As it is the custom in France, French president Nicolas Sarkozy attended the annual farming fair in Paris, last Saturday. An event widely appreciated by his predecessor, former president Jacques Chirac, who was very well known for taking his time between stalls and for eating free salamis and drinking free wine happily provided by his so-called “friends”, the French farmers.
But Nicolas Sarkozy is not Jacques Chirac. M. Sarkozy, keen in rising again in the polls, decided to launch the operation “Seduce the farming industry and you get the voters next” at the farming fair (the latest poll published last Sunday in the Sunday newspaper “Journal du Dimanche” actually suggest that 38% of the population in France are “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with M. Sarkozy as their president, against 47% last January. While they are 62% – up 10% – to be “unhappy” or “very unhappy” with it.). But the French president is a fast pace kind of person and in such circumstance, he sometimes lets himself go too easily…
So there he is, inaugurating the “biggest farm in the world”. His hour-long speech finished, M. Sarkozy joins the crowd of visitors, journalists and farmers, making his way towards a few stalls and shaking hands here and there to happy and smily people. When suddenly, the most amazing scene takes place. The president, surrounded by his personal security, stretches himself enough to almost reach an old man’s hand, when the fellow refuses to shake hands with him (it is important to remind the readers that M. Sarkozy is a hyperactive president, which means that he does not actually wait for you to stretch out your hand to him but he will reach out your hand! – Did he make the same move with Carla Bruni?…)
The man denied the handshake to the president saying: «oh no, don’t you touch me». To what M. Sarkozy replied: «Get lost then!». The fellow continued with a: «You will dirty me!». The French president having the last word answered back with a sharp: «Get lost then, you bloody idiot!».
In an interview given to the online newspaper 20minutes.fr, Franck Louvrier, director of communication of the French presidency, explained that: «Nicolas Sarkozy does not live in an ivory tower. But meeting people every two days exposes him more than his predecessor, who was traveling across the country once a month only.»
That’s what we can call “President Sarkozy’s new style of presidency”. A very unique style in fact, which the secret recipe is the following: you need a pinch of fake neo-monarchism, add a thick layer of cult of personality, a soupcon of elitism, a tablespoon of showbiz hanging about, a splash of pro-americanism, mix it all with a lot of travels paid by your so-called rich business “friends” and finally serve it with the least of your worries: the great language of a true “I don’t care about diplomacy” (remember M. Sarkozy’s anger at Breton fishmen in Novembre 2007?).
Please watch the video of the incident at the farming fair, either click here… or click here…
Please watch again the video of the incident in Brittany in November 2007, click here…
+ Bonus: another version of the same incident in Brittany (”from upstairs”), click here…