HAILED as a literary sensation last week, the intimate portrait of Nicolas Sarkozy published in Paris was becoming a political riddle this weekend, raising eyebrows not only for its revelations about the French leader but also for the enigmatic “G” to whom it is dedicated.

Yasmina Reza, France’s most celebrated playwright, has refused to identify the figure behind the single initial at the start of her book about Sarkozy, the “hyper-president” to whom she was granted extraordinary access when he ran for office earlier this year.

She gives various clues, however, to suggest that “G” is a Socialist politician to whom she is close and whom she would like to understand better: he also dreams of becoming French president one day.

There have been suggestions that “G” was none other than Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a former Socialist finance minister and presidential contender with a fondness for women. He is expected to become head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“Reza is writing about Sarkozy in order to understand ‘G’,” said Le Point magazine. “Did Sarkozy know he was second choice?”

What seemed a very French debate about politics intersecting with passion and literature was the result of a curious gamble by Sarkozy, 52, to allow Reza, known in Britain for her play Art, a hit in London’s West End, to follow him for nine months as a “fly on the wall” of his presidential election campaign.

Her book, L’Aube, le Soir ou la Nuit (Dawn, Evening or the Night) confirmed what the French already knew about their pint-sized president with the Napoleonic ambitions: he has a volatile temper, swears like a trooper, is a workaholic but also a proud father and family man devoted to Cécilia, his mysterious wife, and Louis, their 10-year-old son.

Other, less well known frailties of the most popular president since General Charles de Gaulle are also exposed, however, including a fondness for attractive women, Rolex watches and chocolates.

Yet the 48-year-old author, who shares Hungarian parentage with Sarkozy, has admitted to “having some affection for him” and the picture to emerge is not entirely unflattering.

So much so that Reza, who regards herself as a “woman of the left”, has been accused by the French press of falling under the spell of Sarkozy. He is often described, in the best French presidential tradition as a “chaud lapin” (“hot rabbit”), meaning a man who likes chasing women.

In the one interview that Reza gave to discuss her book, she was asked if she had been “seduced” by Sarkozy.

“No, he wanted to seduce France,” she replied, before adding: “Thinking about it, though, it is almost hurtful to spend an entire year with a man without him trying to seduce you.”

Even so, the theme of seduction runs like an electric current through the book and Reza describes Sarkozy beaming at her one evening as he tells her about the conversation he is conducting simultaneously with an attractive blonde, his other neigh-bour at the dinner table: “She just told me, ‘I dream of you every night’, isn’t that moving?” says Sarkozy to Reza.

Sarkozy puts his hand on the woman’s bare back as he addres-ses Reza again: “She’s charming, this young woman, have you seen how beautifully adorned she is, not a hint of vulgarity.” In the next breath he asks Reza: “Have you tried the white chocolate mousse?”

Reza then tells him: “Try to restrain yourself, Nicolas, don’t forget that you want to be president of the republic.” Sarkozy “gives his childish laugh”, she writes, “smoothes his hair as the girl leans against him. He drinks Limoncello, he says, ‘This is a magic place, everything is magic this evening’.”

On another occasion, displaying the same spontaneous enthusiasm, Sarkozy wraps Reza in his arms to dance with her while waiting to go on stage to deliver a speech during the presidential campaign. “I challenge anyone who has come up close to him not to be impressed,” she said.

Her mother was less flattering, however, and is quoted in the book as saying that Sarkozy was like a “fox terrier running around barking”.

His well documented volatile streak is on display when he lays into his staff during a recording session because he does not like the chair he is sitting in – “sack everyone, I’m fed up,” he says – or when, in his last campaign appearance, he is dragged to a radar site in Brittany.

“I don’t give a damn about the Bretons,” he rants. “I’m going to be surrounded by 10 morons looking at a map. Last campaign day, in a room, looking at a map. Great.”

She describes him sitting alone on a train in a foul mood one day. None of his advisers dares to go anywhere near him. He plays obsessively with his mobile phone, repeatedly turning to the picture of young Louis, but Reza resists addressing one of the most sensitive subjects in the Sarkozy universe and the possible cause of his distress that day: the tempestuous relationship with Cécilia, his wife.

She left him for another man in 2005 and was rumoured to have gone off again in the midst of the most important campaign of Sarkozy’s career. Reza justified Cécilia’s absence from her book by noting that she was seldom on the campaign trail. It was widely believed, however, that Sarkozy insisted on an agreement that Reza would not write about his stormy relationship.

The mysterious “G”, by contrast, haunts the book’s pages, a conundrum to preoccupy politicians at the end of their long summer holidays.

She describes seeing “G” on television in late 2006 and says: “I don’t recognise him. He is saying ‘I want . . . I want . . . I am the one who . . . ’ He is saying ‘I’ all the time. I know him to be a modest and secret person. I suffer listening to him.”

Le Point magazine said that she might be referring to the 58-year-old Strauss-Kahn, often referred to as “DSK”, who was in the midst of a tour of the world last week to promote his candidacy for president of the IMF.

He and Laurent Fabius, the former Socialist prime minister, were heavily defeated by Ségolène Royal in the Socialist party’s primary contest for the presidential nomination in November 2006, and after that were accused of sniping at her from the wings in an attempt to undermine her campaign. They succeeded, but since Sarkozy’s victory they have been unable to wrest control of their party from François Hol-lande, its secretary-general and Royal’s estranged partner.

In what many see as a further attempt to undermine the Socialist opposition, Sarkozy, who last week marked his first 100 days in office, has been vociferously promoting Strauss-Kahn’s IMF candidacy: it would remove him to Washington from where he could hardly play much of a role in the looming Socialist leadership contest.

However, Libération, the left-wing newspaper, said Strauss-Kahn, whom it described as a “seductive epicurean”, might be a liability in Washington. It said his flirtatious behaviour sometimes “verges on harassment” and that this would not go down well among “Anglo-Saxons”.

“They do not forgive misplaced gestures or words,” wrote Jean Quatremer, the veteran Brussels correspondent.

“It would suffice for DSK to corner a secretary behind a desk to trigger an immediate media frenzy in the United States and France would not come out of it unharmed.”

Strauss-Kahn may have more of a future in Paris, where he is considered the only figure on the left to pose a serious threat to Sarkozy. A subject for Reza’s next book, perhaps.

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