Principality in turmoil

The geographical boundaries of France are shaped in such a way that French people often refer to their country as the Hexagon. Inside this six-sided territory, besides Monaco and Andorra, a new principality came into existence recently. It's a fuzzy fairy-tale region of a virtual kind, named Sarkozia, whose monarch is Prince Nicolas. Well, during the weekend, the principality was in a state of turmoil because of electoral maneuvering in the well-heeled Parisian suburb of Neuilly, of which Nicolas Sarkozy was the mayor for a couple of decades. The president recently nominated one of his men as a candidate for the forthcoming municipal elections in Neuilly. The individual in question, David Martinon, was a close friend of Sarkozy's former wife Cecilia, and he now occupies the role of presidential spokesman. The president's son, Jean Sarkozy, has been a prominent member of Martinon's operational cell.

A few days ago, a confidential poll revealed that the people of Neuilly did not appear to appreciate this candidate who was "parachuted" upon them by their former mayor. For the president, whose popularity is currently at an all-time low, it would be an additional catastrophe if his Neuilly nomination were to turn out to be a loser. So, it was safer to remove Martinon immediately through the method referred to in French as an assassination politique. The president's son Jean [whose voice and personality, but not his physical appearance, resemble eerily those of his dad] was called upon to be the golden bullet, to do the dirty work. On Sunday, he simply announced publicly that he and his tiny band of close associates would no longer be supporting David Martinon.

Few observers believe that, as a consequence of this act, the principality will revert overnight to being a quiet and nicely-organized family affair. On the contrary, there are other signs that something is rotten in the state of Sarkozia. A prominent weekly, Le Nouvel Observateur, dared to reveal recently that the president once left a phone message with his ex-wife Cecilia stating that, if she were to return home, he would instantly drop his plans for marrying Carla Bruni. Now, this alleged information may or may not have been valid, and it's not easy to verify such a claim. Normally, the president should have shrugged his shoulders and allowed this would-be revelation to be either confirmed or rejected by facts, or simply forgotten. Instead of that, Sarkozy lost his self-control and dragged the weekly and their journalist into a criminal court of law.

Regardless of predictions for March's electoral results in Neuilly, or the outcome of the court case against Le Nouvel Observateur, one has the impression that little Prince Nicolas is piling more and more straw onto the unfortunate camel named Sarkozia, whose back is starting to sag like the results of the president's popularity polls.

No time to lose

In the words of Edith Piaf:

Quand il me prend dans ses bras,
Il me parle tout bas
Je vois la vie en rose.

[When he takes me in his arms, and speaks to me softly, I see life with a rosy color.]

The new Madame Sarkozy once made it known that she supports the French Left. In other words, this wealthy young lady (the French press quoted a global figure, today, of over 18 million euros) used to see the world, from a political viewpoint, with a rosy color. Naturally, in the course of the last 71 days [since her encounter with the French president], she may have changed her political outlook. Everybody has the right to evolve, and to see the world in whatever color they desire. In any case, it will be interesting to hear for whom she votes in France's forthcoming municipal elections.

A short article on this romance in the New York Times stated that the public relationship of Nicolas Sarkozy with an Italian-born heiress—once involved with a variety of males such as Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton and former French Socialist prime minister Laurent Fabius—struck many French observers as "lacking taste". I love that fuzzy notion of mild disparagement, which sums up the situation perfectly. On the other hand, it's a fact that French polls reveal a spectacular drop in the president's popularity, and it's not unlikely that this negative result can be attributed to Sarkozy's apparent failure to halt the decline of purchasing power in France, combined with his running around ostentatiously with an Italian pinup.

The future first lady is a tramp

When the citizens of a great republic elect their president, the future first lady is part of the packaged deal, at no extra cost... particularly if the president himself has lots of wealthy friends with jet planes, luxury yachts and Mediterranean mansions. Normally, voters can't complain if they were to discover that the first lady likes to be photographed in all kinds of interesting situations.

