French President Nicolas Sarkozy has added nepotism to his current personal controversies — shocking the French political establishment by appointing his son, Jean, 23, to be the head of the multibillion euro public agency that runs La Défense, the island of corporate towers in the west of Paris. It is reminiscent of Le Dauphin or child heir apparent to the French throne.

Even members of Sarkozy’s Union for a Popular Movement are balking at the act of raw nepotism in the appointment — which required the replacement of Patrick Devedjian, a Cabinet minister and the current Défense boss. Devedjian reacted with an apt quote from Corneille, the 17th-century dramatist: “For souls nobly born, valour does not await the passing of years.”

Of course, our own leaders have been prone to acts of nepotism through the years, here.

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