Letter From Paris
Paris Kiosque - February 2008 - Volume 15, Number 2
Copyright © 2008 Harriet Welty-Rochefort - Used with permission.
Since this article was written, French President Nicolas Sarkozy's
popularity has taken a nose dive. His refreshing style no longer thrills as the disenchanted
have moved from amused and amazed to annoyed. If he hopes to climb back up in the polls,
he will have to abandon what I have dubbed « The Sarko Show ».
It's a bird, it's a plane,
it's... SuperSarko !
I don't know about anybody else but I'm having more fun than
I've had in ages in France and it's all due to President Sarkozy,
alias OmniSarko, President Bling Bling, the Energizer Bunny (Lapin Duracell in French), or
Sark the Shark, the private name for him I made up for him in the days I lived in Neuilly
where he was Mayor. Why the Shark ? Everytime I looked at him, I thought he was going to
devour something so grand was his ambition, even back then.
Almost all French presidents have had nicknames. Charles de Gaulle was « le grand
Charles » ; Franois Mitterrand for some odd reason was dubbed
« Tonton » (Uncle) ; Giscard d'Estaing wasn't
popular enough to get a nickname that stuck ; Jacques Chirac was often referred to as Chichi
(pronounced « sheshe »).
But while all had nicknames, none were as down-to-earth, colorful
- or nearing disrespect - as the ones for Sarkozy. But maybe
that's because Sarkozy is a down-to-earth guy who
hasn't bothered to put a lot of kilometers between the presidency and the
people. Unlike other presidents, the august position he aspired to hasn't
changed him a whit.
He's just kept on doing things SarkoStyle, speeding along at 200 miles an hour,
ostentatiously mixing up the private affairs of his heart and the public affairs of the nation,
outfoxing reporters who run to catch up with him. Even the most experienced political
journalists have a hard time writing anything more than cursory commentaries on
Sarkozy's first months in office. Why ? Before there's time to sit
down and write an in-depth article, wham, he's already moved on
to the next summit, meeting, party, dinner, cruise, leaving all those in his wake exhausted and
struggling to keep up.
« At this rate », one humorist cracked, « he'll have finished
his five year term in two ». Sarkozy, by the way, has been a blessing for
France's chansonniers whose deliciously wicked imitations of the
hyperactive Prez play to full houses.
The Sarko Show
The « Sarko Show » started before he was elected as he jumped from town to
town, meeting to meeting, burning energy like rubber.
And jogged... and jogged. His style might not be athletically perfect but he was
out there, all right, sweating away for all the people to see, as if to say look at
me' ! » « Vote for someone active, someone who will bring about
change, someone who sprints ! » Now that he's elected (and continues to
trot), I sometimes fear he'll make jogging a law by presidential decree and
we'll all have to don sports togs and get out there too.
Ok, most presidential candidates aren't exactly slouches when it comes to
garnering votes but I think we all thought that Sarkzoy's inordinately high
energy level would wear off after he took office. Mais non ! It got worse !
A close-up view
I should have suspected it as much, having had the opportunity to spend an hour with him
some years ago when an English teacher friend of mine, Sarkozy's tutor,
dreamed up a lesson plan in which I was the lesson. The idea was that I'd
present him my book about the French which we would proceed to discuss in English. It
didn't quite work out as programmed. Sarko is gifted at many things but
languages aren't one of them and our conversation - in English at
least - was brief.
However, the meeting gave me a chance to observe him up close. Constantly in motion,
he's one of these people who gives the impression of moving even when still.
He had a bowl of candy on his desk and offered me one as he popped another into his mouth.
As I got up to leave and we were shaking hands, I mumbled : « Perhaps someday I can
say that I shook the hands of a future Prime Minister. » « No, » he
corrected me, « You can say that you shook hands with a future President. » Did
I dream that ? Make it up after the fact ? I don't think so. Nothing less than
Numero Uno would satisfy SuperSarko.
And so I shook his hand and he did indeed become President. Mind you, this
hasn't done me any particular good. But perhaps, having known him as Mayor
of the town I lived in for 18 years, I am less shocked than some by his perpetual agitation.
Already in Neuilly, Sarko was on the move. I saw him several times at the local bookstore, I
saw him at the local school, I saw him everywhere in fact. He was, as opposition leader
Franç ;ois Hollande recently described him, « omniscient, omnipresent and
omnipotent ». Even then.
