Seeing another side of Sarkozy

Who better to tell the world about the real character of the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, than his father, Pal?

The two of them have "excellent relations" according to the 81-year-old, and Sarkozy's success in the presidential election back in 2007 was "the pinnacle of the family's success in France."

And that in spite of the fact that the two men have not always been close, as Sarkozy Senior (henceforth to be referred to by his first name) walked out on his wife and three sons when the now president was just four years old.

But in an interview this week with Omega TV, a French online TV site with video interviews and the goal of helping its viewers to "live better", Pal says that in spite of some minor hiccoughs along the way, he and his son have always maintained a good relationship.

"I divorced (his mother) but I never abandoned my family," he said.

"I saw my sons during the holidays and two or three times a week (as they were growing up)", he continued.

Admittedly the interview with Pal might not provide the most balanced and objective of perspectives.

But given that the two men have not always enjoyed the easiest of relationships, the background and character of Pal perhaps shines some light on the personality of the French president.

In her 2007 unofficial biography of Sarkozy "Un pouvoir nommé désir" the French journalist, Catherine Nay, quoted the French president as admitting "that being abandoned by his father shaped much of who he is today and that as a young boy and teenager, he felt inferior in relation to his wealthier classmates."

For Pal though, that's all water under the bridge and there is now mutual respect between the two men.

"And I've been on two or three official trips with Nicolas to Hungary when he was a minister," he insisted.

"That shows just how 'bad' our relationship has been."

Pál Sárközy de Nagy-Bócsa, to give him his full name, was born in 1928 in the Hungarian capital Budapest, and fled with the rest of his family after the war when the Russians moved in

After signing up for the French foreign legion and sent for training in Algeria, he avoided being sent to Indochine and instead was given a medical discharge and returned to civilian life in the southern French city of Marseille.

In 1949 he met and married Andrée Mallah (Sarkozy's mother, affectionately nicknamed Dadu here in France). The couple settled in Paris and had three sons, Guillame, Nicolas and François, before Pal left in 1959 and later remarried three times, having two more children.

The octogenarian now paints and last June held an exhibition of his work in the Spanish capital Madrid.

And on his son's handling of the French economy and his role as president, Pal also thinks his son is doing an excellent of job of coping with the financial crisis that has hit not just France, but the rest of the world.

"He inherited empty coffers when he came to power, and on top of that he had the bad luck that the financial crisis hit several months after his election," he said.

All I can hope is that the last couple of years (of his current term in office) will be calmer, and then once the crisis is past us we'll be able to appreciate his true values."

The full interview (in French) can be seen and heard here.

Hallelujah für die Fernbedienung...Zap

All right already. The headline's in German.

But if you're at all interested in what that country's telly has to offer on one particular evening - read on.

If not - do as I do and. Zap...

Yep it's part three in this rather off-the-wall look at the silver screen in different countries.

I've already "done" the US and France, now it's time for Germany - because I was all cultured-out after having dragged my 13-year-old Godson around the fabulous chateau de Fontainebleau for the afternoon and because satellite is a wonderful thing.

Actually I was supposed to be "researching" for this Autumn's general election when Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel, is hoping for an outright win and to wave "bye bye" to the Grand Coalition.

But that's for a future date.

For now, join me while I grab what really is Man's Best Friend (forget all that nonsense about dogs) settle back on the sofa and happily zap my way through an evening's viewing - German style.

Ah satellite TV.

Here in France, I have access to all the national German channels, although for some reason there's no sound on either of the public broadcasters, ARD and ZDF.

Still to make up for that there's a slew of commercial stations offering more-or-less the same sort of thing, RTL, VOX, Sat1, Prosieben and so on and so forth.

Plus there's the all-news N-TV - a sort of German CNN and a dozen or so regional variations of public telly.

First up was Vox's Das Perfekte Dinner, based on the British programme Come Dine With Me.

Each week five "hobby cooks" compete by playing host to one another and serving up their version of what makes the ideal meal.

They don't know each other at the start of the week, but by Friday they've sampled the cooking skills and hospitality of one another and awarded points - in secret of course.

I'm addicted and always try to catch it if I'm home in time, following with almost slavish devotion in the hope that I'll learn something.

This week's "motley crew" are from the northern German city of Bremen and there are only four of them because Friday is of course Karfreitag (Good Friday) and there'll be special holiday programming.

It's not a very inspiring bunch and there seems to be more alcohol flowing than food on the table so. And besides there's about to be a break for commercials, so. Zap...

Over to RTL and the long-running soap Gute Zeiten, Schlechte Zeiten, GZSZ (Good Times, Bad Times).

It's wooden-top acting par excellence blended of course with the most improbable of plots.

It doesn't really matter if you've missed it for a couple of months and don't know who two-thirds of the cast are.

The stalwarts seem to stick around forever even if there's also a huge turnover of characters who have been "killed off" "moved" or disappeared".

Do soap operas have an unusually high mortality rate in comparison with real life? I'm sure someone, somewhere is busy compiling the statistics. Perhaps as part of a University degree course. Zap....

Back to Vox and more cooking this time in the form of Unter Volldampf.

Past winners of Das Perfekte Dinner pit their culinary skills against each other in a professional restaurant environment over the course of the week.

The "guinea pigs" are the clientele, who mark each of the five courses. There's a bottle of bubbly for the winner each day and €3,000 for the overall victor at the end of the week.

Is there no end to cooking on German telly? Zap...

