The high life with Nicolas and Carla

Nicolas Sarkozy had a hard time in Normandy yesterday trying to convince workers at a Renault car factory that he was a regular guy who understood their fear of losing their jobs. That might be because of photographs such as this one.

The picture, from this week's Paris Match magazine, speaks for itself. Times are hard and the French are worried for their livelihoods yet their president is posing for glamour pictures with Carla Bruni, his wife, in the Carlyle hotel in New York City. In the picture, taken by Pascal Rostain, Bruni's regular photographer, Sarko seems to be aiming for something between the Great Gatsby and Al Capone, as played by Robert de Niro. In the one below, captioned "Alone in the world in Manhattan", Sarko seems to be the hero in a romantic comedy. The text even talks about the couple's "Manhattan escapade".
 
It is hard to grasp the logic which drives Sarko to show off like this. In recent months he had toned down the "bling-bling", his instinct for exhibitionism, after the pollsters told him that it accounted for a big part of his unpopularity. He even put it out that he spent his evenings on his collection of ancient manuscripts and postage stamps. But people close to Sarko say that he is on something of a high these days, revelling in his role as crisis manager and trouble-shooter for Europe.

He was reported this week to have been boasting in private that he had "stopped the Red Army" on its advance to Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, last August. His European mini-summit on the financial crash last Saturday produced almost nothing but Super Sarko visibly enjoyed his job as chairman -- which he holds a current steward of the European Union's rotating presidency.

The excitement of battle seems to have got the better of Sarko's judgment and that of his image advisers. Having luxurious fun in New York, the source of the financial mayhem that has hit Europe, is surely not a great idea. It hardly matches the censorious terms with which Sarko damned Wall Street greed in a speech in Toulon two days after his return from New York.  It is especially surprising since the president ordered his ministers last month to stop appearing in glamour shots in the celebrity press. "In times like these, I don't want to see pictures of anyone at fancy events in dinner jackets (tuxedos) and long Dior dresses," he was reported to have told the cabinet. The main target was taken to be Rachida Dati, his Justice Minister.

It is interesting to muse on what Charles de Gaulle would have made of the behaviour of the fifth man to follow him in the presidency. This week marks the 50th anniversary of the creation of the Fifth Republic, the presidential regime that was tailor-made for the old wartime saviour. The system was deliberately monarchical to get away from decades of parliamentary paralysis. But Charles and Yvonne de Gaulle led an austere life, even paying for their own telephone calls at the Elysée Palace, or so it is said. These pictures suggest that Nicolas and Carla are enjoying life at the other extreme.

Comments

[PAUL]

I entirely agree: he should have worn an Indian-style shirt over a pair of jeans and joined with Carla (she looks too smart as well) in a duo for their American hosts (complete with jerky gestures).

[dot king]

"stopped the Red Army"

It's like a line from a British sitcom - if Tony Hancock or Ben Elton - or again Wolfie Smith (Freedom for Tooting!) had said it, it'd be uproariously funny. From Sarko, it's rather sad, really.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPEklNyyzRU

[Daisy]

He's a legend in his own mind!

If DeNiro is playing Sarko, who will Joey Pants play?

[dot king]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byqiTB0wB-M

here's the next bit of "Citizen Smith" for anyone interested - both should appeal particularly to Azloon ;D

[ken]

Good God, Charles, not still more Sarko? Can we get over this boring obsession and on to things more intriguing (literally) like Angolagate? Arms deals in contravention of UN embargoes seem rather persistent.

[azloon]

maybe it was sarko who, using a stepladder, punched dick fuld, ceo of defunct lehman bros, in the face at the n.y. health club. he would, of course, have been acting as a proxy for market-skeptical europeans everywhere (for whom he purported to speak earlier in condemning american-style capitalism).

did he keep his visit private until he got back?

check his knuckles.

[Terry]

"He was reported this week to have been boasting in private that he had "stopped the Red Army" on its advance to Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, last August."

