NewsLab

During the tough diplomatic negotiations in Bucharest for the NATO summit, Greece had a valuable partner. Nicolas Sarkozy defended strongly, against USA stance, the Greek positions, that FYROM should not get an invitation to the NATO Alliance, before the name issue is first resolved with Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.   “We believe that a solution should be found first in the name dispute with Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. I express my solidarity to the Greek government. I have Hungarian roots, but I have also Greek roots which I accept them completely” stated French president Nicolas Sarkozy. 
His solidarity towards Greek positions was underlined by the greek media. Also a book that was recently published in Greece, sheds light on the greek roots of Nicolas Sarkozy, the son of a Hungarian immigrant and a French mother of Greek Jewish origin. Sarkozy’s mother is from the Mallah family, which originally came from Spain like all Jews of Thessaloniki, in Macedonia, northern Greece. They settled initially in France. About 100 years later the family immigrated to Thessaloniki. Sarkozy’s great grandfather, who died in 1913, was a well known jeweller there. His business was destroyed when a fire in 1917 destroyed almost the entire city. The grave of Mordohai Mallah exists till today at Stavroupoli where it was transferred from the old cemetery just before the Germans walked in the city during WWII and destroyed it. Nicolas’s grand father, Benedict, was the first child of seven children. At the age of 14 Benedict left for France where he studied medicine, married and had two daughters. Suzanne and Andrée, the mother of Nicolas, who married in the 50’s an Hungarian immigrant Paul Sarkozy, the father of Nicolas.