No, Sarko is mostly referring to Bigeard's heroism during WW II: captured in 1940, he escaped from a German POW camp to London, then was parachuted into occupied France (in Ariège, near afew's place) to support the Resistance in 1944.
[You wouldn't expect him to celebrate Bigeard's role in torturing suspected FLN members during the Algeria war, and dropping them into the Mediterranean sea from helicopters, now would you?]

Just yesterday, Sarkozy was busy trying to wrap himself into De Gaulle's mantle in London; so is De Villepin today.

All right-wing politicians are now stumbling upon each other to appear as France's great man's heir. This at a time where a poll shows that Gaullism as a political doctrine does no longer have much significance for 73% of the French people. Apparently, it does in the French right bubbleworld.

This is particularly galling from Sarkozy, given his relentless efforts to dismantle the French social model set after the war based on the program from the National Council of the Resistance.

In that regard, Sarkozy is more Pétain than De Gaulle, collaborating with the very "market forces" he's proudly pretending to oppose.