[rocket]

"It is hard to grasp the logic which
drives Sarko to show off like this"

Try 5'2"

[rocket]

Stopped the Red Army. LOL

He can talk all he wants among his ministers who will bend over backwards to be at his "petits soins"

Nut A Merkel will still put him in his place when she doesn't agree.

[paul]

What a shabbily dressed Sarko - but then the French are pretty badly dressed in general. Casual in France means open white shirt, blazer, jeans and black loafers.... It doesn"t mean elegant. And the room is even shabbier, a throwback to the decoration of the 60s. Not exactly glamorous, Carla.

[Francois D]

I can not explain this behavior otherwise than by frustations during childhood.. With money, with women ... But I don't think that this explanation will satisfy electors.

http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/carla%2Btele%2Bpublic/video/x5bugy_encore-4-ans-de-sarkozyoh-dieu-aide_news

[Daniel Strohl]

ROCKET,

"Nut A Merkel will still put him in his place when she doesn't agree"

I am afraid Mrs. Merkel is quite busy right now trying to put other things (and persons) in their place in her own country :)

[rocket]

HI Daniel

Not busy enough to veto a French weekend proposal for a Paulson style bailout for Europe.

PS - Please note that Iceland is going bankrupt

[christopher muir]

The way the photo beside the Carlyle piano has been set up suggests that Sarko is sometimes Carla's accompanist. It may yet be another skill coming from one of those six brains! The touching picture reveals a certain (momentary?) wistfulness on his part - it somehow reminds me of Stan Laurel having a thoughtful screen moment. Just did a virtual tour of the Carlyle. The complimentary chocolate-coated strawberries would make any striking worker very envious of life at the top.

[sebastien]

Paul:
[And the room is even shabbier, a throwback to the decoration of the 60s.]
According to the caption ("Le Choix de Carla") the room is in the Carlyle Hotel, New York, which is noted for its Art Deco style.

[qwerty]

Good God, Charles, not still more Sarko? Can we get over this boring obsession and on to things more intriguing (literally) like Angolagate? Arms deals in contravention of UN embargoes seem rather persistent.

Posted by: ken | 7 Oct 2008

Yes please, Charles. And could you get someone to do a nice bit of investigative journalism and find out exactly why the Juge Renaud van Ruymbeke delivered a "non-lieu" in the matter of the Frégates de Taiwan? Is it possible that the whole Clearstream business (or part of it) was cooked up to cook his goose, I mean fragilise him so that he's now compoletely impotent? Machiavellian. NO really, I wish someone would look into this. I fear that French journalists are all afraid of being bumped off.

[Thanks qwerty. Here's what I wrote about Angolagate for the newspaper http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4894593.ece
... and on Taiwan frigates and Clearstream, I agree it's all a very murky business. But we don't have the time or resources to go off and do investigations like that. As for Sarkozy, this man is head of state and the most powerful executive president in the western world. That makes it entirely legitimate to follow him closely. CB]

[Sigognac]

Not sure the picture is all that glamorous, the backgroung looks like my grand mother's lounge.
Has the 70's style come back into fashion?

[Blendi Progri]

Chicago, 1931.

[dot king]

"And could you get someone to do a nice bit of investigative journalism and find out exactly why the Juge Renaud van Ruymbeke delivered a "non-lieu" in the matter of the Frégates de Taiwan?"

QWERTY

This was explained by Jean-Michel Aphatie on the GJ last night or the night before maybe. Judge van Ruymbeke delivered a non-lieu (according to JMA's analysis) because the documents he needed access to were classés Top Secrét and he had to apply to successive Premier Ministres to be able to to see them. Over 8 years of the investigation, every PM refused access to the files. He therefore had no choice but to declare a non-lieu. He knew it was a nonsense, but it was the only course of action left open to him.

Now remains the question: Pourquoi?

[Daniel Strohl]

ROCKET,

"Not busy enough to veto a French weekend proposal for a Paulson style bailout for Europe".

Yes, it is "le chacun pour soi" and "le sauve qui peut" - somewhat in contradiction with previous martial declarations from various sides ...

