What happened ... Nicolas Sarkozy? But please with Carla

WHAT WAS OUT OF ...?

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Many news and people are reported in detail for a while - then they disappear again from the headlines. How do the topics develop, what became of the persons? That's what we explain in this series.
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It has become quiet around Nicolas Sarkozy, the bling-bling president, the glamor politician, the husband of Carla Bruni. There were times when, in addition to his great wife, the little Frenchman seemed omnipresent in gossip columns as well as in political commentaries.

Between 2007 and 2012, Sarkozy fought as Chancellor Angela Merkel as French President against the great financial crisis and went private with Carla before the pyramids walk. From top model Bruni, who had maintained a relationship with Rolling Stones boss Mick Jagger for eight years, had become a successful songwriter and chanson singer at the time, whose brilliance gave the presidency of Sarkozy that extra something. In March 2008 they got married, in 2011 daughter Giulia was born.

But Sarkozy's gloss faded quickly as his successor took office. Who remembers the langweiler François Hollande, who still stood in the Parisian limelight until two years ago? Does this testify to the relative insignificance of the gentlemen who ruled the Élysée Palace? Do they become uninteresting when they leave office?

Former president François Mitterrand died just a few months after he was released from office. Jacques Chirac, who had just been buried, suffered a stroke during his term of office, the consequences of which prompted him to restrain the public.

So Nicolas Sarkozy had the chance to reinvent the post-presidential life after his retirement in 2012, just because Hollande was so shining. And even with a woman at his side, which is almost as famous as he is. Did he use it?

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Do you trust the latest black-and-white images that Carla Bruni, 51, posted by her now 64-year-old husband, daughter and herself on Instagram? Today, a new Sarkozy shows up: calm, relaxed, sensitive - the perfect private person. Even the relationship with his ex-wife Cécilia Attias appears intact: Attias published these days with her son Louis Sarkozy a joint book in which they do not wash dirty clothes, but emphasize their "desire for disagreement," according to the book title. This is also indirectly a praise for Father Sarkozy, who always tolerated these differences of opinion. Even Carla Bruni advertises the book on Instagram.

Maybe Carlas harmonious images of her great husband but only his tangible problems with the justice conceal. Because Sarkozy may face a lawsuit: It is about the charge to have spent his own re-election as French President in 2012, almost twice the legally permitted sum, namely 43 million euros instead of 22.5 million allowed. Just the highest court of appeal in France, the Court of Cassation, has rejected a complaint Sarkozy. Thus, the prosecutors now have a free hand for an indictment against the ex-president. Who believes in Sarkozy's argument that he did not know about the illegal overspending during his election campaign? In France, almost no one.

Further proceedings and investigations are pending: Sarkozy is accused of having bribed a judge as president, then he is said to have accepted for his first presidential campaign in 2007 illegal donations from dictator Gaddafi from Libya. Even in these cases, he could face trials.

However, the French seem to Sarkozy not to take his alleged missteps really bad. When he published his biographical book "Passions" this summer, which almost completely ignored the allegations against him, there was little criticism. Instead, the book with over 200,000 copies sold to the previous bestseller of the year.

The secret of this success must be that nothing new is written in this book - just a happy repeat story of what almost every Frenchman knows. For example, the story of Sarkozy's first meeting with Carla Bruni. French people's gazettes such as "Voici" and "Gala" outdo each other this fall to reopen the details of this first conversation. "She had little interest in politics, I hardly knew anything about the world of chansons," writes Sarkozy about the evening. Similarly banal he writes about big politics: "One can not imagine the weight of responsibilities," says Sarkozy about his state of mind before taking office in 2007.

In the end then only Carla Bruni, the extra something of an otherwise moderately successful, since never re-elected French President. After all: This month Sarkozy was allowed to travel to Tokyo to represent Acting President Emmanuel Macron in celebration of the accession of the Japanese Emperor. However, Bruni's overseas concerts are likely to attract more attention.