Reviving the French Exception? Sarkozy, Authoritarian Populism and the Bonapartist Tradition

Abstract

The modern governmental history of France is peppered with heads of state whose rule may aptly be described as personalised, authoritarian and populist. The latest such example, President Nicolas Sarkozy, has thus been likened to Charles de Gaulle, Philippe Pétain, Napoleon III and Napoleon I. A list of other leaders who stand out from the more run-of-the mill (but without the same degree of personalised, authoritarian or populist characteristics as those mentioned above), might include François Mitterrand, Pierre Mendès France and Léon Blum. Beyond France, any roll call of heads of state with both populist and autocratic tendencies should include the Anglo-American examples of Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair and John F. Kennedy, to mention only some of the more obvious. Elsewhere, notable populist autocrats include Vladimir Putin in Russia, Silvio Berlusconi in Italy and a host of strong leaders associated with either right or left in Latin and Central America, including Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Fidel Castro in Cuba and Juan Perón in Argentina, to take a classic example from the past.