[dot king]

"Has the 70's style come back into fashion?"

SIGOGNAC

As has been pointed out, the pic is taken in NY, but even so, the room does look rather tacky.
In France, those tiles would suggest a post WW1 period anything from 1920's - 1940's.

In the 1960's and 70's they would have been brown and/or beige. Go into any French house built in either of those decades and the chances are the floor will be brown or beige and interior glazed doors will have yellow frosted-glass panes, occasionaly green. And the fitted kitchen will be dark oak rustic, or melamine in some colour that doesn't match the rest. (Let's not start on the bathrooms.)

Patterned tiles are earlier. However, when I first looked at the photo, the tiles reminded me of the pattern on the nylon foam-backed carpet that I ripped up from all of the ground floor, the staircase and landing of my house before I moved in.

Le chic français doesn't always extend to interiors :)

I heard on the radio the other day that the waistband on Carla's dress is in fact diamonds. Therein lies the real faute de goût in these troubled times.

[Marie-Christine DALMAZ]

I am indeed sorry to read yet more comments about Sarko. In any case, is this not a way for him to improve on his income? in the present climate, is it that stupid?

[Polly-Vous Francais]

I wonder if there's a more personal tit-for-tat reason for the Sarkozys' high-flying NY weekend: trying to outsplash the Attias NYC wedding six months ago.

[dot king]

In fact, looking again at the top photo, I think those "tiles" are a carpet.

OMG! to think I binned about 1km² of it only 9 years ago!

[dot king]

"The complimentary chocolate-coated strawberries"
Christopher Muir

Couldn't see those (wanted to see them particularly :)) but there is a cigarette in the ash-tray in front of the half-consumed bottle of Perrier.
So one of them, if not both, stinks of stale tobacco. Quel élégance!

[Daisy]

"He was reported this week to have been boasting in private that he had "stopped the Red Army" on its advance to Tbilisi".

Why doesnt he brag in public?

[PAUL]

"What a shabbily dressed Sarko - but then the French are pretty badly dressed in general. Casual in France means open white shirt, blazer, jeans and black loafers.... It doesn"t mean elegant. And the room is even shabbier, a throwback to the decoration of the 60s. Not exactly glamorous, Carla."

POSTED BY: PAUL | 7 OCT 2008
23:51:26" Hey! I didn't send this. May I take the liberty of calling myself 'Paul 1st' in future?

[azloon]

why would a national politician want to release photos like these?

they're so..so.. what's the word? did anyone else feel sort of embarrassed to look at them? political porn, maybe?

[Rick]

The world’s going to hell in a handcart, as everyone keeps informing us and Young Nick (as opposed to the Old one!) embarks on a sideline as a model. As my guardian angel, Mr Victor Meldrew, would undoubtedly groan ‘I don’t believe it!’

Europeans are shocked by the seeming ‘thickness’ (stupidity) of American presidential candidates. This makes Sarko’s antics all the harder to swallow. And if his Red Army boast was uttered, the man’s dangerously out of touch with the real world.

[christopher muir]

DOT KING -

My reference to the strawberries is based on information provided on the Carlyle Hotel website. Also, there are many photos of the hotel's interior.

http://www.thecarlyle.com/

[Rick]

DANIEL, there’s a review in today’s ‘Times Literary Supplement’ (‘get-attable’ on the ‘Times’ website under ‘Arts and Entertainment’) on Richard J Evans’ ‘The Third Reich at War’. Therein the whole matter of ‘moral relativism’ looms large. Please don’t think for an instant that I’m moved by ‘Schadenfreude’. On the contrary, too few countries have followed Germany’s example – Austria and Japan, the UK, the USA, etc.

The point is, as heartfelt as German remorse is (West German, of course!), human nature is such that that it’s forever open to temptations to ‘trim’ uncomfortable truths. Here are two examples of ‘relativisation’. First, the gross: David Irving’s manipulation of the numbers killed in order to establish the moral equivalence between the Auschwitz victims and those of the Dresden raids. Second, the subtle: Joachim Fest’s undue emphasis on Hitler’s irrationality plays down the responsibility of the population at large, who become in a sense his victims.

