His long, blond, shag haircut and a slight touch of acne on his cheeks betray his age. But at 21, Jean Sarkozy, French President Nicolas Sarkozy's son, already has the polished manners of a seasoned politician. He's putting them to good use, making his first run for political office in this posh Paris suburb where his father became mayor at 28.
Mr. Sarkozy announced his candidacy for a seat on the regional council, the smallest administrative unit in France, just three weeks ago.
Since then, he's spent nearly every day walking around his two-square-kilometre riding, trying to meet all 27,000 residents before Sunday's first round of voting.
Last Sunday morning he was at the tiny Windsor food market, turned out in a slightly bohemian version of the business suit, brown and beige pinstripes with a navy blue turtleneck, shaking hands with every merchant and customer and answering questions that other politicians never have to face.
Yes, he does plan to finish his law degree if he is elected. No, he doesn't think he's too young to run for office. And no, he does not see the parallels between himself and his father.
"People accuse me of being the heir or that this is an elected monarchy. But this is just an attempt by my adversaries to mislead people," he says, touching his questioner lightly on the arm, and flashing an infectiously youthful smile.
"I was born here, I grew up here, I went to school here, so I have a history with this town. I'm not doing this to get involved in politics. I'm getting involved in my city."
If his answer seems disingenuous, it's because Mr. Sarkozy has already shown he has the backroom instincts he needs to thrive in the sometimes internecine world of French politics.
Jean is Nicolas Sarkozy's youngest son from his first marriage, to Marie Culioli. Friends of the family say his mother, a devout Catholic, raised him with a strict sense of right and wrong. She took the children to her family home in Corsica in the summer, while Nicolas took them to soccer games and political rallies all year round.
A second-year law student at the Sorbonne, backroom activist for his father's UMP (Union for a Democratic Movement) party, and an amateur actor, Jean managed to stay out of the public eye until last year when the satirical weekly newspaper Le Canard Enchainé reported that French police had pulled out all the stops to try to find his scooter when it was stolen, even taking DNA samples from his helmet. The scooter was recovered in 10 days, and a police commissioner confirmed they had made an extraordinary effort to find it.
His first foray into politics was even more extraordinary. It began last fall, when Nicolas Sarkozy tried to parachute David Martinon, his spokesman and a favourite of his ex-wife Cécilia, to run as the UMP candidate for mayor in Neuilly-sur-Seine.
Jean set out to campaign for him, and said he would support him "to the death." But voters were outraged by Mr. Sarkozy's manoeuvre, and when Jean realized that Mr. Martinon could lose in what has always been UMP territory, he staged a coup and forced Mr. Martinon to step aside.
At a rally of UMP supporters, he told his father to mind his own business. Then he announced he was running for office himself as a regional councillor. Since then, the French press has delighted in portraying Jean as a taller but equally Machiavellian version of his father.
The daily newspaper Le Monde portrayed him holding a bloody knife, and nearly every article written about him points out the striking similarities between him and the French President.
"Jean Sarkozy not only looks like his father, he also talks like his father, and like his father, he's getting into politics at a rather young age," said David Crossan, political editor for the international television news channel France 24.
The fate of Mr. Martinon "shows in a sense that he's following the similar path of his father, that they have some of the same characteristics and determination, and that they will almost stop at nothing to get what they want out of politics."