In France today, there's a minor irregularity in the sense that voters had no idea that the president they were electing would be switching first ladies during his first six months in office. So, a disgruntled citizen might grumble bitterly: "We thought we would be getting lady X, and now you're forcing us to accept lady Y." But, as I said, only a miserly voter would lodge such a complaint, because the nation gets the first lady for free (in theory), as part of the global bargain.

There's another approach to this question. Few people would feel like leaving their children in the care of a couple who've never succeeded in keeping their own kids off the street. How should we feel about confiding an entire nation to a guy who apparently can't keep his female off the front covers? And a female who can't keep her clothes on?

French love song

Do you believe that Bill Shakespeare, before penning his great love tragedy entitled Romeo and Juliet, took the trouble to verify that the son of Lord Montague and the daughter of Lord Capulet had indeed been linked in an amorous relationship? I don't think so. I would consider that the Bard of Avon simply pulled this particular couple out of his magic hat because he imagined they would be great personages for a love story. I find it difficult to visualize Shakespeare in the role of an investigative journalist, peering in through bedroom windows in order to be absolutely certain, before daring to say so publicly, that the Capulet nymph was indeed getting laid by the randy Montague lad. William Shakespeare was such a good story-teller that spectators were willing to believe his tales without even bothering to ask whether or not they were factually true. Wow, what an artist! These days, I would say that the only cultural creator who gets anywhere near Shakespeare is Steven Spielberg... or maybe George W Bush back when his public performances used to refer to weapons of mass destruction.

In an adjacent domain, should we waste time trying to determine whether Nicolas Sarkozy and Rachida Dati [present minister of Justice] have really been lovers? Or maybe still are?

Even without a factual Department-of-the-Interior-type answer to this question, French art and culture will continue to evolve. I'm persuaded that French creators, deprived of nitty-gritty dirty details about Nicolas and Rachida, can still produce romantic masterpieces. Here's the proof:



The artists, Alec and Clément, are known as Beaubourg, and this exquisite lyrical composition belongs to a series entitled La chanson du dimanche [Sunday song]. Don't worry if you can't catch the subtle meaning of the words. Just let yourself drift into a marvelous romantic world like that of Romeo and Juliet, and imagine a utopian setting in which Nicolas and Rachida might indeed be Shakespearean lovers.

Change of attitudes and words

Not so long ago, many people in France were intrigued by the dynamism, exuberance and energetic determination of the newly-elected president... without necessarily admiring his actions and operations, or taking the man seriously. Nicolas Sarkozy was new; he was young; he was different... Political observers accustomed to the time-honored and relatively austere traditions of French politics of the Fifth Republic—from de Gaulle, Pompidou, Giscard and Mitterrand through to Chirac—were initially astounded by this Speedy Gonzales with a finger in every pie. He seemed to be operating almost everywhere, simultaneously, and people soon understood that he would not be calling upon the services of his submissive prime minister... or any other minister, for that matter. Why should he? Sarkozy's wife Cécilia turned out to be more efficient than even a French minister of Foreign Affairs in liberating the female hostages in Kadhafi Land. But she ended up running away.

I have the impression, though, that the dashing French prince, presently enamored of an Italian fashion-model princess, might be moving into the treacherous midnight zone of Cinderella, when the champagne bubbles can burst, and beautiful people can turn into toads. What I'm trying to say is that I sense that more and more French people are irritated by the Sarkozy style, and that the fairly tale could end rudely at the drop of a magician's hat. [I'm aware that I might have mixed up a few images and metaphors in this paragraph.]

Sarkozy's new-year message to the French nation was disappointing. For inexplicable last-minute reasons, instead of having his message video-recorded in a professional style, Sarkozy decided to deliver his speech live, in a stilted formal fashion, prompted by means of an idiot board. Then he threw in a weird allusion to a personal vision designated as a "politique de civilization", which left people startled and confused, primarily because nobody seems capable of grasping what this expression might mean.

