Sarko gets a sharper waistline

We mentioned Sarkozy's mean streak in the last post, so here's a chance to apply a little cruelty of our own. As the hyper-dynamic French President notches up his 100th day in office, the media are having fun today with the discovery that Paris Match magazine touched up a photograph to give him a sleeker profile.

In its August 9 edition, Match devoted a gushing spread to Super-Sarko's New England holiday. It showed him in his usual action-man mode, canoeing with Louis, his youngest son. Looking at a Reuters agency photo, they must have found that the roll around the presidential midriff -- les poignéés d'amour (love handles) -- was not flattering enough and eliminated it.

Match gave an unconvincing explanation to L'Express magazine, which rumbled its adjustment. "His position on the boat exaggerated the protuberance. In lightening the shade, the correction came out exaggerated in the printed version," said Match.

A venerable weekly that mixes celebrity froth with serious reportage, Match made its name with the quality of its pictures. Its advertising slogan used to be "Le Poids des mots, le choc des photos" -- the weight of words, the shock of pictures. This time the weight was in the picture.

Tampering with pictures is taboo in the news business but Match was operating here in its role as the Sarkozy house organ. The magazine has been dubbed Paris Pravda with its fawning coverage since Sarko won election. Its owner, as we have mentioned before, is Arnaud Lagardère, the arms, aviation and media billionaire who is one of the president's close friends.

Last year Lagardère sacked Alain Genestar, the last editor of Match, for incurring Sarkozy's wrath. His offence was publishing a front page picture of Cécilia Sarkozy with Richard Attias, an events organiser for whom she had left Sarko at the time.

Celebrity pictures are modified all the time and Sarko's midriff is hardly a matter of state. But Match's action says a lot about the obsession of Sarko and his camp with controlling their image.

Comments

[Pierre]

Paris Match has a long way to go before matching the sycophancy of Le Figaro. Although I stumbled across a 1959 issue of PM this summer: JM Le Pen featuring as a second in a sword duel between an aristocrat and an impressario!

[Dominique]

We don't quite know wether this says a lot about Sarko's will to control his own image or about Paris Match's will to please Sarko.

Le phénomène de cour, une fois déclenché, ne se contôle plus. Il tourne automatiquement comme un système autonome.

[article33]

Sharpening Sarko's "poignées d'amour" is one thing, that some might find shocking. Actually -and I'm not a spokesperson for guys with "poignées d'amour"- I don't really care, since Photoshop is certainly used for every single pic posted in Match, no matter if Sarko is its subject or not.

I find much more shocking that some officials from l'Elysée decided to soften in an official transcript some quotes from the President, about recidivists (http://hemicycle.hautetfort.com/archive/2007/08/22/quand-l-elysee-joue-des-ciseaux-pour-adoucir-le-discours-de.html)

[Daniel Strohl]

Dominique, dont les vacances ont été manifestement studieuses, a résolu l'épineux problème du mouvement perpétuel auto-alimenté et ce, grâce aux zélateurs de Sarkozy ...

[Sandrine]

"but Match was operating here in its role as the Sarkozy house organ."

héhé, if even Charles recognises that, tout n'est pas perdu !

[Tony Harding]

He who lives by the image shall also die by the image.

[Robert Marchenoir]

Now we know it is possible to keep fit through Photoshop. I have always suspected jogging was not really efficient for the rest of us, anyway.

Could we have state-sponsored socialism airbrushed out of the picture, now? With the same maestria? Please?

Also, to those objecting to some computerized trimming of Sarkozy's excess fat: as far as bare-chested presidents go, I'm sure Putin has not been photoshopped in any way following his macho fishing trip, and that his pecs are for real.

Actually, he could jolly well be tempted to drop some polonium in your morning tea if you suggested otherwise.

That's why I'd rather have a photoshopped Sarkozy than a KGB-enhanced Putin for president, if you get my point.

