The semi-presidential political system of the French Fifth Republic lends itself to highly personalised electoral competition among candidates, both within parties (the French version of ‘primaries’) and between them (the two rounds of the presidential contest). This paper argues that in the historical context of the development of the regime since the introduction of direct election to the presidency in 1962 the personalisation of leadership (including the mediatization of intimacy) has become particularly pronounced in the case of Nicolas Sarkozy. The paper seeks to define and apply the concept of personalisation to the case of Sarkozy’s party and presidential leadership. It begins by adopting and adapting the approach put forward by Karvonen (2010) in his study of parliamentary democracies (from which France is therefore excluded). The paper then charts key aspects of the mediatization of the personal undertaken by Sarkozy both before and after his presidential election victory in 2007 (with comparative reference to previous Presidents such as de Gaulle and Mitterrand), as well as the journalistic response. The paper then examines the different factors that have contributed to the personalisation of politics by Sarkozy, including institutional, electoral, media, elite cultural and popular cultural variables. The final section of the paper asks whether the Sarkozy presidency marks a qualitative shift towards the personalisation of political competition in France and whether the example of Sarkozy shows the increasing conformity of the French case to the practices of other major Western democracies.