Certain popular young Frenchmen are frankly angry.

France's favorite personality, the celebrated tennis player and singer Yannick Noah, is scandalized by Sarkozy: "Everything shocks me. His attitude, his tone and his arrogance shock me. The display of wealth and his cynicism shock me. The disinformation shocks me." Noah ends up borrowing the image of Louis XIV at Versailles: "He's the king with his court, and the sycophants are down on their knees before him."

In a slightly different register, another outspoken young Frenchman, the leftist politician Arnaud Montebourg, has decided to attack Sarkozy in an indirect manner.

He has aimed his fire at his former Socialist colleague Bernard Kouchner, enticed by the siren song of Sarkozy into becoming his minister of Foreign Affairs. Montebourg has declared vigorusly that it's high time for Kouchner to simply resign from a presidential context that brings to mind "the Ancient Romans of the decadence". For those who need more than a metaphor to understand his criticism, Montebourg accuses Sarkozy of "moral bankruptcy", and throws in nasty expressions such as "betrayal of electoral promises", "fiscal injustice" and "diplomatic fiasco".

The criticism of both Noah and Montebourg can be described as fighting words. What will Sarko try to invent, to defend himself? Maybe, like Forrest Gump, he should run like hell.

Risk of confusion

In the French-language Gala page [display] where I found this excellent juxtaposition of two superb specimens of Sarkozy-type women, there are other fascinating pairs of photos. For presidential birdwatchers, it's great visual data.

I'm surely not by far the only male who has been in an embarrassing situation where an innocent phrase such as "Tell me, Marie" has slipped out inadvertently while conversing intimately with a friend named Maude who happens to have replaced, as it were, a former friend named Marie. On such occasions, those who are skilled in feigning some kind of momentary schizophrenic fit might do well to give it a go, but most fellows have to be content with turning red and mumbling something stupid such as "I really don't have a brain for names". The worst situation of all is when your former dear one used to have a private nickname—such as Cinderella or Goldilocks, for example—and your new friend suddenly inherits unwittingly this tender title.

The Sarkozy style of handling French affairs is such that he functions permanently in a demanding high-power operational mode that computer specialists refer to as multiprocessing... which means doing several things simultaneously. It's a pity that the poor guy, no doubt constantly exhausted from a physical viewpoint, now has this added burden of having to devote precious energy [which could certainly be better spent] to avoiding the terrible trap of mixing up his women.

Sounds of silence

The new president is ubiquitous. That's a highfalutin way of saying that he's everywhere, simultaneously, 24 hours a day, prepared to intervene, like Zorro or Superman. Nicolas Sarkozy is an earthmoving machine in overdrive, but many critics are not sure what he's shoveling. Meanwhile, his prime minister, François Fillon, is more like the Invisible Man.

In the political aftermath of Sarkozy's victory, it has become fashionable to evoke the silence of the Socialists, and to joke about the fact that the once-great leftist party has imploded, with a few former members even being lured to the president's camp. They still have a nominal chief, François Hollande, who used to be the companion of Ségolène Royal.


In the near future, when Hollande steps down as party chief, there's a good possibility that he might be replaced by the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë. This openly gay gentleman has worked well in his job in Paris, and become highly respected and indeed popular. It's premature to envisage such questions, but Delanoë has supporters who see him as a future presidential candidate.

On the far left of the political spectrum, the youthful postman Olivier Besancenot carries on believing naively in his eternal Robin Hood convictions. In society, there are two classes: the lazy rich and the poor workers. To make things hunky-dory, all that's required is a political system that takes wealth away from the rich and distributes it to the needy. But don't waste your time asking Olivier how a society generates new prosperity. He's good at delivering letters and packages, but it's not his business to know what's inside them.






