What role did his dual heritage from Hungary and Thessaloniki play in shaping Nicolas Sarkozy's political personality? And why, in his first speech after being elected President of the French Republic, does he identify himself as the son of a Hungarian and the grandson of a Greek? The narrative of the French president's family history resembles a novel. A novel that traverses Europe for four centuries, with the grandfather, the Thessaloniki doctor Beniko Mallach, and the father, the Hungarian advertising executive Pal Sarkozy de Nagy Bocsa, as narrator-heroes. The Mallach family, his ancestors on his mother's side, lived in Thessaloniki since the 16th century and were prominent members of the Jewish Community, the great Sephardic metropolis of the Balkans. They were rabbis, jewelers, journalists, and politicians. The Mallach family produced a senator, with the Liberal Party of Eleftherios Venizelos, and a member of parliament, with the party of Dimitrios Gounaris. The Sarkozys were Magyar nobles and warriors who resisted the Ottoman Empire. The union of these two worlds against the backdrop of post-war Paris in 1950 would later produce a president in France.

This long and fascinating story is described in the pages of the book "I, the grandson of a Greek".

The book contains the following chapters:
- "I, the grandson..."
- Timeline
- The Jews of Thessaloniki at the turn of the 20th century
- The tree and branches of the Mallach family
- The Mallachs in the Guides of Thessaloniki
- The Mallachs in the historical path of entrepreneurship in Thessaloniki
- The lost Thessaloniki of the Mallachs
- Historical mosaic
- Eleftherios Venizelos and the Jews of Thessaloniki
- Jewish candidates for parliament in elections (1915-1936)

- Concluding remarks
- Selected bibliography