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Riches-to-rags-to-riches
It's a riches-to-rags-to-riches story for the Sarkozy family, whose
scion Nicolas Sarkozy is now holding the highest office in France.
In fact, the story dates back to the late 1940s when the French President's father Pal Sarkozy arrived in Paris as a penniless refugee and spent his first night sleeping rough in an entrance to a metro station.
At that time, Pal Sarkozy, the son of an impoverished Hungarian aristocrat, had nothing except the clothes in which he stood and a pair of borrowed shoes several sizes too small.
"I arrive as a refugee and start life on the streets. I didn't have a sou (penny). I arrived without anything, with-out any shoes and ended up spending my first night in the entrance of the Metro."
"And I see my son President of the republic Nicolas is a symbol of the accomplishment and success of the Sarkozy family in France," 80-year-old Pal, who now lives in a luxury apartment in a Paris suburb, told Omega TV channel.
According to him, when the Red Army entered Hungary in 1944, the Sarkozy family fled to Germany, then under Hitler and they returned in 1945, but by then all their possessions had been seized.
"First we had Hitler, then we had Stalin. I didn't have a childhood at all, we couldn't do any proper studies. We were refugees -- we returned, we left again... It was a very complicated childhood, it was no childhood," British newspaper The Daily Telegraph quoted Pal as telling the channel.
In 1948, Pal escaped to Austria and then to Germany, after the Soviet forces, occupying Hungary, had called him up for forced labour in Russia.
In the German town of Baaden Baaden, near the French border, he was recruited to the French Foreign Legion, and was due to be sent to the war in Indochina until a sympathetic Hungarian doctor gave him a medical discharge.
Finally, Pal ended up in Paris, subsequently married Andre, a law student and daughter of an influential doctor, when he was 22. They had three sons, Guillaume, Nicolas and Franois, but divorced when the boys were young.
"I hope there will be a Sarkozy dynasty in France. You need at least three successful generations for a dynasty and I believe my grandchildren are well on way to this," he said.
Hope this will inspire many of us to dream the impossible.
In fact, the story dates back to the late 1940s when the French President's father Pal Sarkozy arrived in Paris as a penniless refugee and spent his first night sleeping rough in an entrance to a metro station.
At that time, Pal Sarkozy, the son of an impoverished Hungarian aristocrat, had nothing except the clothes in which he stood and a pair of borrowed shoes several sizes too small.
"I arrive as a refugee and start life on the streets. I didn't have a sou (penny). I arrived without anything, with-out any shoes and ended up spending my first night in the entrance of the Metro."
"And I see my son President of the republic Nicolas is a symbol of the accomplishment and success of the Sarkozy family in France," 80-year-old Pal, who now lives in a luxury apartment in a Paris suburb, told Omega TV channel.
According to him, when the Red Army entered Hungary in 1944, the Sarkozy family fled to Germany, then under Hitler and they returned in 1945, but by then all their possessions had been seized.
"First we had Hitler, then we had Stalin. I didn't have a childhood at all, we couldn't do any proper studies. We were refugees -- we returned, we left again... It was a very complicated childhood, it was no childhood," British newspaper The Daily Telegraph quoted Pal as telling the channel.
In 1948, Pal escaped to Austria and then to Germany, after the Soviet forces, occupying Hungary, had called him up for forced labour in Russia.
In the German town of Baaden Baaden, near the French border, he was recruited to the French Foreign Legion, and was due to be sent to the war in Indochina until a sympathetic Hungarian doctor gave him a medical discharge.
Finally, Pal ended up in Paris, subsequently married Andre, a law student and daughter of an influential doctor, when he was 22. They had three sons, Guillaume, Nicolas and Franois, but divorced when the boys were young.
"I hope there will be a Sarkozy dynasty in France. You need at least three successful generations for a dynasty and I believe my grandchildren are well on way to this," he said.
Hope this will inspire many of us to dream the impossible.
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