"Post-modernity, which is the condition our societies are moving into, is far more anchored around the emotional than the rational or intellectual.


But at Sorbonne University, sociology professor Michel Maffesoli is not so sure.

He agrees that Sarkozy is the butt of an official culture whose exponents in the media, universities and the arts are overwhelmingly hostile.

But he draws a distinction between published opinion - the views of the intelligentsia - and public opinion.

And with the mass of the population, he argues, the president has far more of a rapport than is ever acknowledged.

"French public life has been dominated for two or three centuries by the rationalist ideas of the Enlightenment.

"But these ideas, which we might describe as those that have shaped 'modernity', are now giving way to the ideas and values of 'post-modernity,'" he says.

"Post-modernity, which is the condition our societies are moving into, is far more anchored around the emotional than the rational or intellectual.

"And Sarkozy seems to have grasped this instinctively. He is far more in phase with ordinary people than are the intellectuals who govern public life."