Meanwhile, the socialist madonna Ségolène Royal is going about things in a calm and determined manner, convinced more than ever that the nation will need her one of these days. She has just written a book that analyzes her recent electoral defeat, and she's currently doing the media rounds to publicize it... but drawing less attention than she might have expected. For the moment, nobody knows whether she might try to conquer the leadership of the socialist party when her former partner François Hollande vacates the post. So it's a little too early to evoke, or even imagine, a hypothetical leadership battle between Ségolène Royal and Bertrand Delanoë. Today, a journalist asked Ségolène a pertinent question: "Could a future presidential contender win the election without being the official candidate of a major political party?" Ségolène said yes. Then she added: "At one and the same time, I'm enrolled inside the socialist party, and outside the socialist party." In French, that kind of situation is described as sitting on a fence. Maybe, though, it's a fence with metallic spikes and barbed wire.

Mediterranean Union

In the same way that General de Gaulle used to dream of a European Union that would stretch from the Atlantic to the Ural Mountains in western Russia, Nicolas Sarkozy has been starting to evoke the concept of a Mediterranean Union that would encompass all the nations on the edge of the legendary "middle of the Earth", from Beirut in the Levant to the Strait of Gibraltar, where the Sun sets over the Atlantic, and from the European Riviera down to the Maghreb, the Sahara and the primordial motherland of Judeo-Christian culture: Egypt.

It's certainly a grand idea, which stirs the imagination. After all, this is where a lot of human and social action has been taking place since the dawn of civilization. For the moment, though, it's little more than a vague dream... in spite of the fact that the French president threw this idea into a major speech delivered in Tangier during his recent state visit to Morocco. Faced with this concept, certain media in the Maghreb are frankly hostile, considering such French ideas as a resurgence of colonialist thinking.

Concerning the creation of the European Union, the challenge involved nations located within a single continent. A hypothetical Mediterranean Union, on the other hand, would involve at least two continents, Europe and Africa... not to mention Turkey and the edge of the Middle East. And it would seek to associate peoples of the three great monotheistic faiths. At a political level, the creation of such a heterogeneous entity would be a Herculean task, akin to landing on the Moon. But it's exciting, if not encouraging, to see that a French bulldog such as Sarkozy dares to dream of such a project. One never knows what might happen...

We don't need another hero

The war-time story that I am about to tell has given rise to a controversy in France, which culminated yesterday when schoolteachers were expected—at the request of the president Nicolas Sarkozy—to read out in front of their students the final poignant letter to his parents penned by a young martyr named Guy Môquet.

His father, Prosper Môquet, a French railway-worker and trade-unionist, was the Communist member of parliament for a precinct of Paris. In 1939, since the PCF [Parti Communiste Français] supported the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, it was disbanded by the government, and Môquet senior was arrested. A few months later, he was deported by the French authorities to a prison camp in Algeria. Meanwhile, his son Guy, a student at the Lycée Carnot, had become a militant in the PCF youth movements.

Môquet junior distributed Communist leaflets denouncing the treason of French industrial leaders, and advocating the liberation of jailed Communists such as his father. Insofar as a French law of 1939 prohibited Communist propaganda, three French policemen arrested 15-year-old Guy Môquet at the Gare de l'Est métro station in Paris on 15 October 1940, and he ended up at a prison camp in Châteaubriant near Nantes. A year later, he was still imprisoned at that same place when a German commandant was assassinated at Nantes. In the reprisals, Guy Môquet was the youngest of 27 hostages at Châteaubriant who were executed by a Nazi firing squad on 22 October 1941.

