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Tuesday 8 November 2011

Did Sarkozy really spend €37,000 a night on his G20 hotel room? No!

"As world teeters on the brink, can leaders enjoy €1m of hospitality? Yes they Cannes" screamed the headline to a story in that bastion of journalistic accuracy The Sun last week.

Majestic hotel, Cannes (screenshot from YouTube video)

The paper was beside itself and in apoplectic full flow over the amount of money some world leaders had spent on accommodation, "gourmet meals and fine wine" during the G20 summit held in the southern French city of Cannes.

And according to the paper the biggest culprit, in terms of the amount he had spent on a place to rest his head for two nights, was none other than the host to the whole shebang, the French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

In the piece readers learned that the former master of Bling Bling had forked out an "eyewatering" £32,000 or around €37,000 a night for "the Presidential Suite at the five-star Majestic Hotel".

What a scandal, especially in these times of belt-tightening austerity, and the comments from Sun readers were suitably outraged.

Except it's not true, according to both Franck Louvrier, a spokesman for the French president's office, and the hotel itself.

You see, the French national daily Le Monde actually took the time to check on the veracity of the claim and provided evidence to back up what it had found.

It's a clever technique that surely still has its place in reporting called "backing a story up" with evidence or "attributing" it.

"The information is false," Louvrier told Le Monde.

"The actual cost was ten times less even though there are suites at that price."

There are indeed, as the hotel confirmed; one at €30,000 a night and another at €38,000.

But Sarkozy wasn't in either of them and instead had been in a room which typically cost between €1,500 and €3,000 a night.

The Majestic was too discreet to mention which room in particular Sarkozy had stayed but it did confirm that the bill for his two-night stay had been between €6,000 and €7,000.

So there you have it. Perhaps The Sun article slapped on an extra "zero" - by mistake.

And what does it say for the rest of the claimed expenses and accompanying graphics?

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