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Paris: The French may have lost their affection for Nicolas Sarkozy, the reform-minded president, but they are falling under the spell of his son Jean, whose eye-catching initiatives in an affluent suburb of Paris have put him under the spotlight.
With his golden locks and dazzling smile, Jean Sarkozy looks like a film star - he happens to be a keen amateur actor - and has inherited his father's political ambition. Now he is playing the leading role in a drama that they are calling "the rise of the dauphin".
As tens of thousands of students and teachers took to the streets last week to protest at the president's plans to cut teaching jobs and streamline the civil service, Jean, a town councillor in Neuilly, the affluent Parisian suburb in which he was born, staged his own piece of political theatre. It was designed to show that not all young people were against his father's economic reforms.
Meetings launched
He launched the first in a series of meetings called "jeudis jeunes" - "young Thursdays" - in a cafe where young conservatives were invited to question prominent government members and other celebrity guests.
"The idea is to show young people that you can get involved in politics," said Jean, 21, referring to youths who did not feel attracted to the left.
"It irritates me that when you are young it's always easier to carry the banner of the left or the extreme left. But it's possible for young people to have other convictions."
With his family connections, Jean, one of two sons from Sarkozy's first marriage to Marie-Dominique Culioli, the daughter of a Corsican chemist, need only click his fingers to summon a star speaker. The first on his list was Rama Yade, the undersecretary for human rights and, at 31, the youngest minister in Sarkozy's "rainbow government".
"Thank you for coming in such numbers," he told the adoring student audience.
"I know it's for Rama, not for me," he added, drawing a laugh from the crowd, "and it's a terrible blow to my ego."
With his telegenic charm and good looks, Jean is expected to go far in Neuilly, one of the country's richest districts which his father used as a springboard to power after serving as mayor there for two decades.
Some have claimed an uncanny resemblance between Jean's voice and glad-handing verve and those of his hyperactive father who, since his divorce from Cecilia, his second wife, in October and marrying Carla Bruni, the Italian singer, has been accused of turning the French presidency into the backdrop for a gaudy soap opera.
Having been elected a year ago with an impressive margin over Segolene Royal, the Socialist candidate, Sarkozy's approval rating has now plummeted to a historic low. This made Jean's appeal to young Parisians on his behalf last week more welcome than ever.
The irony was that, having fought for change in the famous protests of four decades ago, most French students last week appeared to be defending the status quo as they rushed to join protests against Sarkozy's plans to streamline the state, reduce budget deficits and make the country more competitive.
More protests and strikes were expected this week but Sarkozy has pledged not to retreat from plans to cut 22,900 civil service and teaching jobs this year and 35,000 next year.
Machiavellian version
In Neuilly, Jean, a second-year law student at the Sorbonne, is often described as a taller but equally Machiavellian version of his father. A popular satirical television programme that lampoons politicians with rubber dolls represents him with the same puppet that it uses for "Sarko", but with a mane of blond hair.
Jean showed his political teeth when the president tried to parachute David Martinon, his spokesman, into Neuilly as the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) centre-right party's mayoral candidate. At first the young Sarkozy said he would support him but when he realised Martinon could lose the UMP stronghold, he forced him to step aside.
Jean has been a regular jogging partner of his father's and has also accompanied Sarkozy on various missions.
He denies that the president has offered him any tips on how to win office. If Jean's star rises much further, no doubt the father will soon be asking the son for advice.
"It irritates me that when you are young it's easier to carry the banner of the left ...it's possible to have other convictions."
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