Synopses & Reviews
"This book presents my analysis of the difficulties France faces. It outlines my proposals for putting France back on the path toward economic growth, social justice, and modernity. And it addresses many of the common domestic, international, economic, and social challenges that advanced democracies like France and the United States must confront." So writes Nicolas Sarkozy France's outspoken and controversial minister of the interior and a leading presidential candidate in the new preface to the American edition of his best-selling memoir.
Sarkozy decries French arrogance and complacency it is time for the country to put its own house in order and calls for the restoration of abandoned values: hard work, respect for authority and the family, and individual responsibility. He insists that his country's "monarchical" government is rudderless, if not moribund, and is too given to compromise and avoidance of hard decisions. In Testimony, for which he has drawn fire, Sarkozy issues a wake-up call to his people and the world, setting forth his iconoclastic views on such hot-button issues as international relations vis-à-vis the United States, the Arab world, and Africa; globalization; cultural chauvinism; immigration; the welfare state; education; and law and order.
Extraordinary for its candor regarding Sarkozy's political as well as personal life, Testimony gives us an unsparing critique of contemporary French society and its leaders even as it champions a sharp break with the past. Sarkozy's is a brave, new vision for France as it engages the world of the twenty-first century.
Synopsis
A leading French presidential candidate offers an outspoken, thought-provoking look at his vision for the future of France, criticizing the government of Jacques Chirac and presenting his own take on the problems facing France: immigration, integration, employment, globalization, law and order, and more. 17,500 first printing.
Synopsis
In his international bestseller, France's leading presidential candidate and outspoken interior minister calls for an end to French arrogance and complacency and serves up some bracing news to his countrymen and the world.
About the Author
Nicolas Sarkozy was born in 1955 in Paris. Trained as a lawyer, he is president of France's governing political party, the right-of-center UMP (Union for a Popular Movement). He has served as mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine and, in the national government, as minister of the budget; minister of communication; minister of the economy, finance, and industry; and minister of the interior.
Editor and translator Philip H. Gordon is Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution. He has written for Foreign Affairs, The New Republic, and The Washington Quarterly, among other publications.