WHEN Steve Ballmer, the head of Microsoft, visited Paris earlier this month to open a new French headquarters, he agreed to hold only three private meetings.

Two of them were with cabinet ministers. The third, to the dismay of distinguished politicians and businessmen who had put in bids for a word with the executive titan, was with a 23-year-old undergraduate known in the French press as “Prince Jean”.

The meteoric rise of Nicolas Sarkozy’s son Jean — about to take charge of one of the biggest business districts in Europe — has prompted comparisons to a banana republic, fuelling outrage at the French president’s increasingly high-handed ways.

For some, charges of nepotism are part of a deeper malaise corroding the court of “King Sarko”. He has also been attacked for defending a minister’s past as a gay sex tourist and for trying, like a latter-day King Louis XIV, to destroy Dominique de Villepin, a political rival and former prime minister, with an allegedly trumped-up case in the courts.

“All of the solid pillars on which our country was built, in terms of principles, decency and reason, are crumbling,” said François Bayrou, the centrist party leader. “It is reminiscent of the Roman empire.”

Sarkozy dismissed the fuss as part of a media-driven plot to undermine him, insisting that his son, already a municipal councillor in the affluent suburb of Neuilly, had every right to present himself as a candidate to head Epad, the organisation that runs La Défense, the business district in Paris. With the approach of regional elections in March, however, even Sarkozy’s closest supporters express disquiet over what seems hypocrisy on the part of a president who had pledged “rupture” with the bad old ways of the past.

“We must not give the impression that there is a gap between the protected elites and the little people,” said Rama Yade, the sports minister, one of the few government members who dared to speak out in public.

Supporters of Jean, a second-year law student and the second child of Sarkozy and MarieDominique Culioli, his first wife, denied that he had enjoyed any favouritism. “If I were the son of Zinedine Zidane, who would be surprised if I became a footballer?” said Thierry Solère, a close friend of Jean, referring to the former French captain.

“Ever since he was a baby he’s been living politics,” added Solère, the 38-year-old deputy president of the Hauts-de-Seine region, which includes Neuilly. “It’s in his blood.”

One of Solère’s first big political jobs was minding Sarkozy’s much-praised “internet strategy” during his presidential campaign in 2007. Now he is Jean’s chief minder and was at his side in the talks with Ballmer on October 6.

As head of Epad, which has a budget of more than £100m, Jean will be expected to sell La Défense as a location for foreign investors from Dubai to Singapore. Solère has no doubt he can do it.

“He is impressive,” he said in his office last week. “He’s a racehorse, a Formula One racer.”

Perhaps in the hope of gaining some gravitas, Jean recently shaved off the flowing blond locks for which he was known. His father had long since given up telling him and Pierre, his elder brother, a rap music producer, to get their hair cut.

Sarkozy has other reasons to be happy with Jean: even as he is said to be trying for a child with Carla Bruni, the Italian singer and former model he married last year, the president, 54, is about to become a grandfather as Jean’s wife, Jessica Sebaoun, prepares to give birth.

Sarkozy insists that his children — he has another son, Louis, from his marriage to Cécilia, his second wife — enjoy no special privileges. He raised eyebrows with a speech last week, at the height of the controversy over Jean’s elevation, in which he praised France’s state schools for having put an end to the “privilege of birthright” two centuries ago.

“What counts if you want to succeed in France is not whose son you are,” he said. “It is hard work and proving your worth through your studies.”

Even so, Jean has found that it helps being the son of Sarkozy. When his scooter was stolen during the presidential campaign, he mobilised the French police to find it, ordering DNA tests to capture the thieves. Now that Jean has been elected to the Hauts-de-Seine council, he does not hesitate to mention his father’s name in order to win attention — or an argument.

When Patrick Devedjian, head of the council, claimed in a recent debate to have solicited the president’s opinion a day earlier, he was trumped by Jean, who said: “I had the president on the phone this morning.” Devedjian is the current head of Epad but must retire in December. François Fillon, the prime minister, recently approved a legal change that would have allowed him to stay on in the role past the age of 65 but the president blocked it, apparently keen to open the door for his son. Devedjian is expected to be compensated with a big job in Brussels.

It prompted howls of derision. “We’re scandalised,” said Christophe Grébert, a Bayrou supporter whose petition calling on Jean to renounce the post has attracted more than 80,000 signatures. “He has no professional experience, no particular qualifications and no particular legitimacy.”

Few doubt that he will go far.

64% French people opposed to Jean Sarkozy’s elevation. Source: CSA

Times Recommends

• Times Charity Appeal: SolarAid
• Is it Black Monday all over again for Dubai?
• Behind the scenes at the biggest deal