Sarkozy ‘criticised for giving son a top govt job’

French President Nicolas Sarkozy approaches the podium to speak at the summit on climate change at the United Nations on Sept. 22, 2009.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is said to have landed into a major controversy after he gave his 23-year-old son a top government job.

Mr. Sarkozy has been criticised for keeping it in family and accused of nepotism for appointing his second son from his first marriage, Jean Sarkozy, as head of the development agency for Paris’s finance district, the Daily Mail reported.

Now, Jean is also poised to take over as president of EPAD, the agency charged with developing La Defense, a zone of banks and corporate headquarters, into a rival for London.

But, Patrick Jarry, the Communist mayor of the western Paris suburb of Nanterre and an EPAD board member, said Jean Sarkozy lacked legitimacy and his candidature was a way of ensuring the clan stayed in power.

Socialist parliamentarian, Michele Delaunay, condemned “a policy of clans, family and personal interests“.

And fellow deputy Michele Delaunay, from the same party, decried the young Sarkozy’s candidature as a form of “nepotism and provocation” and pointed out that he was still only in his first year of a law degree.

EPAD’s current boss, Patrick Devedjian, a government minister, is leaving because he has reached the 65-year age ceiling for the job. He confirmed: “Jean is a candidate, he will be named director, representative of the board, and he can therefore become president.”