Nicolas Sarkozy has promised to be a "different president" if he is re-elected on 6 May. In an interview with Paris Match magazine, to be published on Thursday, he said: "One doesn't repeat the errors one might have made …"
Discussing his victory in 2007, Sarkozy said: "My biggest mistake was to think I was still a minister. A minister has to be reactive, instantaneous. When one becomes president, alongside this reactivity, there also needs to be distance and solemnity." He added: "Being five years older has obviously calmed me."
If re-elected, he said, he would "take a step back from the daily news and be more occupied with the big reforms that need to be carried out".
Europe 1 radio, which will also run the interview on Thursday, said Sarkozy had decided not to release a book on his five years in office and his errors, as he had promised, but would be publishing a "little book" next week. He was, said Europe 1, "very mysterious" about what was in it.
Paris Match has a rolling opinion poll on the elections, updated daily. À suivre, as they say here.
