Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has spoken out about his successor's turbulent love life in the latest sign that the right-winger is bent on a comeback to the political frontline.
Sarkozy withdrew from public life and stepped down from the leadership of his UMP party after losing the presidential election to the Socialist Party's Francois Hollande in 2012.
At the time, it appeared he had been serious about his campaign pledge that, in the event of a defeat, "you won't hear from me again".
But with his successor languishing in the polls rocked by revelations of a secret affair, Sarkozy has been testing the political water to assess whether he will have a realistic shot at recapturing the presidency in 2017.
A series of carefully choreographed public appearances have seen the 59-year-old given rapturous welcomes from supporters.
And he has made a series of cryptic allusions to a comeback, usually with an underlying message that his country needs him.
"The sea always comes back to where it has once been," was his latest offering, proffered on a trip to the Atlantic port of La Rochelle this week in the company of a gaggle of political reporters.
On such outings, Sarkozy tends to paint an apocalyptic picture of France on the edge of an economic and social abyss as a result of Hollande's failure to deliver on his election pledge to reverse the upward trend of unemployment.
"In a democracy, there is nothing worse than lies," Sarkozy said in La Rochelle in a comment that some interpreted as being about more than the stagnant state of the economy.
All the signs are that Sarkozy believes he can capitalise on the fallout from Hollande's decision to end his relationship with former first lady Valerie Trierweiler following the revelation of his affair with actress Julie Gayet.
Sarkozy, who divorced his second wife Cecilia and started living with former supermodel Carla Bruni during his time in office, has been reluctant to say too much about the saga in public.
"When you are president you have duties, it's sad," was as much as reporters could winkle out of him this week.
In private however, Sarkozy has reportedly been rubbing his hands with glee over a scandal that he believes will do further damage to his rival's standing, particularly with women voters turned off by the curt 18-word statement Hollande used to announce the end of his relationship with Trierweiler.
