Charles Bremner - Times Online - WBLG

Au revoir Mademoiselle

Our look at the pitfalls of using vous and tu has gone full circle. The rich response to last week's posting, with so much Anglo-Saxon regard for Gallic formality, has drawn comment in the French media.  RMC radio hauled me into a lunchtime chat yesterday to explain why we are intrigued by Sarkozy's tu/vous campaign. Thank you everyone.

The next step is to admire the survival in everyday French -- and most other European languages -- of Monsieur, Madame and Mademoiselle. The plot thickens, however, when you have to choose Madame or Mademoiselle. More on that in a second.

Sarko's majestic portrait

 

New French presidents pose for an official portrait which will grace the country's 36,664 town and village halls, as well as police stations and embassies and consulates around the world.  Much is read into the choice of photographer, setting and the pose struck by the great man. Here, fresh from the printers', is Monsieur le Président de la République Nicolas Sarkozy.

Sarko chose as his portraitist Philippe Warrin, a photographer with the Sipa agency who is known for his glossy shots of film and television celebrities. This led to speculation that Sarko, who sees himself as a hip kind of a guy, would shun gravity and go for something more relaxed than his predecessors. 

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing did that in 1974 when he broke with the morning coat  and regalia of Charles de Gaulle and Georges Pompidou [see below]. Giscard stood on the palace steps in a breeze in front of a flag when Jacques-Henri Lartigue snapped his picture. Lartigue said that Giscard, who was only 48 at the time, wanted une photo gaie -- a happy shot. In 1995, Jacques Chirac avoided the stuffy old pose and cut a friendly figure in the garden, shot by Bettina Rheims, who made her name with erotic nudes [below].

Don't be too familiar, French told

Here is one of those stories that are difficult to convey to people who speak only English. President Sarkozy's government has annoyed the "progressive" sections of the teaching establishment with an order that school pupils must address their teachers with the formal vous rather than the familiar second person singular tu. Teachers are advised to use the respectful vous to Lycée teenagers in their classes.

The orders are part of Sarko's campaign to reimpose respect and civility across French society. Since the 1960s generation threw off formality, some teachers have let pupils tutoie them and most tutoie their younger pupils.  Xavier Darcos, the new Education Minister, said on Tuesday: "It is indispensable that children vouvoient their teachers and preferable that teachers do not use 'tu' with lycée pupils, so that everyone is in their right place." Sarkozy has also ordered police to stop insulting youths on the troubled immigrant housing estates by using the over-familiar "tu".  Teachers hit back today, accusing Darcos of exaggeration, saying that very few allowed pupils to address them as 'tu' .

The fuss illustrates the confusion over the when to tutoie, with its feeling of instant formality, and when to use vous, with its sense of distance and respect. The matter remains a minefield for foreigners and even muddles the French.  Asking On se tutoie?  (shall we use tu) is often a tricky moment with a new acquaintance.

Sarkozy, who has brought a cool touch to the Elysée Palace, committed a gaffe of his own when he visited the German Chancellor in Berlin on his first day of office last week. 

Sarkozy's friends in the media

   

Among the French media, even those who did not think much of Jacques Chirac admired him for the way that he never riposted when journalists gunned for him. Like Queen Elizabeth II of Britain, he kept a regal silence when scurrilous articles, books and TV films came out. Not so his successor as President of France. 

Nicolas Sarkozy is notorious for retaliating against media that displease him, singling out journalists for attack and putting pressure on their bosses.   The new president's power is multiplied by the fact that the owners of some of France's biggest media are his close friends.  Last year he had Alain Genestar, editor of Paris Match, sacked for publishing a front page picture of his wife's lover. Match is owned by Arnaud Lagardère, who calls Sarko his "brother". His multiple media properties include Europe 1 radio and le Journal du Dimanche, the main national Sunday newspaper.  As I have reported before, Match has now become a shop window for Sarkozy, devoting acres of admiring copy to the doings of the president and his household.  [cartoon by Plantu in le Monde shows JDD journalist saying to Sarkozy dressed as King Louis XIV: "I beg of you sire, tell me what I should write." Les Molières are France's theatre awards]

Sarko's clever dream team

Even people who still have trouble saying the words President Sarkozy are admitting that he showed tactical cunning in the government that he has just put together. Sarko, to use a French expression, is never where you expect him to be.  But while la sarkosphère is saluting the maestro, his opponents are betting on how long it will take before his mix-and-match team leaves the rails.

While the new ministers -- almost half female -- have been sent buzzing off to display their dynamism Sarko-style, the first family have gone for the weekend to Fort Bregançon, the Presidential retreat on the Mediterranean near Toulon.

