By the 11th day of the riots, when the violence had reached a climax and when the government had not yet declared a state of emergency, youth were on the rampage in 300 cities and towns, and well over a thousand vehicles were going up in flames on a nightly basis. The rioters were demolishing nursery schools, city halls, fire stations, schools, post offices and social agencies, beating passing motorcyclists with sticks and hurling hammers and rocks and Molotov cocktails at anything in uniform.

And all the while they were chanting slogans, voicing their hatred for Sarkozy. His rhetoric, far from calming the situation, only inflamed their rage, rage directed at Sarkozy's "pressure washing" remark, at the logic behind his idea of scouring the suburbs, and at his ill-chosen use of the word "scum," shortly before the riots broke out, to describe the "voyous," the petty criminals, rogues and hoodlums of the impoverished suburbs, an insult he repeated on prime-time television as recently as last Thursday evening.

Sarkozy has been surfing his way through the nights of the riots like a character in a fairy tale. Long before a tired and clueless Chirac addressed the issue, and long before Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin began reading carefully prepared statements from small pieces of paper, Sarkozy had made a point of keeping a high profile from the very beginning, appearing at every flashpoint, every battlefield.

He has been rushing through the country by helicopter, a small man in an open-collared shirt, his shoulders too wide for his short body, his face a reflection of the seriousness of the situation. He finds encouraging words for police officers and firemen, and comforting words for victims of the violence. His supporters adore him for his hands-on approach, for his simple, clear words, and for his addresses to a France "that gets up early in the morning and works hard," a France he is intent on convincing "that the government is standing watch," that the republic will prevail, even over a crisis of this magnitude.

But the French republic is more unsettled than it has been in a long time. France's great crisis comes at a time when its presidential system is weakened, an old, sick man is at the helm, and the system's frailties are painfully obvious. The country is paying the price for eternally treating politics as an elegant game of intrigue, as a series of scuffles among groups and subgroups losing themselves in one stratagem after the next, clamoring for the favor of a king they now call president.

When the Germans speak of being weary of politics, they generally have no idea of the dramatic extent to which this phenomenon has ballooned in France. Hardly a week goes by without the announcement of new programs for immediate implementation, without new talk about major reform projects, without new promises of social reform. The riots of the past weeks alone have revealed the shortcomings of almost 30 years of celebrated urban development and social projects.

Ever since the late 1970s, when it became clear that the vast impersonal housing projects on the outskirts of France's major cities were becoming breeding grounds of dissatisfaction, governments of every political stripe have promised solutions, presented action plans and formed commissions. The laws and papers on this issue are legion, and French politicians have showered the suburbs with construction projects, social workers and varying levels of police supervision. The situation, though, hasn't changed a bit.

Describing the situation itself is easy enough: In the vast majority of cases, someone with a name like Mustafa or Samir will not attend good schools in France, will not receive reasonable job training and, in the end, will remain unemployed. He will grow up in a crowded, low-income apartment building, and even as a child he will become intimately acquainted with every conceivable human ill. As an adult, he will have trouble finding an apartment, he will constantly be asked for identification papers by brusque police officers, and he will experience humiliation over and over -- despite his French papers and despite his pride in being a French citizen.

France must face the awful question of whether its society, despite the grand ideals behind the blue, white and red colors of its flag, has fallen prey to a day-to-day, matter-of-fact racism. The country's principled national motto, "Liberté, égalité, fraternité" ("Freedom, equality and brotherhood"), is suddenly being undermined by other, more disreputable -- and long ignored -- voices. Le Pen's success on the right wing, it seems, was not merely an accident, but rather a serious political message delivered by a large chunk of the electorate.

It is only against this background that Nicolas Sarkozy makes sense. And it is only against this background that it becomes clear why Sarkozy, with his angry breaches of taboos, is so popular and why he hasn't become a political has-been long ago. When journalists asked him, during his trip through Lorraine whether he was concerned about a gain in support from the right wing, he coolly responded, "Do you question the readers of your paper about their views?"

Sarkozy does not shy away from difficult questions, nor is he afraid to voice the complaints of the silent majority. To the dismay of the directionless Socialists, Sarkozy acts as both cabinet minister and opposition leader, at times even taking an aggressive stance against his own supporters. He says that his party does not stand behind the administration but is pushing it forward. Sarkozy is a political animal -- and a beast of prey at that.

That the rioters in France's suburbs are portraying Sarkozy as the devil incarnate is indicative of his love-hate relationship with the French public. It's as if the youth who vilify also want to show him their vulnerabilities. Indeed, Sarkozy -- as becomes evident from talking to ghetto residents -- is the only politician who enjoys even a modicum of respect in France's lost neighborhoods.

It's as if the Mustafas and Samirs and Bazoubas felt insulted and betrayed by one of their own. As if the interior minister -- himself a well-practiced hooligan, though armed with words instead of stones -- had buried their last hopes with his offensive rhetoric. Sarkozy, said one social worker, is "the only one who even dares set foot in the suburbs these days. The young people like that. But what they don't like is the fact that he, like everyone else, considers them scum and riffraff."

Sarkozy can only be described using sharp contradictions. During these weeks of unrest, he has played the dual roles of threat and savior. He is, it seems obvious, partly responsible for the outbreak of the riots and for their virulence. By the same token, however, he must be viewed as the only true glimmer of hope, as someone who takes the deep-rooted causes of the crisis seriously and intends to deal with them head-on.

Sarkozy has been politically ambitious from the start and may well have his sights set on the French presidency. He became a city councilman at 22, a mayor at 28, and cabinet minister at 38. He once said the only person who can stop him: "Myself."

But that was long before France's Black November. And it's still too early to say how he will be able to change France -- or whether France will even need Sarkozy anymore. His father was an immigrant from Hungary and his mother the daughter of a Greek physician. But the most challenging segment of his life may lie ahead. Perhaps he will become France's next president in 2007, at 52. Or perhaps he will be just another failed immigrant son.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan.

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