In the recent film, ‘Downfall’ is shown the shambling figure of a Führer, hell-bent on taking the German people to their deaths with him. The film script was mainly written by Fest. I hope you understand my concern with not sparing people’s fond illusions. I am aware of where you come from and hope I haven’t been insensitive.

[Daniel Strohl]

DAISY,

"Why doesnt he brag in public?"

Of course, Sarkozy didn't stop the Russian army. But he did may be more than some big mouthed Americans to have the Russians understand that there are limits.

The Georgian government stated two days ago that the Russian troops have now actually left their territory.

PS : the withdrawal occurred two days before the negotiated limit date.

[Julio]

Decidemment , malgré la crise, il ne peut pas s'en empecher !

La classe tout simplement !

[Daniel Strohl]

RICK,

Thanks for the info. I read Stargardt's discussion of Richard J.Evans' book about the Third Reich. It is interesting, and I have no objection to the thesis of the book as I understood it through Stargardt's commentaries.

There are also a few French "négationistes" (I was not aware up to now that there are a few of the same species in the UK) - no commentary needed. Facts are there. I remember having visited Dachau about 35 years ago , not out of my own initiative, but with a German business friend who thought it was his duty to show me the place and what his Nazi compatriots had done (he served in the Luftwaffe during the war as a maintenance technician).

Regarding the two examples of moral "relativisation" you quote above, there is also no commentary to make other than that it is manipulation.

However, regarding the second example, one should not forget the heavy and constant "Trommelfeuer"-Propaganda the Germans were submitted to during the whole war up to the bitter end - through the radio and the press. In this sense, the German population became the victims of Hitler and Dr. Goebbels and the like, not to forget the chief prosecutor Roland Freisler (the Nazi Fouquier-Tinville :) who made it clear through many examples that "défaitisme" and desertion meant the rope or the axe (or the firing squad).

PS : regarding propaganda, I remember having heard at the German radio towards the end of the war - I was may 9 years old at the time - a commentator speaking of German fighter planes who had to "rammen" allied bombers. Since I had never heard this verb, I asked my mother what it meant. She looked very puzzled - the fighter pilots were supposed to throw themselves with their planes into the bombers ! Nazi version of the kamikaze ...

There is no question for me that Hitler was insane at the end of the war, when everything went wrong for the Nazis. But he was not so prior to the war - otherwise the Prussian generals would not have followed an insane "corporal", even to avenge the humiliation of the Versailles treaty ...

[Rick]

DANIEL, I thank you for your very interesting response. I’m full of admiration for your German business friend. You’re quite right to call ‘relativise’ by the franker ‘manipulate’... except that ‘relativise’ is a sneaky word well adapted to the sneaky activity of chipping at accepted knowledge; this, until what had been as plain as a pikestaff has been shrouded in doubt. In this connection, I think for example of German TV coverage of the re-consecration of the Dresden Frauenkirche. Indignantly, I wanted to interrupt and suggest that the bombing raids had not been entirely unjustified; and that I spied ‘wriggling’. (Of course, many of the ‘Ossis’ had been fed the (Communist) Party line, on the (Capitalist) causes of WW2.

You wrote about ‘defeatism’, ‘desertion’, and ‘Trommelfeuer’. The TLS article mentioned that, somewhat contrary to usual opinion, the allied bombing had significantly demoralised public opinion - even though the material damage and dislocation hadn’t perhaps been huge. Widespread (and understandable) demoralisation would explain the need for ‘Trommelfeuer’ propaganda, including such over-the-top tales as the ‘ramming’ – highly unlikely, given the shortage of aircraft.

You must have had a childhood that few would envy.

[Daniel Strohl]

RICK,

I was too young to have noticed "widespread (and understandable) demoralisation". But I think it was the case - therefore the propaganda and the Freisler's "examples" to boost morale ...

In fact, we lived in a very small town in Northern Alsace and most of the population, apart a few Nazi fanatics, were waiting for the end of the war, and the defeat of the Nazis.

From 1943/44 on, scores of allied bombers passed overhead almost daily en route for Germany (American at day, British at night - MAGGIE, if you are around, the Canadians flew probably with the British). No bombs were dropped in the region.

A funny thing I still have in memory is our small dog (Max) who heard the approaching bombers well in advance and rushed always at once to the cellar whereas the town hall's alarm hooter ("sirène") was most of the time late compared to our brave Max ...

Regarding Propaganda, I still have in memory the Nazi "Sondermeldungen" ("breaking news" in modern jargon :) on the radio when they said they had destroyed allied war ships or divisions ... This happened constantly :)

Of course, it was strictly forbidden to listen to the BBC (their transmissions were faint and heavily jammed). As far as I can remember, the Swiss LW transmitter of Beromunster was not jammed, but their informations were of course "neutral" :).

It was strictly forbidden to speak French - at home, my parents spoke Alsatian (but not German :) with my brother and me. The Nazis meant business. There was also a concentration camp in Schirmeck (not very far from our place) for Alsatians and the
like ...

[azloon]

[I remember having visited Dachau about 35 years ago , not out of my own initiative, but with a German business friend who thought it was his duty to show me the place and what his Nazi compatriots had done] DS

Daniel, when i went to orienberg/sachenhausen eight years ago, as i've written about here before, i went because i felt it was my duty as a human being to witness personally evidence of the depths of human depravity. not german depravity -- as i might have viewed it in my younger years.

[Daniel Strohl]

Azloon,

Human depravity - I agree with you !

[Rick]

DANIEL, how interesting! The expression you were searching for was ‘air-raid siren’. Curiously enough ‘siren’ can also mean ‘a woman who sings with bewitching sweetness’, according to my dictionary.

The first two years of my life (1943-5) were spent in a market town in the large county of Lincolnshire in eastern England. There were airfields all around. Luckily enough, I have no conscious recollection of that endless, monotonous drone that Max was so good at detecting. Your account makes me count my blessings.

Being ‘neutral’, the news on Radio Beromünster was presumably not sufficiently upbeat for you all. My mother was Swiss, so I know what you mean by speaking Alsatian. In her case, it was a matter of persuading friends and acquaintances she wasn’t the opposition. She never forgot the sense of injustice she had felt upon first arriving in Dover: there were two queues at passport control, ‘British Citizens’ and ‘Aliens’. Hell, didn’t they call psychiatrists ‘alienists’?

The whole matter of the linguistic-cultural ‘iron curtain’/’no-man’s-land’/ ‘marches’ between, the very loosely defined, ‘deutsches Sprachgebiet’ Germanic languages area and its monolithic French (‘Défense d’y toucher!’) equivalent is a matter of endless fascination.

In this connection, I suspect that many French people find themselves linguistically ‘rootless’ in a way that Allemanic-, Dutch-, Swiss-, German-speakers don’t. ‘Vivent les patois!’

[dot king]

"The expression you were searching for was ‘air-raid siren’. Curiously enough ‘siren’ can also mean ‘a woman who sings with bewitching sweetness’"

This of course is a reference to "Jason and the Argonauts" (I hope, as just showing off - it might have been Ulysses or someone else of that mythical ilk - :)) - I think "hypnotic" might be a better word than "bewitching" though I suppose it has the same effect, if not the same connotations, and I think the Sirens (note the captital :)) didn't "sing" so much as "ululate", and of course the sound was a warning of danger as much as an actual danger.

Oi fink vat's whoy we says "siren" for weww, "siren".

In French "sirène" means mermaid. Hmm . . .

[justfrench]

I have mixed feelings about Sarkozy.

I find him excellent and pathetic in the same time.

What is this picture ? He looks like a mafioso and his wife from 1960's.

And with the Credit crunch,to irritate people,there is nothing better.

He is very weird. He can be really humble and 2 days later, bling bling again!