His arrival there was a fine illustration of the strange way that the French system endows its political boss with monarchical mystique.

Sarko starts his French revolution

French has no exact way of saying "hit the ground running", so broadcasters used the English expression this morning to describe the start of the Sarko Revolution.

In the day since he succeeded Jacques Chirac on France's republican throne,  Nicolas Sarkozy has been a blur of action. He has already managed to put a bomb under the political world by appointing prominent figures from the leftwing opposition to his administration.

Chirac -- the founder of Sarko's own neo-Gaullist party -- had barely been driven out of the Elysée Palace courtyard when his one-time protegé was promising that things would never be the same again. France would now "break with the habits of the past, the habits of thought and intellectual conformity" that have bogged it down, he said. "Never have the risks of inertia been so great for France as they are now... any delay can be fatal."

France says adieu to le bulldozer

Jacques Chirac has been a fixture of the French landscape for so long, it is hard to imagine him leaving. He goes tomorrow, though he plans to stay active at 74, joining the ex-statesman's circuit with a foundation of his own.

People in their 40s and younger can barely remember a time when Chirac was not either Prime Minister, running for President or reigning in the Elysée Palace. Older Parisians still call the municipal water Château Chirac from his 18 years as Mayor. Tony Blair likes to recall that the bulldozer, as Chirac was known, was Prime Minister when he was a student working in a Paris bar. At that time, I was briefly in Paris as a trainee reporter for Reuters and Chirac, all vigour and motion, was the first senior politician whom I ever watched in action.

Desperate Housewives, French style

The changing of the guard in Paris this week is offering entertainment worthy of a TV series. The plot involves three couples and the bumpy relationships of at least two of them. Will Cécilia stay with Sarko ? Can Ségo do any more to humiliate her man ? Will the judges call in Jacques before Bernadette has had time to hang the new curtains ?

Today's episode opens to the sound of paper shredding machines working overtime in the Elysée Palace, which Jacques and Bernadette Chirac leave on Wednesday after 12 years of presidency. 

Over on the left bank, Nicolas Sarkozy, his successor, is upsetting his friends and adversaries by trying to poach former Socialist ministers for his rightwing administration (newspaper story here). The latest recruit is said to be Bernard Kouchner, the co-founder of the Médecins sans Frontières relief organisatin and international human rights activist.

More sensationally, it emerged last night that Cécilia Sarkozy, the new Première Dame, did not vote for her husband in the May 6 election. The glamorous Madame Sarkozy [above with the new president], who was invisible for most of the campaign, did not vote for anyone.

Vive Blair! -- or not.

Tony Blair is in Paris today on the first stage of his farewell world tour. He is calling on President Chirac then dining with Nicolas Sarkozy, who takes over in the Elysée Palace next Wednesday.

Blair's presence and the changing of the guard on both sides of the Channel have prompted a bout of French stock-taking over le Blairisme, as the Prime Minister's doctrines are known.

The occasion is especially ripe because of the misery of the French Socialist party after Ségolène Royal's defeat last weekend. Ségo -- like Sarkozy -- is a big admirer of Blair. She was stamped on by the party and media early in her campaign for saying so in public. The unreformed French left sees blairisme as a bad thing and the Prime Minister as a traitor to the "progressive" cause.

Blair has long served as a touchstone in France.

Revenge on the Seine

The scene in the Luxembourg gardens in Paris today was rather touching -- even a little Shakesperian.

Nicolas Sarkozy appeared alongside Jacques Chirac at a ceremony to unveil a monument to France's abolition of slavery. It was the first appearance of the pair together since the election and Sarko's elevation from upstart subordinate to head of state. The president-elect was well tanned after his Maltese jaunt [last post], from which he returned early and unrepentant last night.

The sight of the pair walking through the garden side-by-side was striking [picture]. Sarko, who is five feet six inches (1.68m) tall, looked not so much like a successor as the son of Chirac, who is over six feet two inches (1.89m).

It is not hard to imagine their thoughts. The old man now appears resigned to Sarko's arrival in spite of all his efforts to quash the ambitions of the one-time protégé. Chirac could not do without the ultra-dynamic Sarko as a member of his Government but he never forgave him for betraying him in 1995 when he backed Edouard Balladur against him for the presidency that year.

Sarko's Love Boat goof

 

After Monday's post, I didn't want to hit Sarko again on his love of glitz, but it's unavoidable today. The presidential campaign of Nicolas Sarkozy was an exercise in flawless image-making. So what was the newly-elected president  thinking when he decided to take off with his family on the jet of Vincent Bolloré for three days in the billionaire's floating palace off Malta?