Sarkozy's decision—announced on the day of his presidential investiture—instructing teachers to read out Guy Moquet's final letter, on the anniversary of his death, was unexpected and somewhat foolhardy. The French president should have known that, in imposing his conception of the celebration of a hero, he would irritate countless citizens. On the one hand, Communists don't wish to see one of their emblematic figures recuperated, as it were, by a right-wing politician such as Sarkozy. Besides, it's not clear whether the young Communist militant and martyr Guy Môquet should be placed in the category of authentic Résistance fighters... like the five heroic revolver-toting students from another Parisian lycée, Buffon [Jean Arthus, Jacques Baudry, Pierre Benoît, Pierre Grelot and Julien Legros], executed in February 1943 : the subject of an excellent TV film aired, by chance, last night. Finally, many teachers, professional historians and other observers consider that the State has no right to impose its points of view, or promulgate decisions of any kind whatsoever, in the domain of history.

The most profound opposition of all came from intellectuals who pointed out that Sarkozy is confusing two related but fundamentally different concepts: on the one hand, the scholarly pursuit of history, and on the other, the emotional phenomenon referred to, in French, as memory, concerning events that are so recent that their recollection still causes pain. Schoolteachers are expected to handle—as objectively as possible—the first of these concepts: history. Sarkozy's directive, however, lies clearly in the domain of memory: that's to say, relatively recent dramatic events that still hurt... which have no place in history classrooms.

I was shocked when I first heard of Sarkozy's decision, and I was utterly flabbergasted—like countless French people—when it was revealed that Sarkozy's buddy Bernard Laporte, trainer of the national rugby team, was so ridiculously zealous that he mimicked the president's sensitivity by reading out Guy Môquet's letter to the team just before their opening match... which they lost to Argentina. On the other hand, I'm reassured to find that so many French teachers refused intelligently to tolerate Sarkozy's silly brainchild.

Falling apart?

The rumor mill has been running at full steam today, particularly in Switzerland, concerning the alleged imminence of a breakup of the French presidential couple. Cécilia Sarkozy didn't accompany her husband on a recent trip to Bulgaria, where she became a heroine after playing a role in the liberation of the nurses imprisoned by Muammar al-Gaddafi in Libya. Then she didn't accompany Nicolas to the rugby match in Cardiff in which France defeated the All Blacks. Finally, last Sunday, Cécilia failed to take part in a TV talk show in which Michel Drucker received the female minister of Justice Rachida Dati, a close friend of the Sarkozy couple.

Would a falling apart of the Sarkozys have any dramatic consequences in the French presidential and political context? Not at all, to my way of thinking. On the contrary, I would imagine that countless ordinary French observers have been wondering how the hell any lady, with the kindest heart and purest intentions in the world, could be courageous enough to stand by, let alone run after, such a busy and excited gentleman as Nicolas Sarkozy.

It could only happen in France

The following true story is perfectly trivial, but it's amusing in the sense that it could only happen in France. It starts with a typical photo of Nicolas Sarkozy, in a hurry, taken on 12 September 2007 as he leaves the weekly Conseil des ministres at the Elysées Palace.

Journalists confronted with this image [taken by an AFP photographer] were intrigued to notice that Sarkozy was carrying what appeared to be a handwritten paper. Once the photo was enlarged [no doubt on a computer screen], the contents of this document could be easily examined and analyzed. Surprise! The round handwritten letters had obviously been penned by a female, and the document appeared to be a personal letter that started out as follows: "I have the impression that I haven't seen you for ages, and I miss you..." The short letter indicates that the writer and her husband will be away from France for a while, then it ends on a highly personal tone: "I'd love to succeed in seeing you during the following week or weekend. Millions of Besitos." Although I'm not familiar with this kind of language, I would imagine that "besitos" are little kisses. My God, everybody thought, this is as good as love notes between Charles and Camilla! Was it imaginable that the president of France, leaving a ministerial meeting, was carrying an open love letter under his arm, for everybody in the world to see? Was this another example of the Sarkozy shock style (like spending a few days on the luxury yacht of a friend, or jogging in front of press photographers) aimed at startling mildly the world in general and his French compatriots in particular?

