page_title: Nicolas Sarkozy
section_title: Economic policy
hierarchical_section_title: Nicolas Sarkozy / Presidency (2007–2012) / Economic policy
caption_attribution_description: English: Nicolas Sarkozy address the E-G8 Forum in Paris, 2011.
context_page_description: Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa is a retired French politician who served as President of France and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra from 16 May 2007 until 15 May 2012.
  Born in Paris, he is of 1/2 Hungarian Protestant, 1/4 Greek Jewish, and 1/4 French Catholic origin. Mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine from 1983 to 2002, he was Minister of the Budget under Prime Minister Édouard Balladur during François Mitterrand's second term. During Jacques Chirac's second presidential term he served as Minister of the Interior and as Minister of Finances. He was the leader of the Union for a Popular Movement party from 2004 to 2007.
  He won the 2007 French presidential election by a 53.1% to 46.9% margin to Socialist Ségolène Royal. During his term, he faced the late-2000s financial crisis, the Russo-Georgian War and the Arab Spring. He initiated the reform of French universities and the pension reform. He married Italian-French singer-songwriter Carla Bruni in 2008 at the Élysée Palace in Paris.
  In the 2012 election, François Hollande, candidate of the Socialist Party, defeated Sarkozy by a 3.2% margin.
context_section_description: The Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), Sarkozy's party, won a majority at the June 2007 legislative election, although by less than expected. In July, the UMP majority, seconded by the Nouveau Centre, ratified one of Sarkozy's electoral promises, which was to partially revoke the inheritance tax. The inheritance tax formerly brought eight billion euros into state coffers.
  Sarkozy's UMP majority prepared a budget that reduced taxes, in particular for upper middle-class people, allegedly in an effort to boost GDP growth, but did not reduce state expenditures. He was criticised by the European Commission for doing so.
  On 23 July 2008, parliament voted the "loi de modernisation de l'économie" (Modernization of the Economy Law) which loosened restrictions on retail prices and reduced limitations on the creation of businesses. The Government has also made changes to long-standing French work-hour regulations, allowing employers to negotiate overtime with employees and making all hours worked past the traditional French 35-hour week tax-free.
  However, as a result of the global financial crisis that came to a head in September 2008, Sarkozy has returned to the state interventionism of his predecessors, declaring that "laissez-faire capitalism is over" and denouncing the "dictatorship of the market". Confronted with the suggestion that he had become a socialist, he responded: "Have I become socialist? Perhaps." He has also pledged to create 100,000 state-subsidised jobs. This reversion to dirigisme is seen as an attempt to stem the growing popularity of revolutionary socialist leader Olivier Besancenot.
caption: Nicolas Sarkozy addresses the E-G8 Forum in Paris in 2011
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