Sarko's party needs to win parliamentary elections next month. Voters' willingness to give him the majority he needs will not be enhanced by the sight of Sarkozy behaving like Berlusconi, as Libération put it [Sarko's yacht with sarcastic headline on Libé front].  Yes, you can argue that Sarkozy has a right to take whatever holiday he wants, as GAG and others have commented, but in France, with its permanent civil war, his stunt looks like a provocation.      

Waiting for Sarko

With President-elect Sarkozy meditating on a 60-metre yacht off Malta (see last post on glitz), here is the latest from the home front of the new French revolution. And I'll reply to the recent rebukes  -- from some for being a closet Frenchman and from others for being anti-French

First the good news for France. Johnny is coming home. Laeticia Hallyday, the young wife of France's greatest rock idol, said this morning that Johnny, 64 next month, will give up his tax exile in Switzerland now that his pal Nicolas has been elected president. The reason is Sarko's promise to put a 50 percent tax cap on annual income.

In Paris and other cities there is still a sense of unreality over Sarko's victory. It's Victory in Europe day and President Chirac is laying a wreath at the Arc de Triomphe as he has done every year since his election in 1995. That year, he was the president-elect, like Sarkozy now, and he accompanied the outgoing President Mitterrand in the ceremony. Sarko is making a statement by taking off for a south Mediterranean yacht instead of commemorating the end of World War Two alongside Chirac. France takes such national occasions seriously and Sarkozy spent his campaign hammering the theme of national pride.

Sarkozy brings glitz with the grit

 

He hasn't been elected President of France for 24 hours but Nicolas Sarkozy is already raising eyebrows. Why, many are wondering today, did the man who preaches the ethics of work and humility spend his first hour after election in one of the glitziest brasseries in Paris?

Via live television, millions of French voters were kept waiting outside beyond the velvet ropes last night while Sarkozy celebrated for an hour in Fouquet's on the Champs Elysées. Inside, along with family and his closest aides, were Johnny Hallyday, the rock dinosaur, Christian Clavier and Jean Reno, both film stars and others from Sarko's circle of show-biz friends. The television commentators were left speculating on the menu at Fouquet's while France waited for President Chirac's successor to emerge for his appearance on the nearby Place de la Concorde. Cécilia the absent wife turned up at his side there in her first public appearance for two weeks.

Fouquet's with the celebrity crowd was an oddly frivolous image to present when Sarkozy had promised so much blood, sweat and tears to rescue France from stagnation and moral malaise.

It's President Sarko

This is the face of France at least for the next five years. Despite all the warnings of imminent havoc from Ségolène Royal, his run-off opponent, and the left, the French have given a solid mandate to Sarko the Hungarian immigrant's son to apply the radical medicine that he has been prescribing for the country's ills.

Sarko has won about 53 percent of the vote and Royal 47 percent with a very high turnout of about 85 percent. 

In his victory speech Sarkozy said the vote was a clear mandate for radical change.    "Together we are going to write a new page of history," he told supporters. "The page, I am sure, will be great and it will be beautiful." 

Sarko delivered a lyrical victory speech, voicing his love for "this great and beautiful nation which has given me everything." He promised to be "the president of all the French" and fulfill his pledges of immediate  reform. "The French have chosen to break with the ideas, habits and behaviour of the past," he said. "I will restore the value of work, authority, merit and respect for the nation."  He would also rid France of its habit of "repenting" for its past historical sins. "This repentance is a form of self-hatred," he said. He offered friendship to the United States, but urged Washington to act urgently on climate change. He also warned fellow European leaders that he expected them to join him in making the Union more protective. "It must not be the Trojan horse for globalisation's ills,"  he said.

Police are out in force around Paris and the big cities in case of rioting by poor immigrant youths upset at the victory of the man they hold responsible for their ills. Bus-loads of riot police are assembled near the Place de la Concorde, at the foot of the Champs Elysées where they are staging a concert to celebrate. Johnny Hallyday, the national rock idol for over four decades has come from his Swiss tax exile to appear alongside Sarko and their mates.

Sarkozy talks presidential while Royal sees doom

A visitor to France today would hardly know that the country is one day from choosing a new president [today's scene-setter here]. France's mania for regulating everything means that the media are not allowed to report anything of substance since yesterday on the campaign and no opinion polls may be mentioned. The people are supposed to have a "day of reflection" before voting. 

Of course the internet escapes most of the ban, which is how most people know that Ségolène Royal, the Socialist, is crashing in the latest opinion polls, falling 10 points behind Nicolas Sarkozy.

