WORLD> Europe
|
WORLD> Europe
|
|
Sarkozy says son being 'thrown to wolves'
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-10-14 10:52
PARIS: French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Tuesday his undergraduate son was being unfairly victimised for trying to take charge of the public agency that oversees development of Paris's business district. Opposition leaders have accused Sarkozy of nepotism and say his 23-year-old son, Jean, is not experienced enough to manage La Defense -- a cluster of skyscrapers on the edge of Paris which aims to rival London as Europe's main financial centre.
"It is never right when someone is thrown to the wolves without any reason and in an excessive fashion," he said shortly after giving a speech where he had praised France for being a country where ability rather than privilege secured success. "What counts in France is not to be born to a wealthy family, but to have worked hard and to have proved your worth through your studies and your labour," he said. Jean Sarkozy, the president's second son from his first marriage, also dismissed the controversy, insisting he was working his way up the political ladder in an honest fashion. "Whatever I say, whatever I do, I will be criticised," he told Tuesday's edition of Le Parisien daily. In an interview with France 3 television the same day, he said attacks and criticism were "part of the political game." "I don't want to complain, I want to act," he said. "It's by my acts that I'm asking to be judged and I will show what I'm going to do if people put their trust in me." The younger Sarkozy, who has many of his father's mannerisms but is taller and blond, was elected as a councillor in the Hauts-de-Seine region last year and almost immediately became head of the ruling right-wing majority in the rich Paris suburb. Such a swift rise for a man only in his second year of a law degree raised eyebrows in France, but his move on the levers of power in La Defense, which is planning a one-billion-euro ($1.5 billion) renovation, was a step too far for many. |