Next step in the puzzle. Journalists had no trouble in identifying the woman who wrote the letter: Isabelle Balkany, a 60-year-old local-government personality, and the wife of Patrick Balkany, a member of parliament. The Balkanys have always been close political associates and personal friends of Nicolas and Cécilia Sarkozy. Was it thinkable that Nicolas Sarkozy might be involved in a romantic relationship with the wife of a prominent politician?

Following step. Isabelle Balkany quickly explained to curious journalists that she was indeed the author of this letter, but that it was addressed, not to the president, but to his wife, Cécilia Sarkozy. "I'm simply an old friend of Cécilia's." Fair enough. But, in that case, why was Nicolas walking around with Cécilia's personal mail, opened, in his hand?

Final step [for the moment]. Here we move into higher realms of expression, which can only be appreciated if you know how to read and write immaculate French. I'll try to summarize the situation. There are certain tiny linguistic details in written French [as in written Latin] that reveal the sex of the individual to whom the letter is addressed. For example, if you see the sentence "Tu es désirable", you don't know whether it's a male or a female who's being described as desirable. But, if you see "Tu es beau", you know it's a male who's being described as handsome. And, if you see "Tu es belle", you know it's a female who's being described as lovely. Well, in the context of the affectionate communication written by Isabelle Balkany, there's a tiny word, vu [past participle of the verb voir, to see], whose spelling would normally indicate the sex of the individual to whom the letter is sent. If Isabelle Balkany's sentence "I have the impression that I haven't seen you for ages, and I miss you..." were intended for a female receiver, such as Cécilia, then the tiny word should have been written with a final e, as vue. In fact, it's written as vu.

Maybe this simply means that Isabelle made a spelling mistake. Maybe she speaks and writes French, as the saying goes, like a Spanish cow. If not, it's Nicolas who may have made a faux pas by strutting out of the ministerial meeting with a private love letter under his arm... unless, of course, he did so deliberately. Who knows? In any case, as I said at the beginning of my article, this delightful storm in a wine glass could only happen in France.

Multilateralism

That's the new planetary buzz word, launched by the new general secretary of the UNO, Ban Ki-Moon. It can be defined as the opposite of unilateral political actions. In the spirit of multilateral thinking, no world-shaking act—such as attacking Iraq with the hope of discovering weapons of mass destruction, for example, or attacking Iran with the hope of finding concealed nuclear weapons—should be carried out in a unilateral fashion, merely because a single world power has decided to do so. Multilateralism means that major operations of this nature must first be envisaged within a multi-nation context, so that they eventuate, if necessary, as the outcome of a broad significant consensus.

Yesterday in New York, French president Nicolas Sarkozy preached the multilateral message before the General Assembly of the United Nations Organization. And his discourse created a mild surprise by borrowing famous terminology invented by a certain Franklin Delano Roosevelt [1882-1945], greatly respected in France:

"I wish to say, in the name of France, solemnly and gravely, that there is so much injustice in the world that we cannot hope to live in peace. I want to speak to the consciences of all those who are responsible for the conduct of the world's affairs. The world is in need of a new state of mind. A genuine New Deal at a planetary level is required: an ecological and economic New Deal. In the name of France, I call upon all nations to unite in order to found a new 21st-century world order based upon the powerful idea that the commonly-held possessions of Humanity must be placed under the responsibility of Humanity as a whole." Personifying France in the style of de Gaulle, Sarkozy concluded: "France believes that we can wait no more. France demands action. France encourages action. France will be present at a rendezvous for action in the service of peace in the world."

Photoshop surgery

Nowadays, it's so easy and so common to use a computer to retouch photos [above all with the celebrated Adobe Photoshop software tool] that it should come as no surprise to discover that the illustrated weekly Paris-Match has resorted to this possibility in order to beautify the French president... who happens to be a dear friend of Arnaud Lagardère, owner of the famous weekly.

In the original Reuters photo [on the right], showing the president paddling a canoe on a lake during his recent vacation at Wolfeboro in the USA, there's an unsightly roll of fat at the level of Sarkozy's waist. In the retouched photo published by Paris-Match, this fat has magically disappeared.