Sarko struts, Ségo struggles

There are still two days to go before France picks its president, but the feeling today is that the show is over. Six or seven points ahead in the opinion polls, Nicolas Sarkozy appears unstoppable and he has already begun talking as if he has been elected. On Europe 1 radio this morning he revewed his imminent triumph, saying that it was proof that "France is moving". The country had understood that "conservativism, staying put, is the real threat", he said.

He was even more lyrical last night in Montpellier. "The people have risen, the people have regained the power to speak.... I have touched the soul of France," he said. " France is almost like a person to me... I regret nothing." Here we have a flavour of the self-aggrandizing, Napoleonic Sarko that France is probably going to have to get used to for the next five years. [Read Sarko government plans in today's paper and news story]

Over on RTL radio this morning, Ségolène Royal, his Socialist challenger, was not giving up but she was showing the strain.

Ségo shines in debate but Sarko wins

Ségolène Royal was pleased with herself on the radio this morning as she claimed victory over Nicolas Sarkozy in their bad-tempered television debate last night.

The first opinion poll suggests, however, that Ségo's  fiery performance failed to dent the champ. Fifty-three percent of viewers told the Opinionway firm that Sarkozy was more convincing, with 31 percent giving Royal the advantage. The rest were undecided. 

The buzz emerging from the media and chatter this morning confirms our impression that Ségo did well with her onslaught on the conservative favourite. Experts on body language said she walked away with the show by staring down Sarkozy, who seemed to cower under her blows while looking at the two mediators for help.

Ségo comes out fighting

The long debate between the two French candidates turned into a one-sided punch-up with Ségolène Royal, the Socialist challenger, jabbing aggressively from the outset at Nicolas Sarkozy. The conservative champion ducked around most of the time, reluctant to hit back on the same terms. 

Ségolène Royal  did better than expected, keeping Nicolas Sarkozy off-balance with her attacks and emotional arguments. She caught him out couple of times.  Sarko, playing the gentleman, was so determined to stay calm in the face of her assaults that he came off "as meek as a lamb" as Jean d'Ormesson, the veteran commentator said. Only at one moment did the sparks really fly. Royal whipped herself up into a lather over the treatment of handicapped children in schools and accused Sarko of being "the height of political immorality". You are losing your nerves, Sarkozy told her. "I am angry," she declared with righteous indignation. Around the land, Royal's supporters cheered her nerve, but Sarko's crowd praised his dignity in the face of her virulent tone.    

Sarkozy and ugly ideas

Waiting for tonight's big debate, Nicolas Sarkozy got off a few shots about the way he is demonised on France-Inter radio this morning [listen here] Let me quote them to make a point in response to Christine and the commentators (some strong ones by e-mail) who accuse me of pro-Sarko bias.

The French left has this fantastic idea that anyone who does not share exactly their ideas is illegitimate, he said. We have debates and if I am not in agreement with them, I am brutal... I am a danger for democracy for the sole reason that I do not have leftwing ideas.

That hits the nail on the head. The attacks on Sarkozy are against his person. They seek to anathematize him and there is an ugly side to them. This is the most striking feature of the closing stage of the French presidential campaign. Reporting it is not a sign of journalistic incompetence or making propaganda for the candidate.

Sarkozy is not widely liked, even by many of those planning to vote for him. He and his camp have been aggressive in castigating the left and most recently the culture of the 1968 generation, for moral dereliction. He has been fierce in his criticism of France's addiction to welfare hand-outs and of what he sees as the left's excessive tolerance of anti-social behaviour. Those are classic conservative doctrines but they are not usually articulated so bluntly in France. 

Demon Sarko is Ségo's last card

A beautiful May Day morning in Paris, with all the usual traditions. The city is closed except for tourists. French workers are resting from their labours. Actually they rested yesterday too, since many firms stayed shut on the intervening Monday. There are no newspapers. They are selling muguet (lily-of-the-valley) at street corners and Jean-Marie Le Pen is rallying his troops outside The Times office on the Place de L'Opéra.

Le Pen's annual féte has its usual few thousand supporters gathering with him at Joan of Arc's statue nearby. They are marching up the avenue de l'Opéra where a big sound-stage that has been built over the Metro entrance. But the celebration is the last hurrah of the far right bully boy who was sandbagged by Nicolas Sarkozy in the first round of the election campaign. By hijacking a couple of million Le Pen voters for himself, Sarko left the old man with his lowest score for over a decade. At 78, he is unlikely to recover politically and the knives are out for Marine, the daughter who managed his campaign and wants to inherit the National Front. (update: I have just heard Le Pen's booming voice call on his supporters to "abstain massively" from voting on Sunday.)

Sarkozy's success in poaching Le Pen's rightwing themes of immigration, law-and-order  and national identity has hurt him in the final sprint against Ségolene Royal, the Socialist.