AGE: 53
OCCUPATION: President of France
NUMBER OF TIME COVERS: 0
PREVIOUS APPEARANCES ON THE TIME 100: 1
PRO: Besting socialist rival, Segolene Royale, the center-right Sarkozy — the first French president born after World War II, assumed power and immediately started putting his stamp on the office. Most recently, he's said he might skip the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in protest over China's Tibet policy.
CON: Sarko's conservatives got a drubbing in country-wide municipal polling this spring. But were voters rejecting his reform agenda or his brash flashbulb-hungry persona — the public Sarko who turned his divorce (and remarriage to model Carla Bruni) into a media circus?