In everyday French, which is a colorful language, a male with rolls of waist-level fat of this kind is said to sport "love handles".

Brain removal

Karl Rove, referred to by critics of the US administration as "Bush's Brain", has decided to stop prancing for the president. The guru's resignation was announced soon after the Bush family picnic at Kennebunkport attended by a French vacationer named Nicolas Sarkozy (whose wife Cécilia didn't turn up, because she had a cold).

I've been wondering whether there might be some kind of causal relationship between these happenings. Maybe the Brain concluded that, if the wife of a foreign head of state can find a polite way of saying no to Dubya, then it was time for him to behave similarly. There are other conjectures. It's possible that the Brain was shocked to see his protégé behaving in a cool friendly fashion towards a Frenchman. Or maybe the vision of a French president saying he likes America was simply too much, convincing Karl Rove that he no longer understands anything whatsoever about politics.

In any case, the Brain's neurons have been been flickering alarmingly ever since 2003, when he earned notoriety by leaking the name of ex-CIA spy Valerie Plame. Sure, you might say that mere notoriety is better than a spell in jail, but it must have been a minor cerebral trauma for Rove to see his colleague Scooter Libby condemned in place of Dick Cheney and himself. More recently, there has been another nasty affair about Rove's involvement in the firing of federal judges who weren't sufficiently loyal to Dubya. And the backdrop to this fall from grace is of course the recent Republican electoral defeat.

The sole pertinent question is: Can George W Bush, deprived of his Brain, pursue his presidential mandate? What a silly question! Of course he can. Like weightlessness for seasoned astronauts, brainlessness is a state that Dubya knows well. The US president is an experienced idiot.

French president speaks of his wife

This photo records the joyous homecoming of the Bulgarian nurses from a weird and frightening place, Qaddafi Land, whose reigning principles don't necessarily include logic, law and humanity:

This later photo reveals a star participant in the event, an airliner labeled République française:

Don't look around in the crowd for a French lady named Cécilia Sarkozy, described this morning by a French newspaper as "distant, cold, reserved, rebellious, independent, elegant, and today conquering and celebrated". She didn't want to stay in Sofia for the inevitable hollow praise. Soon after the nurses came home, accompanied by their Palestinian doctor friend [now a citizen of Bulgaria], Cécilia Sarkozy took French leave of everybody.

The wag who said that François Hollande looks and behaves like a delicatessen proprietor was unkind—not only, you might say, to delicatessen proprietors—because he's really quite a smart and likable guy... otherwise the Socialist party wouldn't have made him their chief, and Ségolène Royal wouldn't have made him her companion. Be that as it may, François Hollande couldn't find words bitter enough to express his horror at the idea that the legitimate wife of President Sarkozy might have played a significant role in the release of Qaddafi's hostages. But, instead of examining Hollande's dull gibes, let's listen to the words of Cécilia's proud husband.

A problem has been solved. Full stop. There's no point in theorizing about a new organization of French diplomacy, or the status of the wife of the chief of state, or some other reasoning. They had to be evacuated. We evacuated them. That's the only thing that counts. It's time to inject pragmatism into international problems, as in purely national problems. Cécilia did a remarkable job. It was a question of women. A humanitarian problem. I felt that Cécilia would be capable of performing a useful act. She did so with lots of courage, lots of sincerity, lots of humanity and lots of brio, by understanding immediately that a key to success was our capacity to take into account the sufferings of everybody: those of the nurses, of course, but also those of the fifty families who had lost a child. Cécilia's sensitivity enabled her to perceive the situation perfectly.

Sarkozy's surprises

In a country such as France, where the political cleavage between the Left and the Right is ancient and profound, Nicolas Sarkozy's ouvertures [openings] towards Opposition personalities have surprised and disturbed many observers. His minister of Foreign Affairs, Bernard Kouchner, has even been labeled a traitor by some of his former Socialist friends. This merely means that the concept of a nonpartisan dimension in politics is not yet easily digestible in France.

