This is from June 2006, but I doubt he's done much to make people think differently of him one way or another since this poll. Its been pretty well known he's been running since 2004 and he's been arguably the most high profile politician in France in that time frame.

Anyway, here are the numbers from a poll conducted on June 14-15 2006:

Diriez-vous de Nicolas Sarkozy qu'il vous rassure ou qu'il vous inquiète ?

Il vous rassure: 36%

Il vous inquiete: 55%

Sans Opinion: 9%

Et diriez-vous de Nicolas Sarkozy qu'il est séduisant ou qu'il n'est pas séduisant ?

Il est seduissant: 39%

Il n'est pas seduisant: 61%

IMO, those are bad numbers. They don't matter that much for those who are committed believers in his policies. But, as a political consultant, I see numbers like that and I get worried. They'll kill you with swing voters who don't necessarily share your policy/ideological cast and who are more influenced by the individual as a person.

Its one of the reasons, retrospectively, it was obvious John Kerry was going to lose in '04 by late August/early September. His "personals" were negative, even if Bush did not have strong performance marks either. The key was that the alternative was made to look unacceptable to the American voters.

As an outsider, having seen polls like this about Sarkozy, I've always felt he was vulnerable to an alternative the FRench voting public found "credible."