Sarkozy UMP presidency — centre-right Gaullist 'rupture' (France)

Doctrine — stated goals and content

Centre-right Gaullist presidency branded as "rupture" with the French social-liberal equilibrium — campaigning on "travailler plus pour gagner plus", security, and state-reform, while remaining within the Fifth-Republic statist-executive tradition. Left-right axis: centre-right, with a clear pro-work/pro-capital tilt and Atlanticist foreign-policy re-alignment (NATO integrated command re-entry 2009). Signature content: Loi TEPA (Travail, Emploi, Pouvoir d'Achat) of 21 August 2007 — overtime-hours income-tax and social-contribution exemption ("défiscalisation des heures supplémentaires"), inheritance- tax exemption for spouses and €150k/child threshold, mortgage-interest tax credit, ISF bouclier fiscal capping total direct tax at 50% of income; RGPP (Révision générale des politiques publiques) 2007-2012 non-replacement of one retiring civil servant in two; university autonomy LRU law 10 August 2007; 2008 Loi de modernisation de l'économie (LME); 2008-2009 crisis response — bank recapitalisation SPPE, €26bn Plan de relance December 2008, GM/PSA/Renault support; 2010 pension reform raising legal age 60 → 62 and full-rate age 65 → 67 (enacted 9 November 2010 amid mass protests); auto-entrepreneur status 2009; TVA sociale / CSG-labour cost shift partially enacted late-mandate; nuclear and EPR continuation. Popularity: 1st-round 31.2% / 2nd-round 53.1% May 2007 vs Royal; approval from ~65% honeymoon 2007 to ~32-35% by late 2008 post-Bling-bling / bouclier fiscal controversy, recovering modestly during 2008-2009 crisis management, sagging to ~30% during 2010 pension reform, ending at ~36% pre-election; 1st-round 27.2% / 2nd-round 48.4% May 2012, losing to Hollande. UMP retained Assemblée majority throughout the mandate. Coherence judgement: doctrinally consistent pro-work, pro-capital, state-reform programme executed at scale (TEPA, RGPP, pensions) but compromised in perception by the bouclier fiscal distributional optics and by the 2008-2011 pivot to crisis-era interventionism and fiscal consolidation that muted the original supply-side story.