A striking new case of Sarkozy's behavior has just emerged, since the president intends to propose and endorse the candidacy of the Socialist personality Dominique Strauss-Kahn for the post of president of the IMF [International Monetary Fund].

It will be difficult for the French Left to criticize either Sarkozy's decision or Strauss-Kahn's acceptance of the arrangement, since it's a matter of a prestigious international role, which is not linked to the everyday political situation in France.

Sarko, top of the class

The world might prefer (and so do I) the lovely image of Jose Manuel Barroso kissing Angela Merkel and offering her a splendid bouquet of flowers... but our Sarko was in top form last night in Brussels. And not drunk at all... except, as usual, upon his personal success.

Esperanza

It's encouraging to hear that Raul Reyes, second in charge of the Farc [Columbian Marxist guerrilla], has actually contacted Nicolas Sarkozy, asking him to try to bring about the creation in Columbia of a demilitarized zone in which negociations could be carried out with a view to exchanging prisoners, including Ingrid Betancourt.

Elysian fields

In spite of their curious reputation of arrogance (akin to the ridiculous notion that they wear berets and eat frogs' legs), the French don't normally boast too much about themselves. Even though they might consider themselves the most intelligent people on Earth, the French rarely evoke nationalistic concepts such as lifestyle, pride and welfare to anywhere near the same extent, say, as Americans and Australians. If the French are indeed chauvinist, they keep this fact relatively quiet. They're a tactful people. It's not by chance that French has always been labeled the language of diplomacy. The sense of intellectual nuance has always impressed me greatly in this magnificent land of Descartes, Voltaire and Sartre. I love a subtle country...

In Greek mythology, Elysium was the homeplace of the gods. In France, TV journalists rarely resist the temptation of designating the Champs Elysées as "the most beautiful avenue in the world". In reality, it's a symbolic central axis of the French capital... like Oxford Street in London, or Martin Place in Sydney. The difference is that the Champs Elysées is not only symbolic and central; it's aesthetically splendid!

As I write these words, Nicolas Sarkozy is moving towards the "Elysian fields" of France to display himself (there's no other way of putting it) in front of the population of Paris. It's more than an image. It's a symbol.

Bye-bye, Jacquot

Tomorrow morning, the new president of France will be sworn in. So, this evening at eight o'clock, Jacques Chirac spent five minutes on TV saying Au revoir to the nation, and conveying his best wishes to Nicolas Sarkozy.

What will History retain of Chirac's twelve years as the head of the French Republic? Everybody praises Chirac for his honesty and courage in acknowledging retrospectively the criminal role played by the French government of Vichy during the Occupation. In a different domain, he remains admired for his opposition, right from the start, to the absurd war in Iraq. But there were failures in Chirac's presidency, notably the negative outcome of the French referendum on Europe.

Concerning Chirac's personal future, many news commentators have been borrowing the image of former US president Bill Clinton as a likely role model. That's to say, Chirac could well transform himself into a kind of itinerant ambassador promoting themes such as sustainable development [click here to see the Wikipedia page on this subject] and the economic evolution of Africa.

Unexpectedly, on the eve of the new presidency, there was some nearby rumbling of legal artillery concerning a dark era in Chirac's past, when he was the mayor of Paris. The National Division of Financial Investigations at Nanterre summoned Alain Juppé, Chirac's former right-hand man at the city hall of Paris, as a witness in the context of the affair concerning individuals who were paid a salary by the city hall while working in fact for Chirac's political party. Juppé was condemned for this affair in 2004, whereas Chirac himself has never been troubled up until now, because of his presidential immunity.

If ever this affair were to explode at the start of Sarkozy's presidency, it would create a delicate and embarrassing climate, to say the least. As we all know, judges throughout the world have no special respect for former presidents... even in the USA.