News - well it had to make its appearance in the evening schedule somewhere didn't it?

This time it's on N-TV - a sort of German version of CNN except that the presenters are somewhat "stiffer" and there's little of that fast-paced delivery that characterises US broadcasts.

The big international story of course is still Italy - and the earthquake and the after-tremors.

The number of dead has risen, there's a preview of the state funeral being organised for Friday, and I'm transfixed and wondering what it must be like to lose everything in such as short space of time as I watch the the report of rescue workers still picking through the debris.

It's really where television news and in particular the pictures it can relay come into their own. But sometimes, I have to admit, it just seems a little too voyeuristic.

After 10 minutes I feel in need of the inevitable. Zap...

Over to Sat 1. There should be one of those US imports on. I never really understand them as I don't tune in often enough to keep up with the characters.

Instead it's football and the Uefa Cup quarterfinal first leg between Hamburg and Manchester City.

Oh dear - 90 minutes of teams that aren't quite good enough to make the Champions League. No thank you. Zap...

Now this is more like it. Prosieben. - another commercial station and hey it's Germany's version of America's Next Top Model - only of course it's not called that.

No Tyra Banks though as Germany has its very own supermodel in the shape of Heidi Klum and two rather camp guys who coach the girls how to walk the walk and talk the talk.

There are still 10 girls left in the competition (one will be kicked out tonight) so it looks set to drag on for a while yet, and of course the talons are out and there's the one "everyone loves to hate" being given more than her fair share of airtime - or so it seems - as the show hopes to push up the ratings with some wannabe-supermodel bitchiness.

Tonight's challenge is to look "glamourous" while POLE DANCING in a studio in New York's Meatpacking district.

Sheesh.

Ah Reality TV - dontcha just love it? Zap...

It's getting late but I'm convinced there must be something requiring the use of the odd neurone or two to watch and sure enough there it is on Arte.

This is a Franco-German station, available on good old terrestrial TV in both countries and of course in both languages.

It's very worthy, often highbrow and bills itself as a European culture channel and aiming to promote quality programming.

In other words as it's not in the battle for ratings, its schedule isn't dominated by what might be described as the "lowest common denominator".

The only downside of that concept it that very few people in either Germany or France actually watch.

Tonight it's offering an interesting debate on malnutrition in Europe, and apparently 10 per cent of the continent's population suffers from it.

Although it's a compelling programme, it's already a little late when it starts (almost 10;30 pm) and it'll last for an hour.

Why, I wonder, aren't these things scheduled when people are still awake enough to watch and listen properly.

Rhetorical question really I guess as then they would have to go head-to-head with more popular programmes on the other channels.

It's fast approaching 11 pm and I'm clearly not going to make it to the end.

Plus I have an early start tomorrow (Good Friday isn't a public holiday here in France) so one final. Zap...

And the box is off.

Have to admit an evening's viewing of German telly isn't nearly as entertaining even with the remote control as it is in the US.

But for the moment, that's your lot.

Gute Nacht.

Pay hike for GDF Suez number two

There's a certain amount of polemic (a favourite word within the French media) going on here at the moment over the pay increase Jean-François Cirelli, the vice-president of the French energy giant GDF Suez, received last year.

A cool 180 per cent according to the company's annual report released on Wednesday, pushing his salary up from a not-so-miserly €460 000 a year to € 1,3 million!

It was a pay rise agreed last August by the company's conseil d’administration (board of directors) to "take into account the growth and the size of the new group created by the merger of Gaz de France and Suez" a month earlier

A major problem of course in all of this - and one that has been mentioned throughout the media - is that GDF Suez, although in essence a private company, in that peculiarly French way has as its biggest shareholder.....yep you've guessed it, the French government.

A stake of 35.7 per cent to be precise.

So in a sense the pay increase was done with the agreement of the state.

GDF Suez came about in July last year through the merger of the previously 80 per cent state-owned Gaz de France and the French-based multi national, Suez.

Putting it simply, the result was an international energy and utility giant.

The justification for the huge hike in Cirelli's salary would appear to be two-fold.

Firstly according to Nicolas Cori, a journalist for the left-of-centre national daily, Libération, the decision was taken to realign the salaries of the top brass coming from Gaz de France (among them Cirelli) with those from Suez as a result of the merger.

And secondly the group posted profits in 2008 of €6.5 billion, an increase of 13 per cent.
- so it's not doing at all badly.

Oh yes, and let's not forget that management at the company also caved in to union and government pressure last month to renounce their rights to stock options.

But there's still something surely of a mixed message in all of this.

France has not been untouched by the financial crisis and economic difficulties around the world.

Unemployment is rising, companies are shutting down facilities, the government is still telling us all to tighten our belts and urging restraint.

And as Cori asks on his blog, "What exactly does it say about the 'moralising' of capitalism by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy?"

He argues (and many would appear to agree if the headlines in the French media are anything to go by) that in a real sense the government - as the company's biggest shareholder - has also given the "nod" to what by anyone's standards is a huge pay increase.

Oh yes, just to complete the picture, you might be thinking that Cirelli is the head honcho at the company, but he's not.

Admittedly he's number two, but he still has a long way yet to go to match the salary of Gérard Mestrallet, his boss and the chairman and chief executive officer of the company.

Hang about and hold on to your jaw before it crashes to the floor.

Mestrallet's pay packet for 2008? Um...€3,1 million - just an 18 per cent increase.