Sarkozy psychosis*

    * Steven Erlanger, New York Times, in Paris
    * The Observer,
    * Sunday May 25 2008

Serge Hefez, a psychiatrist, has identified a new mental illness among
the French: obsessive Sarkosis, an unhealthy fascination with the French
President, Nicolas Sarkozy.

'As I listened to my patients during consultations, many of them
mentioned Sarkozy by name,' Hefez said. 'He's penetrated some of their
deepest fantasies. I noticed all this passion in people speaking of him,
and I thought there is something particular about this man - he's like a
reflection of us in the mirror."

The French project themselves on to Sarkozy, Hefez said. 'He's the
incarnation of the postmodern man, obsessed with himself, turned toward
pleasure, autonomous and narcissistic. And he exhibits his joys and
sorrows, all his private life, his sentimental doubts and pleasures. He
represents the individualism of the society to the extreme - that it's
the individual who counts, not the society.'

A year after taking office, Sarkozy seems to be everywhere. The daily
newspaper Le Figaro has counted at least 100 books devoted to the
President and his life and loves, with more than a million copies sold,
bringing in £13m. Some of the titles display the fury and fascination
that Sarkozy has stimulated: The King is Naked; The Man Who Doesn't Know
How to Pretend; The Liquidator; He Must Go!; The Duty of Insolence; and
Somersaults and Flips at the Élysée. Last month, the magazine Paris
Match ran a cartoon showing a woman talking to a psychiatrist, saying:
'I'm very worried. Sunday, at the Louvre, I asked a guard where to find
the room of Egyptian Sarkozycophagi. At dinner with a musicologist, I
said twice that my favorite opera is 'Sarkozy Fan Tutte.' I'd like to
know if this is serious and how to cure it.'

The newspaper Libération ran a photo spread featuring models who looked
like Sarkozy and his third wife, Carla, at home in the Élysée Palace. In
one picture, Sarkozy's double exercises in Ray-Bans and a sweaty
T-shirt, while Carla's, in tight jeans, watches him adoringly, a guitar
across her lap. Television covers Sarkozy's every gesture, in both
homage and mockery, the latter an effort to distance itself from the
phenomenon that it perpetuates.

It is part of what the French have come to call the 'pipolisation' of
political life, a term, presumably derived from People magazine, that
refers to the idolatry of celebrities and soap opera. Hefez considers
the trend an example of 'democracy turning against itself, as
Tocqueville foresaw'.

Hefez analysed the obsession in an article and then in a book, Obsessive
Sarkosis, in which he identifies related illnesses, like Sarkophrenia
and Sarkonoia. He admits he, too, has been infected. The heated reaction
to his article 'was interesting for a psychiatrist and didn't surprise
me,' he said, laughing, 'because it corresponds precisely to the obsession.'

For Hefez, Sarkozy's quick marriage to the rich, beautiful model and pop
star is telling. She is the perfect feminine equivalent - 'very
fascinating, very narcissistic, very occupied with herself,' Hefez said.

For the French, it was too much, too fast. The relationship, made public
in the very unpresidential, un-French EuroDisney theme park less than
two months after he and Cécilia, his wife of 11 years, announced their
divorce, was seen in France's collective consciousness as a kind of
'betrayal of intimacy, of friendship,' Hefez said.