A « rupture » and some firsts
So when he became President, I wasn't surprised that he became an
event-a-day man. He promised that his presidency would bring a
« rupture » and it did bigtime. He's the first president of France
to bring a « re-composed » family to the Elyse (Cecilia, his second
wife, with two daughters from a previous marriage, and his two sons from a previous
marriage plus Louis, the son Cecilia and he had together). He's the first
president to announce he would take a few days to « inhabit » the high office of
the Presidency which everyone thought meant going off to a monastery instead of surfacing
on a yacht in the Mediterranean. He's the first president to take his vacation in
the States, the first president to tell the Americans that « whenever an American soldier
falls somewhere in the world, I think of what the American army did for France. »
Even the Chicago Tribune, not known for its love of France, penned an editorial
stating : « He came, he saw, he charmed the hell out of Congress. »
When Minister of the Interior, Sarko touched off a scandal by calling inhabitants of one of the
impoverished suburbs around Paris « scum ». The confrontational attitude
remained when he became President. Recently, as he was paying a visit to a fishing
community, a fisherman called out a colorful insult to him. Instead of maintaining a
Presidential distance and ignoring it, he looked up, pointed at the guy, and invited him to
come down and have it out with him man to man !
The Energizer Bunny
One day he's militating for the release of Franco-Colombian
hostage Ingrid Bettancourt, on yet another he's invited International Creep
Qaddafi to France with full honors. When Qaddafi's visit started getting out of
control and the objections to his presence, including from his own Ministers, got louder,
Sarkozy lost no time. He pulled a new rabbit out of the hat, former top model, singer Carla
Bruni, with whom he was photgraphed at ... Eurodisneyland. This fed the fuel of
a huge media fire : Carla Bruni ! Sarko loves glitter, of course, as shown by his celebration
of his election at the showy Fouquet's restaurant, the yacht cruise, and his
show biz friends so it's no surprise but still... Carla Bruni. Well,
actually, she bears an astonishing resemblance to Cecilia so perhaps, everyone said,
it's not as much as a shock as one might think.
But Eurodisneyland ? OK, Nicolas loves America but really ! Couldn't he at
least have posed with Carla in front of the Louvre or some nice French chateau ? I mean,
there are REAL castles all over France !
So...unFrench
But then Sarko is so unFrench in certain ways. For starters, in this country of wine and
champagne, he doesn't drink a drop of alcohol. He doesn't
smoke (except for expensive cigars). He likes America and says it, for God's
sakes !
When it comes to women, on the other hand, he's quite French, in the sense that
he's smitten by them and shows it. But he is totally unlike his presidential
predecessors. De Gaulle was regal, a faithful husband to Yvonne, and in any case talking
about private life in those days was verboten. Mitterrand divided his time between his
wife and a paramour with whom he had a daughter (unknown to the general public, known to
journalists who did not reveal the liaison and fruit of it until said daughter was already in her
late teens). Even Bernadette Chirac candidly told a French newsmagazine that her husband
« pleased women » but that she put up with it.
The difference with Sarkozy and former Presidents is that he himself has brought his
tumultuous public life out in the open (sometimes with dire consequences the publisher of
Paris Match was fired after a cover story featured Cecilia in New York with her lover.
Lest anyone forget, Sarkozy was the first French President to divorce in office. Will he be the
first to re-marry in office ? Ah, the wedding that would be !
In any case, the French so far seem to be tolerating their President's antics
better than some of their neighbors. SuperSarko's Christmas sojourn in Egypt
with Carla Bruni was judged « shameless, irritating, narcissistic » by one German
newspaper. An Italian editorialist described the sea change in the Elyse style :
« ... on the throne of de Gaulle, a president in shirtsleeves, with an
unbuttoned shirt and Alain Delon sunglasses, who receives his ministers with his feet on the
table and who uses the familiar « tu » to almost everyone. » Louis XIV
would turn over in his grave.
Mais attention ! The French will tolerate most anything but
« ennui ». So far Sarkozy has produced and acted in a
non-stop one-man show with nary a boring scene. The day the
show itself becomes a bore, he'll have to think of something new.
Like keeping still and out of the public eye, for starters ?
Now there's an original idea. For the moment, though, I'm
waiting for the next rabbit out of the hat.
Bring it on, President Bling Bling ! Strike me dumb !
Harriet Welty Rochefort is the author of
French Toast: An American in
Paris Ce
leb
rates the Maddening Mysteries of the French and French Fried: The Culinary Capers of an American in Paris.
French Toast was hailed by the Los Angeles Times as "wise and devastatingly
funny". For world-famous chef Alain Ducasse, her second book French Fried
"in a lively and hilarious style ... gives an inside look at the world of
French cuisine and wine." Both books are published by St. Martin's Press.
She is currently working on her third book about the French.
Coming to Paris? Harriet gives
tailormade wine and cheese tastings to individuals as well as to university
groups. For more information, visit her webpages:
www.frenchfolio.com and
www.understandfrance.com .
If you've had some funny, startling, satisfying, or dismaying
food experiences in France you'd like to share,
you may contact Harriet directly at
harriet.welty@hwelty.com.
Editor's Note:
Dear Readers, while our writers are always
delighted to hear and to receive comments, both about their columns in the The Paris Kiosque,
as well as your experiences in Paris,
they are unable to answer requests for travel information.
Thank you for your understanding.
Museum Passes