Is Sarkozy the new Napoleon?
Both are outsiders ill-at-ease among the Paris elite; they are control-freaks who interfere in every corner of government; they are obsessed by image and see the media as a vital tool of power.
One way or another, they both dream of taking the reins of Europe.
Comparisons have been made before between Napoleon Bonaparte and his 26th successor as French head of state. But now they have been given the official imprimatur of the country's leading political commentator.
In a new book, called La Marche Consulaire (The Consular March), Alain Duhamel sets out the case for seeing Nicolas Sarkozy as a 21st Century incarnation of the most influential Frenchman of modern times - or as he puts it, "Bonaparte in a suit".
"Both men intend to leave behind them a France which is no longer what it was. They see themselves as the rescuers of a great but weakened nation," Mr Duhamel writes.
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One way or another, they both dream of taking the reins of Europe.
Comparisons have been made before between Napoleon Bonaparte and his 26th successor as French head of state. But now they have been given the official imprimatur of the country's leading political commentator.
In a new book, called La Marche Consulaire (The Consular March), Alain Duhamel sets out the case for seeing Nicolas Sarkozy as a 21st Century incarnation of the most influential Frenchman of modern times - or as he puts it, "Bonaparte in a suit".
"Both men intend to leave behind them a France which is no longer what it was. They see themselves as the rescuers of a great but weakened nation," Mr Duhamel writes.