Sarkozy title shoots to top of French chart

A mea culpa book written by former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has shot to number one of the GfK/Livres Hebdo top 20 best-seller list of fiction and non-fiction titles eight days after publication.

By 31st January, France pour la vie (France for Life), published by Plon, had sold 67,725  copies from a print-run of 120,000 that is to be followed by another 60,000.

Several other possible candidates for next year’s presidential election have published books, and others are to follow. So far none has scored Sarkozy’s success.

Announcing the launch of the book, Sarkozy’s party Les Républicains (formerly the UMP), put independent booksellers' backs up by inviting members to pre-order copies from chains Fnac and Decitre, Amazon, Glose, iTunes or Kobo.

Sarkozy, who was the French president from 2007 to 2012, is now embarking on a round of two or three book signings in supermarkets in popular areas as part of what the press have dubbed as his last chance to try and get his job back.

Jean-Pierre Raffarin, prime minister when Sarkozy’s predecessor Jacques Chirac was in power, quipped that the book should have been called Pardon pour ce moment (Sorry for this moment) as a take off on Merci pour ce moment, the 2014 kiss and tell best-seller written by President François Hollande’s former partner Valérie Trierweiler.