Sarkozy taking action - legal action

It has been a busy almost 18 months for the lawyers of the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and the past month has been especially hectic.

As the latest edition of the weekly news magazine "L'Express" points out, Sarkozy has resorted to French justice to pursue civil suits more than any other president in the history of the country's Fifth Republic.

It had been 30 years since an incumbent president had last brought a civil suit legal action, but in the space of less than 18 months, Sarkozy has well and truly bucked the trend in taking or threatening legal proceedings six times.

Some would argue that at least a couple of the suits have had a basis, such as the recent ones involving hacking into his private bank account - for which two people where taken in for questioning on Tuesday - or action he has taken against allegations made by a former head of French intelligence (more on that in a moment). But others - and remember there have been four more - have raised a few eyebrows.

Of those six, three have come in just the last month, and without passing judgement on the relative merits of each case, L'Express listed them all, pointing out that Sarkozy had now "accumulated a number of legal actions making him the "most plaintiff president of the Fifth Republic."

Here's a whistle stop tour of what Sarkozy's lawyers have been up to while he's been running the country, trying to fix the world's economy and, as France currently holds the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union, bashing Europe into shape by trying to persuade countries unwilling, that institutional reform in the shape of the Lisbon Treaty, is an absolute must.

The most recent case of course was just last week when he instructed his lawyers to take out a law suit against the former head of the French intelligence service, Yves Bertrand, following the publication of diaries which included "unsubstantiated allegations" about a number of politicians - among them Sarkozy.

But that wasn't the only threat of action last week. There was also the affair of the "Voodoo dolls."

They come as part of a kit; complete with 12 needles and an instruction manual that quite literally invites the user to "pinpoint" exactly which elements of Sarkozy's policies or character they dislike most. His friendship with a comedian of dubious taste? Apparent "respect" for actor and Scientologist Tom Cruise? The end of advertising on public television? If you don't like one or many of the "traits" written on the effigy of Sarkozy, you stick the needle in the appropriate place.

There's also a similar doll for the defeated candidate in last year's presidential election, Ségolène Royal.

Certainly not of the greatest taste, but offensive enough to Sarkozy and his advisors to have him instruct his lawyer, Thierry Herzog, to whip off a letter to the distributors to have the doll withdrawn or risk legal action for "misuse of the president's image".

And in May there was the "T-shirt incident", when the president's lawyers demanded a company withdraw T-shirts emblazoned with "Sarkozy" with the "o" in his name transformed into a target with the slogan beneath it "zero tolerance - 50 points." An affront to the office of the president? A slight against the man and his policies? The case is still ongoing.

In February Sarkozy - and his not yet third wife Carla - took low cost airline Ryanair to court for the unauthorised use of a photograph of the couple in an advertisement. They later won the case, Sarkozy receiving the symbolic sum of €1 and Bruni-Sarkozy being paid €60,000 in damages.

And of course few here in France will forget the furore surrounding the text message he reportedly sent to his former wife, Cécilia, shortly before marrying Bruni-Sarkozy.

"If you return, I'll cancel everything" - ran an sms apparently never sent and therefore never received, but which caused a brouhaha both at home and abroad when it was reported on the website of the weekly news magazine Nouvel Observateur.

Sarkozy immediately slapped a law suit on the magazine - which could have brought with it three years in prison and a €45,000 fine. But matters were "sorted" an apology apparently made (by the magazine) and Sarkozy's complaint withdrawn.

Of course Sarkozy isn't the only member of his family to have been "involved with the law" over the past 18 months,

His second son, Jean and his new wife, Jessica Sebaoun, have recently started proceedings against a number of magazines for "invasion of privacy" when they snapped shots of the couple shortly after their very private marriage.

And Jean's alleged involvement in a hit-and-run scooter incident from 2005 has only just been dropped - on the recommendation of the public prosecutor.

Sarkozy is often portrayed at both at home and abroad as the most "American" of French presidents, and for much of the first few months after coming to power in May 2007, he certainly seemed more than to embrace that image.

On recent evidence he seems to have taken it one step further with a pattern of behaviour that might perhaps be more widely characterised as being "typically American" namely suing or at least regularly launching the threat of legals proceedings.

Perhaps the conclusion is that if the past 18 months of Sarkozy's time in office are anything to go by, then the rest of his tenure could well be a busy one - at least for the family's lawyers.