His naked aggression to take over the presidency of his former mentor, Jacques Chirac, and his tactic of playing to the far right and calling himself pro-Bush, have made Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s Finance Minister, a galvanizing figure in French politics. Now, he’s got a new book out that’s stirring up even more controversy. As Craig S. Smith writes in a New York Times report, Sarkozy’s book, The Republic, the Religions, the Hope, “grabbed headlines” by the way it “presses the hottest button in French political discourse these days: the separation of church and state.” Among its “most controversial assertions,” says Smith, is its suggestion that, rather than continue to restrict religion in order to maintain a secular society, the government should “help finance the construction of mosques.” According to Smith, “Sarkozy argues that suppressing the construction of mosques will only drive Islam underground, where militant fundamentalism can thrive.” Meanwhile, “Some people have suggested that Mr. Sarkozy timed publication of the book . . . in order to leave office with maximum publicity.”