THE current grapevine right now in France is the local elections in March. Every Cabinet minister is gearing up to become mayor and the rationale for this is simple – Cabinet ministers are not elected by the people and to gauge their performance in office, President Nicholas Sarkozy has them run in public office. That’s one noble way to gauge how a public official in France performs. And Mr. Sarkozy is on top of his game with this suggestion. Despite all the personal controversies surrounding him with his very high profile romance with Italian model Carla Bruni right after his divorce with France’s former first lady Cecilia, Mr. Sarkozy just takes those comments astride and remains concentrated to public affairs. One of the nationalistic measures that he has imposed just this 2008 is to ban English-language programming on state-owned television. According to Mr. Sarkozy, it is just a waste of taxpayers’ money to subsidize the spread of a foreign tongue. And now this breakthrough suggestion to unleash Cabinet ministers to run for public office. Those who are poised to run include Labor Minister Xavier Bertrand who wants to be the deputy mayor in St. Quentin, junior minister Andre Santini who is running for reelection as mayor in one of Paris’s 20 arrondisements, junior minister for overseas territories Christian Estrosi, who is running for mayor of Nice, Culture Minister Christine Albanel who is running for mayor in the 4th Arrondisement of Paris, Finance Minister Christine Lagarde who is running for mayor in the 12th Arrondisement of Paris, Justice Minister Rachida Dati who is running for mayor in the 7th Arrondisement of Paris, secretary of state for human rights Rama Yade, secretary of state for the environment Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet and French presidential spokesperson Laurent Vauquiez.

Nicholas Sarkozy’s dance with the press is not limited to his extremely high profile dating with Carla Bruni. He is also quite adept in both the domestic and international stages. For example, Sarkozy has expressed its intention to resume normal diplomatic relations with Syria. The only condition France is demanding from Syria is for it to cooperate in the handling of fair elections in Lebanon whose political future is in limbo following the expiration of the term of the President with no concrete successor. It can be recalled that France last year under Sarkozy’s reign of course has mediated talks between the government of Lebanon and the Hezbollah occupants in the southern part of the country.

And it’s true that Nicholas Sarkozy continues to be popular among his constituents not as a celebrity but as their leader. Even though he is perceived to be a very strict and hot-tempered person among his staff and against the media if negative publicity is directed at him, he is a very able negotiator throughout the country. He can mingle with the environmentalists at the same time, he can also be a charmer among operators of coal-fired power plants in the country.