[Michel R, Paris]

I'm sure Sarkozy is actually embarrassed Paris-Match makes so much efforts to please him, and didn't ask for this kind of special treatment... Propaganda only works when it's not too obvious...

[Monika]

Hilarious!

[MarielleF]

La graisse de Sarko, ce n'est pas une affaire d'etat. But...it's interesting to see how the royal court media suck up to his majesty. He really is le roi soleil, the Sun King.

[Dominique]

So, an interesting question would be : what would the papers say if sarko did actually really go nip&tuck and removed his belly for real? would it still be communication? spin? reality?

Where a hell is reality? did anyone saw it lately?

[Ros]

The website quoted by ARTICLE33 is interesting and clever - well worth putting in your Signets!

[Emmanuelle Darut]

Sarko on the radio, Sarko in the papers.... can we the French stop talking about him all the time and just look at what his government is doing, if any law has been followed by a decret d'application. Because all that fuss he's doing about changing this or that can become a law but then doesn't mean will be applied.
Sorry for shorthand language but I'm sick of hearing about Sarko and also English people here calling him "my President"! I couldn't even vote because the French Consulate messed up my papers, so no, he's not my President, and yes there are some things happening as important in France as Sarko's public life! Help!

[azloon]

Emmanuelle

i'm sorry, "our" sarko has acheived 'phenom" status, and thus discussion of all matters of actual importance in france is suspended until further notice.

it might help if you think of france today as a tv reality show -- all glitter, no substance, but much to gab about between shows.

andy warhol knew all this fifty years ago. we are now living during sarko's 'fifteen minutes of fame.' ok, six years, whatever.....

[Valerie]

Much ado about nothing. 'News' photos are photoshopped all the time now. Many are presented as being factual. Love handles disappearing is no NOT news...

Does anyone really believe that Sarko would have given a da*n of his small amount of body fat was visible in this photo? The man is on top of the world most days... And everyone knows he's in good shape!

As for the French press 'sucking up' to Sarko... Oh, please. If Sego had won, there would have been infinite pro-Sego coverage and no one would have accused the media of 'sucking up' to her. She would have been receiving her due.

[Dominique]

Azloon,

5 years, not 6....

[Robin.W.Midwood]

Does it rearly matter? are there not more important things to bring to our attention than a retouched photo?
Real power when you reach the top of the greesy pole is making the decisions that affect our simple lives down here in the world of reality. OK it's a scoop for this or that publication. But "so be it"

[azloon]

Dominique

i knew it wasn't four (u.s.) and because recent french politics is suggesting a vague resemblance to mexico, i 'went with' their term limit.

anyway, being one 'step up' from mexico, politically speaking, is a GOOD thing.

maybe, someday, if sarko continues with his pro-american lionization, you'll move up into the 'big leagues' and institute four-year terms.

to continue the warhol line of thinking, maybe we all need something much shorter than 4, 5 or 6 years: how about 15 day term limits, renewable at the option of registered voters who would text message their approval twice a month?

[Pierre]

Dominique, 5 years x 2! or 3!

[azloon]

don't mean to appear to be hijacking this blog but would be interested in Daniel and Monika's reactions, particularly, to linked timeonline story below of intereview with klaus von stauffenberg's son:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/men/article2315329.ece

this whole matter wouldn't be getting the attention it is, imo, if tom cruise weren't involved, so maybe it's a good thing he is.

my reaction to this interview was initial surprise at the idea that this attempt on hitler's life was not universally celebrated in germany, even many years after the war. i am well aware of german denial, have personally studied about, and visited death camps, and heard first hand from germans about this period. but until i read this interview, i didn't realize that the protagonist here was perhaps not so much a democratic patriot as a member of an aristocratic fringe group that may have had some perverted philosophies of its own.

i wonder if hollywood (or whoever is behind the movie) will gloss over this aspect in the interest of glamouring german resistance, and rehabilitating the german image?

in the end, i am left feeling that no matter the motivatation of von stauffenberg, he represents the better side of the german personality, the one that was willing to die rather than tolerate the heinous form of evil that it's perpetrators were parading as normal and patriotic.

