SERGE Hefez, a practising psychiatrist, has identified a new mental illness among the French: obsessive Sarkosis, an unhealthy fascination with the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy.
"As I listened to my patients during consultations, many of them mentioned Sarkozy by name," Dr Hefez said. "He's penetrated some of their deepest fantasies.
"I noticed all this passion in people speaking of him, and I thought there is something
particular about this man – he's like a reflection of us in the mirror."
The French project themselves onto Sarkozy, too, Hefez said.
"He's the incarnation of the postmodern man, obsessed with himself, turned toward pleasure, autonomous and narcissistic," the psychiatrist said.
"And he exhibits his joys and sorrows, all his private life, his sentimental doubts and pleasures. He represents the individualism of the society to the extreme, that it's the individual who counts, not the society."
A year after taking office, Sarkozy can appear to be everywhere, at least in the world of television and print.
The daily newspaper Le Figaro counts at least 100 books devoted to the French president, his life and loves, with more than a million sold, for $25.1m.
Some of the titles display the fury and fascination that Sarkozy has stimulated: The King Is Naked; The Man Who Doesn't Know How To Pretend; The Liquidator; He Must Go!; The Duty Of Insolence; and Somersaults And Flips At The Élysée.
Hefez analysed this obsession in an article and then in his own book, Obsessive Sarkosis, in which he identifies related illnesses, such as Sarkophrenia and Sarkonoia.
Television covers Sarkozy's every gesture, in both homage and mockery, itself an effort to create distance from the phenomenon that it perpetuates and magnifies. But Hefez, too, has been infected by the condition he was among the first to diagnose.
And like any good analyst, he is fully aware of the problem, and the irony.
The heated reaction to his article "was interesting for a psychiatrist and didn't surprise me", he said, laughing, "because it corresponds precisely to the obsession".
For Hefez, Sarkozy's quick marriage to the rich, beautiful model Carla Bruni is telling. "She is the perfect feminine equivalent– very fascinating, very narcissistic, very occupied with herself," Hefez said.
For the French, it was all too much, too fast. Sarkozy's new relationship, first made public in the very unpresidential, un-French EuroDisney theme park less than two months after he and Cécilia, his wife of 11 years, announced their divorce, was seen in the collective consciousness as a kind of "betrayal of intimacy, of friendship" with the French people, Hefez said.
"It's true he's in love, and that has balanced him, but the French have lost confidence in him," the psychiatrist said. "All presidents lie, but this is a betrayal of friendship."
The passion has soured, said Eric Empatz, editor in chief of Le Canard Enchaîné, a weekly newspaper that combines satire and investigative reporting.
"This obsession of the French with Sarkozy has turned, and turned negative," Empatz said.
"The obsession continues, just as passionately, but now it's negative. In that, too, it's like a bad love affair."
With his opinion poll ratings at historic lows, Sarkozy has followed advice, including that of his wife, to appear more presidential in public, and to appear less often. The "bling-bling" of rich friends and extravagant, chunky watches has been largely replaced by discretion, seriousness and carefully managed appearances.
"He fascinates everyone," said a friend who knows Sarkozy well and did not want to be identified speaking about him. "He's passionate, and he polarises people.
"The French feel an intimacy with him as someone like them, but they also want a semi-royal president to represent the country," the friend said.
"So there was this slight misalignment between this man they identify with and this expectation they have of the president, any president.
"Then couple this with too much money, or too many visible signs of it, which relates to the funny relationship the French have with money." The result, the friend said, was disappointment.
The divorce and remarriage further upset the French. "He was theirs, and then suddenly he becomes hers, and now he has to restore this sense of 'I'm yours because I'm here to serve the country'," the friend said.
The Rue89 news website asked: "After a year of dependency, how can we stop being Sarkotoxicated?"
As yet, there appears to be no cure.
