~ Global Empower Media ~ Uniting Nations in Peace: Nicolas Sarkozi

Nicolas Sarkozi has a familiar face and yet I do not recall meeting him personally. For some time I sensed he has a Greek connection.

French politician Nicolas Sarkozy served as the 23rd President of the French Republic from 16 May 2007 until 15 May 2012.

Before becoming President, Nicholas Sarkozy was leader of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) and has served as Minister of the Interior. He was appointed Minister of Finances to identify just some of his experience. In foreign affairs, he promised for the strengthening of the French relationship with the United Kingdom and closer cooperation with the United States. Has he succeeded?

Nicholas Sarkozy is the son of Pál István Ernő Sárközy de Nagy-Bócsa, a Hungarian aristocrat and Andrée Jeanne "Dadu" Mallah whose Greek Jewish father converted to Catholicism to marry her French Catholic mother. Another cosmopolitan family.

There is the Greek connection for validation. Theres more!

Jewish communities have lived in Greece for over two thousand years. The oldest and most charismatic Jewish people in Greece are the Romaniotes. A Greek Jew relates to any person of Jewish faith who lives in or originates from the modern region of Greece.

The majority of Jews living in Greece are Sephardim whose ancestors had left Spain, Portugal and Italy. They largely settled in cities such as Thessaloniki, the city named as "Mother of Israel".

Greek Jews held an important role in early development of Christianity, They were a source of education and commerce for the Byzantine Empire and Ottoman Greece, until the devastation in the Holocaust, when Greece was conquered and occupied by the Axis powers, in spite of the Greeks effort to protect them.

The Jews of Greece did not participate in the First Jewish-Roman War or later conflicts. Greece fell to the Roman Empire in 146 BCE. The Jews of Thessaloniki are said to have "enjoyed wide autonomy" in Roman times.

The Jewish community in Greece are concentrated mainly in Athens, Thessaloniki, Larissa, Volos, Chalkis, Ioannina, Trikala and Corfu, while very few remain in Kavala and Rhodes.

Thessaly or Thessalia was one of the traditional regions of Ancient Greece. This beautiful region includes the Sporades islands (where my father lived). The capital of the region is Larissa (where my father died - UK lawyers take note). Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thessaly was known as Aeolia and appears in Homer's Odyssey.

Thessaloniki Jews when fleeing the Nazis sought sanctuary in Volos. The head rabbi Pessah worked with Archbishop Ioakim and the EAM resistance movement to find sanctuary for the Jews in Pelion. Due to their efforts, 74% of the city's Jews were saved. The Jewish community remained in Volos after the war. With earthquakes in 1955-57 many Jews left Greece to go live in Israel and the United States. Around 100 Jews remain in Volos today.

Mount Pelion (named after king Peleus, father of Achilles) is homeland of Chiron the Centaur, tutor of Jason, Achilles, Theseus and Heracles. The marriage of Thetis and Peleus took place here. Uninvited goddess Eris, took revenge; arriving with a golden apple inscribed "To the Fairest". Three goddesses claimed the apple: Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. Paris was asked to judge (Judgement of Paris) with what followed on, leading to the Trojan War. When the giants Otus and Ephialtes attempted to storm Olympus, they piled Mount Pelion upon Mount Ossa.

Mount Ossa (Kissavos) is in the Larissa prefecture, in Thessaly, Greece. Pelion is to the south and Olympus to the north.

Mount Olympus is in the Kingdom of Thessaloniki, home of the Olympian Greek Gods. Thessaloniki or Salonica, the second-largest city in Greece is capital of Central Macedonia. Its honorific title is Συμπρωτεύουσα literally "co-capital", refers to its historical status as "co-reigning" city of the Byzantine Empire, alongside Constantinople. This connects to my mother's family heritage.

Hagia Sophia Cathedral in Constaniople during Byzantine times

Nicholas declared “My roots are in Salonika” (Thessaloniki) we discover Nicholas has an emotional and family connection to Greece. His mother originally came from Spain. Like all Jews of Salonika in northern Greece, they left after the expulsion of the Jews by King Ferdinand. They initially settled in France.

About 100 years later the family immigrated to Salonika.

Nicolas’s grand father, Benedict, was the first born child of seven children. His real name was Aaron - the family called him Benico. At the age of 14 Benico and his mother left for France where he studied medicine and served in the French army as a doctor during WWI. In order to marry the woman he loved he was baptized Catholic where he took the name Benedict.

Aaron, is the name of the brother of Moses in the Holy Bible. With Benedict, Pope Benedict and the Catholic Benedictine nuns, relate with my great aunties from Paris in France. The Benedictine community in the heart of Jerusalem also comes to my mind.

Hagia Maria Sion Abbey is a Benedictine abbey in Jerusalem on Mt. Zion just outside the walls of the Old City near the Zion Gate. The Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem is Patriarch of Holy Mount Zion (my church) - these connections are not ignored.

Aaron was brother of Moses, both Levites - this lineage married into the Royal Priesthood. King David was King over Judah. The President of France, also becomes elected co-Prince of Andorra, a tiny landlocked nation in the Pyrenees mountains between France and Spain. If Nicholas has descended from the Levite Kings, he could quite likely be regarded as Prince by Birthright.

The Andorran principality is ruled by two non-Andorran sovereigns, one being the French president. This is the only monarch in the world to be elected by the people — not by the citizens of Andorra, but rather those of France. The Prince is the only person to be a monarch and head of state of a republic at the same time. Today President François Hollande takes this role.

Taking into consideration the above, with relevant insights from previous articles, a bigger picture is being presented here.

Greek Jews today largely live side by side in harmony with Christian Greeks. Giorgo Romaio, president of the Greek Committee for the Jewish Museum of Greece, works with Greeks and Jews worldwide, to combat any rise of anti-Semitism in Greece. As our world is progressing forward, people are having their eyes opened to realise that in the 2000 years, history has at times been ugly. There have been wars taking place in recent years - why? Everyone is entitled to live in peace, whatever their nationality, religion or cultural background. Unity is possible.

Yesterday the media reported of a staue of Nicholas Sarcozy's wife, Carla Bruni being lowered. We are also being reminded of yet another lady who has made her mark on the world.

Carla Gilberta Bruni Tedeschi was born in Turin, Italy. She is legally the daughter of Italian concert pianist Marisa Borini and industrialist and classical composer Alberto Bruni Tedeschi. However, it has come to light that Carla's biological father is Italian-born, Brazilian grocery magnate Maurizio Remmert.

Carla Bruni has enjoyed success as a Singer-songwriter and model. She is also heiress to the fortune created by her grandfather.

Nicholas Sarcozy with his wife Carla Bruni both unite France, Greece, Spain, Italy, Hungary and Brazil, from being born in their family. With my own international family heritage, we discover history has not always been peaceful especially in Europe.

The Sarkozy's are openly affectionate with each other. The job that Nicholas Sarkozy set out to do has come to the next stage with the next President. Time will tell what the future will unfold.

The Da Vinci Code has opened people's minds to the French Connection in Paris with the Transparent Pyramid outside the Louvre Museum, illuminated to show nothing is hidden. Here is the former Royal Palace. Elysee Palace is residence of the French President, although Nicholas Sarkozy preferred living in his wife's house in Paris. Italian Leonardo da Vinci's paintings, reveal a mystery of the beholder's eye being able to see what we can see and understand what we can understand. Leonardo da Vinci's paintings are inspired, inviting people to reconsider history.