in the u.s., most states have a "state motto" which usually appears on flags flown on public buildings. New Hampshire, site of sarko's recent holiday (finally a french connection), has my favorite of all state mottos: LIVE FREE OR DIE.

ever since, as a boy, i first saw the startlingly horrific photos of jews being lead to slaughter (which emerged immediately post-1945 when i was six-years-old), i have asked myself if i would have been brave enough to risk my life to combat such evil. in other words, to live free or die.

i have never arrived at a proper answer to that question. i would wish that it were true. but i think often of the new hampshire motto, and believe deeply, that if totalitarianism, in all its various insidious incarnations (which will inevitably recur as long as life exists on the planet), is opposed from the very outset, even in it's initial subtle stirrings, it might not be necessary to face giving one's life in an assassination attempt. it's usually too late by then.

[Valentin]

"i have asked myself if i would have been brave enough to risk my life to combat such evil. in other words, to live free or die."

It was one of those moments in history when evil and good are clearly separated. Brave or not. The fact that for many (a majority?) of people it was impossible not to give in, is sad, but irrelevant. At some point, it's more about conscience than bravery. You can or cannot send someone to death. Period.

[azloon]

Valentin

i'll have to ponder your distinction between conscience and bravery. my first reaction is that bravery is what permits a person to move from conscience (thought) into action.

my main point about the von stauffenberg movie is: was this a virtuous story about german conscience and bravery which emerged from the resistance? or simply the most dramatic? perhaps the most admirable examples of german resistance (shindler?) are not as photogenic as an assassination attempt by a person of questionable motive. but, if you are going to tell that story, those questionable motives should not be avoided, imo.

why do i doubt a movie about an assassination attempt against hitler would suggest that the 'hero' believed in and practiced pederasty, and that tom cruise would play that character?

[Valentin]

That was a reaction to your putting it like it would be a matter of choice, or of, well, some are able to do it, others are more weak, as if on this particular subject there would be place for excusing.

The impression I have about von Stauffenberg, is more that he was representant of an aristocratic Germany at odds with Hitler because he was a dictator, and also because he was about to fail. I can find him patriotic maybe (and still), but I don't think his reasons were the right ones (anti totalitarianism, or the Holocaust, or the destruction of Europe as never seen before since the mongol invasions). It was all about his aristocratic pride, in the end.

[Daniel Strohl]

Azloon,

Von Stauffenberg was courageous, no doubt. This has to be acknowledged.

His motivations were complex - but one has to stress that he belonged to the military (aristocratic in his case) officers caste which despised Hitler which they called with disdain "der Gefreite" ("the corporal" - Hitler had participated in WWI where he was decorated, but where he was not "even" a low rank officer). And of course "der Gefreite" was hold responsible for what was happening to Germany and its army, forced to retreat by the hated Bolsheviks.

He and his fellow "plotters" (which included for instance general Rommel) hoped that they could manage to achieve a "retournement d'alliance", which would allow this new and powerful coalition to crush the Soviets and therefore save Germany from the incoming doom.

[azloon]

interesting background.

perhaps "top gun" tom should have been offered the part of der gefreite.

[Richard Black]

I'm surprised at Terry, Azloon and others maybe, that after regretting on numerous posts Dominique's vacational absence from the blog, no one has wecolmed him back !!

Welcome back Dominique !!

[azloon]

Dominique has to post more than five words/numbers to get a welcome from me...... :)

[Dominique]

brain still in vacations...

not much to say yet...

don't deserve a warm welcome yet...

depressed by news & journalists...

hope some real events will come up soon (positive events of course)...

[Maggie G]

Hi Dominique,

Welcome back!

(This is the second time we've welcomed him back, Richard B. He made a short appearance a while ago and then disappeared again.)

[azloon]

"...depressed by news & journalists..." Dominique

don't worry, be happy. .

we could be living in the age of the black plague.