Nicolas Sarkozy
Nicolas Sarkozy (French: [ni.kɔ.la saʁ.kɔ.zi] ( listen); born Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa; 28 January 1955) is a French politician who served as the 23rd President of France from 16 May 2007 until 15 May 2012. Before his presidency, he was the leader of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP). Under Jacques Chirac's presidency he served as Minister of the Interior in Jean-Pierre Raffarin's (UMP) first two governments (from May 2002 to March 2004), then was appointed Minister of Finances in Raffarin's last government (March 2004 to May 2005) and again Minister of the Interior in Dominique de Villepin's government (2005–2007). Sarkozy was also president of the General council of the Hauts-de-Seine department from 2004 to 2007 and mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine, one of the wealthiest communes of France, from 1983 to 2002. He was Minister of the Budget in the government of Édouard Balladur (RPR, predecessor of the UMP) during François Mitterrand's last term. In foreign affairs, he promised a strengthening of the entente cordiale with the United Kingdom and closer cooperation with the United States. During his term, he faced the late-2000s financial crisis (followed by the recession and the debt crisis caused by it) and the Arab Spring (especially in Tunisia, Libya, and Syria). He married Italian-French singer-songwriter Carla Bruni on 2 February 2008 at the Élysée Palace in Paris. On 6 May 2012, Sarkozy was defeated in the 2012 election by Socialist François Hollande by a margin of 3.2 percentage points, or 1,139,983 votes. After leaving the office, Sarkozy retired from political life. As a former president, Sarkozy is entitled to ex officio membership in the Constitutional Council. On 2 July 2014, Sarkozy was criminally charged with corruption by French prosecutors.