Louis Sarkozy, candidate for mayor of Menton, hands out his campaign leaflets for the municipal elections at the Intermarché supermarket in Menton, December 13, 2025. CLAIRE GABY FOR LE MONDE
"Come by my campaign office, there'll be mulled wine!" called out Louis Sarkozy, mayoral candidate for Menton, near the French border with Italy, to customers at the Intermarché supermarket on this mid-December Saturday. "There'll be champagne too," he added with a laugh. "Another politician lying! If one lie doesn't work, you have to add another!" Campaigning almost seems second nature to him; he's just as comfortable in the street, in the supermarket or at the tennis club hosting the Licornes tournament.
He speaks quickly, shares anecdotes and reels off quotes from Kipling, Châteaubriand or Benjamin Constant ("Sometimes I invent them or quote myself," he admitted, completely at ease). When it comes to those who mock his ambition and arrogance, he responds with self-deprecating humor. "Vote for a tall, dark-haired man with green eyes and irresistible charm," he told a woman clinging to her shopping cart. Rejections, annoyed glances, even clenched fists refusing his flyers – none of it fazes him. "In politics, just like in love, you're either rejected or people get excited. The worst is indifference." This metaphor, which he's clearly very pleased with, is something the 28-year-old candidate returns to time and again.
