• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, April 3, 2012

The Wall Street Journal has endorsed an ad man for president. Not for the U.S., but for France -- and the paper’s nominee is Publicis Groupe CEO Maurice Levy. French elections are set for May.

The editorial ran in the April 3 edition -- as much a comment on the current state of French society and politics as it is about Levy’s abilities to run the nation.

Commenting on Levi's qualifications, WSJ asserted that Levy knows how to drive economic growth, as demonstrated by his stewardship of Publicis Groupe over the last decade and a half. It noted that jobs is something France needs. "Under his leadership, the firm has grown nearly tenfold in 15 years and today employs 54,000 people. In 1996, it had 6,000."

Levy, one of France’s most successful and socially connected businessmen, became the recent object of controversy over a huge payday ($21.5 million) he received as the result of a Publicis Groupe deferred compensation plan created in 2003.

But with the French economy in disarray, and the country bracing for austerity measures, the two leading candidates in the French presidential race -- incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist Party contender Francois Hollande -- denounced the payment as excessive.

Commenting on the affair, WSJ essentially denounced the outcry as absurd, given the chaotic state of the country’s economy. “France should want more Maurice Levys -- many more,” the newspaper asserted. The paper concluded that “the main point of campaign agreement between France’s left and right is to deplore the success of a French CEO, [which] reveals a nation that is all too comfortable with its economic decline.”

At deadline, a company rep had not responded to a request for comment on the WSJ's presidential endorsement.