Nicolas Sarkozy has long been tight with the media. He's often called editors, or their bosses, on deadline to urge them to downplay unfavorable stories. He's joked with journalists that they'd better treat him well because their bosses are his pals. His industrialist friends do indeed hold major stakes in much of the French media, especially the press, but the problem isn't so much the potential conflicts of interest when his new government begins making decisions affecting megacorporations owned by Sarkozy's buddies; it is some of the Fourth Estate's coverage of Sarkozy.

France's new president has been on the cover of so many magazines in recent years that his mug has sometimes felt like a part of magazine cover logos. In mid-April, the conservative weekend magazine Le Figaro--owned by an industrialist friend of Sarkozy, Serge Dassault--ran Sarkozy on the cover for three out of four weeks. Their first headline: "Nicolas Sarkozy: What I still have to say to you."

If the coverage sometimes made it feel like such publications were already working for Sarkozy, it turns out that some of their staff soon will be. As Prime Minister Francois Fillon's new government of 14 supporting ministers settles into place this week, Catherine Pégard is taking up a role as a special adviser at the Élysée. Until the announcement last week, Pégard was the top political writer at the conservative weekly magazine Le Point, meticulously--and positively--recounting Sarkozy's political rise of recent years, thanks to remarkable access to prominent off-the-record voices in the corridors of power. Following in Sarkozy's footsteps, Fillon hired Myriam Lévy, a reporter for Le Figaro's newspaper, as communications adviser. (During the campaign, Lévy dished out biting coverage of Socialist presidential candidate Ségolène Royal.)

Sarkozy is hardly the first French president to work the media; but as president he may have the most intertwined media relations of any French head of state in history--and his term is just beginning. Pre-presidency, Sarkozy was repeatedly accused of shaping editorial judgment on articles, and even hiring-and-firing decisions. Early this month reporters at the Journal du Dimanche, a USA Today-like newspaper, discovered that his wife, Cécilia Sarkozy, didn't bother to vote in the presidential run-off on May 6. They put together an article that reportedly included a photo of a public-vote roster that backed up their case, but the story never went to print.

The Web site Rue89.com, which is run by former staff from the left-wing daily Liberation, broke the story about the article's nonpublication and asserted that Sarkozy friend Arnaud Lagardère--whose investment group owns majority stakes in the tabloid Paris Match, Elle, Europe 1 television, and the Journal du Dimanche--nixed the article. Lagardère denies it, and the newspaper's editor, Jacques Espérandieu, insisted to Agence France Press that he killed the story after reporters failed to get a response from Mrs. Sarkozy. Espérandieu acknowledged, however, that he received calls from Sarkozy's entourage arguing that publication would violate the family's privacy.

In his independent-media defense, Lagardère could point to Paris Match's attention-grabbing 2005 cover photo of Cécilia Sarkozy sitting next to a man who was widely reported to be her lover, Richard Attias, during a temporary separation from her husband. But Lagardère would be more convincing on that front if he hadn't canned Paris Match boss Alain Genestar, who greenlighted the cover story, half a year later. (Lagardère insists the ouster was over declining circulation.)

There was also a book by Valérie Domain, essentially an extended puff-piece touching on the Sarkozys' personal and political partnership, prepared with Cécilia's cooperation. When the Sarkozys separated, and as the book's publication date approached, puff took on new meaning. But, amid gathering interest, the account was never published--at least not in its original form. A book by Domain was later released (by another publishing house), but as a novel, entitled "Entre le cÅ"ur et la raison"--Between the heart and reason--focusing on ostensibly fictional characters named "Celia" and "Guillaume" (which is Sarkozy's brother's name). In a belabored preface, Domain explained that her novel is based on another oeuvre that "circumstances independent of our will interrupted the publication of."

Sarkozy may not be able to control every aspect of the media, but that doesn't mean that he isn't tempted to try, if you believe his detractors. Take the biting political magazine Marianne, which published a lengthy and incendiary indictment of Sarkozy's "unstable" personality prior to his presidential victory, under the cover title, "The True Sarkozy: What Big Media don't want to or don't dare reveal." In a recently published book entitled "An off-the-record Campaign," political writer Daniel Carton cites a meeting between Sarkozy and top staff at Le Figaro magazine, in which the candidate reportedly declared, "I already know what I will do as soon as I get to the Élysée: I will personally deal with Jean-François Kahn." Kahn is the founder of Marianne and the man who penned "The True Sarkozy." For the true Sarkozy, it may not be possible to get too close to the media.