Top 40 Nicolas Sarkozy Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “You won’t hear from me again.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

2. “Not to intermarry racially is bad for the survival of the country.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

3. “I love life too much to be bitter.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

4. “We live in a world where people don’t all have the same scruples, where all blows can be given, and where, in order to down somebody, all means can be used. Nothing will lead me astray from the path that I have chosen.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

5. “We must defend freedom of expression and if I had to chose, I prefer the excess of caricature over the excess of censure.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

6. “War has been declared on France...”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

7. “To be a young Gaullist is to be a revolutionary!”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

8. “What made America great was her ability to transform her own dream into hope for all mankind.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

9. “The goal is to meet the challenge of racial interbreeding...”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

10. “From the very beginning, the American dream meant proving to all mankind that freedom, justice, human rights and democracy were no utopia but were rather the most realistic policy there is and the most likely to improve the fate of each and every person.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

11. “If you come to France and you wear a veil, if you go to one of the administrative buildings, then that’s not acceptable. If you don’t want your wife to be examined by a male doctor, then you’re not welcome here. France is a country that’s open.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

12. “The French like burgers, Madonna and Miami Vice.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

13. “You are the eternal France, I love you.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

14. “Nothing – I mean nothing – and no-one – I mean no-one – will stop me going through to the end, and trying to be ready for the challenge of 2007.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

15. “I want to wage war against illiteracy, poverty, unemployment, unfair competition, communitarianism, delinquency.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

16. “We want to put a stop to tax havens. We want results on this, with a list of tax havens and a series of consequences.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

17. “I don’t give any gifts to the rich.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

18. “What is dangerous is not minarets, but basements and garages that hide clandestine places of worship. Thus we must choose between mosques, where we know that the rules of the republic are respected, and secret places where extremism has been developing for too long,.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

19. “There are remuneration packages that will no longer be tolerated because they bear no relation to merit. That those who create jobs and wealth may earn a lot of money is not shocking. But that those who contribute to destroying jobs and wealth also earn a lot of money is morally indefensible.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

20. “In a presidential campaign, you can’t lie. You can’t hide what you are and what you want. You can’t hide what kind of President you’ll be. You can’t keep on talking about nothing indefinitely and committing to nothing, you can’t keep running away from debate, masking the challenges.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

21. “It’s disrespectful to tell the French in the morning that you’re going to reduce the debt, in the evening that you’re not going to make any savings, and the next morning, after thinking about it, that you’re going to spend more.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

22. “I’m ready to become a French person amongst French people, and more than ever I have the love for my country deeply ingrained in my heart.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

23. “The French people need to have all the facts so they can choose. And I won’t be running away from it or hiding from it.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

24. “Canadians are friends and Quebecers are my family. What France knows deep down is that within this great Canadian people, there is a Quebec nation. I do not see how proving my family, brotherly love for Quebec should be strengthened by defying Canada.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

25. “France now has a new president and he must be respected. I assume full responsibility for this defeat.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

26. “Being able to find a compromise is about being brave and serving France.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

27. “Nothing is more destructive than the gap between people’s perceptions of their own day-to-day economic well-being and what politicians and statisticians are telling them about the economy.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

28. “I am showing solidarity while being different. Or if you prefer, I am being different while being in solidarity.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

29. “I am not a man of my party. I do not talk only to socialists and union leaders.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

30. “Francois Hollande is an intelligent man. I do not have a problem with him. The only thing is, he has never held office at the state level. Honestly, can you imagine Francois Hollande as president of France? Imagine it!”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

31. “Come, and the only limits to what you’ll be able to achieve will be your own courage and your own talent.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

32. “France must not be the only country to have a high level of welfare protection and few obligations incumbent on those who receive benefits.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

33. “What made America great was her ability to transform her own dream into hope for all mankind. America did not tell the millions of men and women who came from every country in the world and who – with their hands, their intelligence and their heart – built the greatest nation in the world: ‘Come, and everything will be given to you.’ She said: ‘Come, and the only limits to what you’ll be able to achieve will be your own courage and your own talent.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

34. “Laissez-faire is finished. The all-powerful market that always knows best is finished.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

35. “We need to profoundly revise all of our taxes and charges. The aim is to tax pollution – notably fossil fuels – more, and tax work less.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

36. “I am deeply worried because we are seeing an unleashing of violence by 2,000 to 3,000 thugs who come to smash and loot. My objective is to avoid mistakes by the police, so that people can protest in safety.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

37. “I hope that France – and all of Europe – we would take an initiative for the year 2012 to be the year of peace between Israel and the Palestinians.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

38. “If living in France bothers some people, they should feel free to leave the country.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

39. “Each time there is a news story, sometimes that gives ideas to people who then turn into criminals.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

40. “Francois Hollande is the president of the republic, he must be respected. I want to wish him good luck in the midst of these tests.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

41. “I understand that people might be poor if they don’t have any work, but I don’t accept that someone is poor if they’ve worked really hard.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

42. “Perhaps the mistake I made at the start of my mandate is not understanding the symbolic dimension of the president’s role and not being solemn enough in my acts. A mistake for which I would like to apologise or explain myself and which I will not make again. Now, I know the job.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

43. “Europe is not a choice, it is a necessity, but it needs to be rethought, refounded.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

44. “The French people have chosen change. This change I will put into place.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

45. “I fought for the values of responsibility, and I’m not a man who does not accept his responsibilities.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy

46. “A page is turning for me. I won’t be candidate in legislative elections, nor in any elections to come.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy