Like father, like son: Sarkozy Sr on the art of life – and love

The artist, a silver-haired 82-year-old with a suntan and a Breguet wristwatch, smokes, holding a portable ash tray, as he gestures towards a self-portrait. The picture, hanging in the gloom of the Espace Pierre Cardin, shows a man of two halves – one poor, one rich – grinning over the air vent of a Parisian metro station. "I wanted this to be the cover of my book; it tells my story," he says. "I arrived in 1948 … without a penny and barefoot. I was not destined for my destiny."

Quite how spectacularly his story subsequently veered off course can be seen in the black and white photograph his publishers eventually chose for the front of his memoirs. In it, the features of another man are clearly recognisable: the artist's son, Nicolas Sarkozy. The president may have celebrated his arrival in office with a lavish dinner in Fouquet's restaurant on the Champs Elysées, but his Hungarian father spent his first night in Paris up the road in the entrance of the metro station at Etoile.

Now reaping the rewards of his second son's rise to power, Pál Sarkozy de Nagy-Bocsa is preparing for the first big exhibition of his work in the capital of his adopted country. Tomorrow, at the gallery located a stone's throw from the presidential palace, artistic and political luminaries will gather for the opening of Entente Subtile, a collection of Sarkozy Snr's eclectic "digital fine art". Among those invited are the artist's son and his folk-singing wife, Carla Bruni.

For Sarkozy père, who creates his art with the help of a friend, the German artist Werner Hornung, being the father of the president is a mixed blessing. It may, as his critics point out, make it easier for him to show his work, but he says it considerably lessens his chances of an honest review. He prefers to leave the politics to his son, who he says is "very busy, very stressed" at the moment with opinion polls and meetings. (He doesn't say so, but his son, whose approval ratings are at record lows, is even more in need of good reviews than he is.) "I am delighted that my son is president," he says. "I think he has done the best he could in this crisis period; he has helped France a lot. My politics stop there."

For a boy who grew up in a country torn apart by successive Nazi and Soviet occupations, it is perhaps no surprise that the man who arrived in the winter of 1948 with no papers and no money is reluctant to get involved with affairs of state. In his memoirs, Tant de Vie, Sarkozy recounts an idyllic childhood in Hungary that is shattered by economic crisis and the onset of war. Sent by his mother to find a new life for himself in France, he fled at the age of 20, spent a brief stint in the Foreign Legion and, once in Paris, forged a successful career in marketing.

While admitting it took a while to feel settled in France, he prides himself on having made it in a land which once seemed as foreign as "the moon". Asked if his son's tough stance on immigration makes him uneasy, he rejects any comparison. "It is completely different now. We integrated so well into France that our first generation became the president … If all foreigners who arrive nowadays integrated as easily as we did we would not have all these problems."

The family genes are clear for all to see, admits Pál, who recalls that the birth of Nicolas was the result of "a pleasant evening" in the arms of his first wife, Andrée, better known as Dadue. He believes that his son has inherited his willpower, sense of duty and, above all, capacity for hard work. Those exhausted by "Super-Sarko's" legendary energy levels will find an echo in his father's declaration: "I started [work] again when I was 77. I'd had enough of being retired."

Another character trait which appears to have made its way from father to son is a love of beautiful women (and not necessarily their wives). With his four marriages and countless entanglements, Sarkozy père has had a love life arguably even more sensational than his son. In his memoirs he recounts his first sexual experience – with his nurse – as well as his wedding night with Dadue, who was, to his annoyance, "already a woman".

Does the weakness run in the family? With a 55-year-old son on his third marriage - and that marriage the subject of intense speculation – the question has not escaped Pál, nor his grandson, Jean, 23, who married in 2008. "He said to me, 'You know, granddad, I would like to put an end to the curse of the Sarkozys, who all get divorced.' And I said, 'My boy I'm sure you'll manage it.' I hope with all my heart he will."

Sarkozy Snr, whose fourth marriage to Inès, a former model, has lasted over 40 years, refuses to comment on rumours swirling around the presidential couple. For his own part, he denies any indiscretion. "I have had four big loves in my life. I have been married four times … There is a big difference between a flirtation and a marriage."

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