They got hold of each other.
And against this rivalry, no vaccine.
This week gave rise to a new staging of the Sarkozy-Holland duel.
Best enemies for life.
Sentenced Monday to one year in prison in the case of "eavesdropping" (he appealed), the former right-wing leader denounced in the Figaro and then on TF 1 a "deep injustice", refusing to talk about "Political justice" like some of its supporters, but questioning "the behavior of some" judges.
In the sights: the national financial prosecutor's office (PNF) created in 2013 by… François Hollande.
Which, this week, boiled over to hear questioning the judicial institution.
And its creation.
"What I do not accept are the repeated attacks on justice and its independence, with magistrates who are singled out by name," replied Hollande, in an interview with Le Parisien this Sunday.
A direct response to the one he beat in the 2012 presidential election. It is also since that time that the rag has been burning.
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François Hollande: "I do not accept repeated attacks against justice and its independence"
At the beginning, "Nicolas Sarkozy had no a priori concerning François Hollande", slips the deputy (LR) and sarkozyste Olivier Marleix, recalling that they had even shared a cover of Paris Match, in 2005, to incite to vote "Yes" to the European treaty.
"But it started very badly from the transfer of power, Carla Bruni even made a song of it:
the Penguin
", continues Marleix.
The Socialist had not then accompanied the leader of the right to his car, remaining on the steps, which the latter had interpreted as a mark of disrespect.
“Sarkozy, you won't see him again!
»Had also launched the winner of 2012 to a child, at the Salon de l'Agriculture, a year after the election.
What had provoked the ire of the sarkozysts.
In private, Sarkozy holds very harsh words against Hollande, whom he considers a "mediocre", and whom he accuses of having secretly worked to destabilize him when he was at the Elysee Palace.
In 2016, he cruelly portrayed him as a “president of impotence”.
"He does not have much consideration for the man, whom he considers that he does not have a backbone
(Editor's note: political)
", comments Marleix.
Showing a closeness with the one who betrayed Holland, what better “to take revenge”?
"Sarkozy has no esteem for Hollande and Hollande has no esteem for Sarkozy," summed up Michel Sapin, close to Corrézien, in Le Monde, a few years ago.
"They are not the best friends in the world but there is respect", nuance Gaspard Gantzer, the former counselor of Holland, explaining that the latter respected in Sarkozy the man who had been able to face difficult crises during his five year term.
A return match was a time profiled between the two men, at the turn of 2016. But one then stumbled on the primary on the right, when the other finally gave up seeking his own succession.
And it is ultimately Emmanuel Macron, winner of 2017, that Sarkozy will use for revenge.
"He stages his agreement with Macron, against François Hollande," observed a senior LR executive one day.
Showing closeness to the one who betrayed Holland, what could be better?
And the many joint Sarkozy-Macron outings, without the socialist, were so many opportunities to symbolically erase him from history.
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If they will not face each other a priori again in the ballot box, the two heavyweights seem engaged in a latent and endless match.
Chance of the calendar, it is this week that the comic strip by Mathieu Sapin and Joann Sfar, "the Secret Ministry, volume 1: Hero of the Republic" (Ed. Dupuis), featuring the two ex-presidents, came out. .
They team up there to save France, and also drop buckets on the terrace, Place de Clichy.
A work of fiction, undoubtedly.
