Does a French president have to be cultured and cultivated? Does he have to know his literary onions, his Dostoevsky from his Gallic equivalent of Jeffrey Archer?
Nicolas Sarkozy thought not. When elected in 2007 he thought it was enough to be SuperSarko – an action man who did things. Culture was for the intellectual elite and he, by his own admission, was not intellectual and didn't want to be considered elite.
Besides, he didn't have time to read or watch television; he was too busy running the country.
Big mistake. Sarkozy quickly realised that without the classical references – the essential oil of the "French exception" – he'd be dismissed as an ignorant, hyperactive oaf, or worse, a French George W Bush.
Le Monde suggests the French want to be led by a "a man of letters", unlike the Americans who, the newspaper rather snobbishly says, want a leader who can speak well (which kind of rules out Bush).
It cites General Charles de Gaulle, who loved history, Georges Pompidou, a fan of contemporary art – hence the Pompidou centre, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who wanted to write like Maupassant and created the Musée d'Orsay, François Mitterrand, a fan of Serbo-Croat writer Ivo Andric, and Jacques Chirac, the man behind the Musée Branly.
Sarkozy's response has been to be photographed carrying books and to invite artists and intellectuals for lunch at the Elysée.
His socialist rival and frontrunner in the French election, François Hollande, may also regret once admitting he "never reads novels", but may get away with it, having already cited Victor Hugo and Albert Camus in his campaign.
Writer Erik Orsenna says that for a French leader not to be impregnated by history and literature is like "the French [sports] team not singing La Marseillaise".
