#ouestsarkozy and #JesuisNico trend after Nicolas Sarkozy's front row appearance at Paris march

Of course it's all a matter of interpretation,

But the French media and social networks have been having a little bit of (harmless) fun at the expense of the former French president, Nicolas Sarkozy.

He was invited, in his capacity as the newly-elected leader of the opposition centre-right Union pour un mouvement populaire (Union for a popular movement, UMP) party to take part in Sunday's rally in Paris.

And, after meeting his successor at the Elysée palace, François Hollande, Sarkozy graciously accepted.

Somehow though, Sarkozy didn't seem happy to play second fiddle - so-to-speak - as he found himself a couple of rows back from the front of the march.

That highly-esteemed position was given to world leaders who had made the trip to Paris to take part in the rally: leaders such as German chancellor Angela Merkel, Mali's president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, Britain's David Cameron, Spain's Mariano Rajoy and Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu

They were all snapped by the world's cameras alongside Hollande.

In total, 44 heads of state or government turned up.

And so too was Sarkozy who, on more than one occasion, managed to worm his way through to the front...where he presumably thought he so rightfully belonged...with his "fellow world leaders".

World leaders - and Nicolas Sarkozy - at the Paris march (screenshot from Europe 1 Dailymotion video)

Such "antics" soon saw Sarkozy ridiculed on the Net with Twitter a-tweet and Tumblr a-Tumblr (well you can't really say awash now, can you?) with photoshopped images of other world events (throughout history) that Sarkozy has "attended."

#JeSuisNico and #ouestsarkozy (a play on the "Where's Wally?" series of children's books which in France are known as "Où est Charlie?") were launched.

And there was Sarkozy alongside Charles de Gaulle after the liberation of Paris in 1944.

On the moon, ahead of Neil Armstrong, in 1969

Present and participating in the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

With the French football team as they lifted the World Cup in 1998

And...well you get the picture.

Yes Sarkozy really was an eyewitness to history down the decades.


Nicolas Sarkozy s'impose sur la photo by LeLab_E1

A World Cup "dilemma" for François Hollande

All right, so "dilemma" might be a little bit of an exaggeration.

But hey. It's football (and politics). And hyperbole is pretty much par for the course in both domains.

All the same, how about "quandary"?

Yup, "François Hollande's World Cup quandary".

You see, the French president can't have helped but notice the  increasing popularity of Les Bleus during their first three games of the World Cup tournament in Brazil, especially after their convincing wins against Honduras and Switzerland (we'll forget that goalless draw with 10-man Ecuador).

The talk in the French media was about "team spirit" and "the players' pride in representing their country" with the folk back home tuning in by the millions to follow their exploits on telly.

Ah yes. Apparently the French had (and have) falllen in love with their football team once again: to such an extent that some people actually see them as being capable of winning the whole thing.

Meanwhile Hollande watches from the sidelines, or the Elysée palace - just as he did during a soirée he organised; the sumptuous setting and giant-sized screen more "gauche" than "bling bling" and rather spoilt by his constant (caught-on -camera) snacking throughout the game.

Still, "President Normal" and all that.

Anyway, that's all an aside (and a long-winded one at that).

The "quandary" for the French president is when and, indeed even, if he should make an appearance in Brazil, and how that might be interpreted.

Of course, Hollande doesn't have the same sort of PR savvy as the German chancellor Angela Merkel.

She's an "old hand", so to speak, at managing to show how "in touch" she is with what makes a footballing nation tick (during the World Cup) and could be seen in the stands during Germany's opening game, cheering on die Mannschaft as they made mincemeat of Portugal.

Angela Merkel at the World Cup (screenshot Newsloop video YouTube)

And to top it off, Merkel then had a photo op' in the dressing room with the players.

Smart lady - and smart move.

Hollande, in contrast, was last seen with the French squad in Clairefontaine as they prepared for their World Cup campaign.

There was plenty of humour, although it all looked a little awkward at times during the photoshoot with the players which left the president looking rather...er...portly and "buffoonly".

But that's perhaps being unfair as there's nothing wrong with not being quite the right shape. After all, how many of us really are?

Since then, nothing much. Well just that ostentatious "soirée". And no real sign that Hollande is about to fly to Brazil to support Les Bleus.

Yes, he has a packed agenda - most political leaders do. But he could have followed Merkel's example and "played safe" by putting in an appearance during the group stage.

After all, the tournament and the group match schedules were published months ago.

Instead Hollande now faces the risk of turning up during the knock out stage when his presence at the country's defeat (should it happen) could well be interpreted as a "jink".

Yes it's (more than) a stretch of the imagination, and there's no way that Hollande's attendance would contribute to the outcome, but that wouldn't stop the more unkindly drawing a link between the two.

Apparently the French president has pencilled in a "surprise (you have to wonder how much of one it will be) visit" should Les Bleus make it through to the quarterfinals after their next match against Nigeria.

The only problem (oh, life can be so cruel sometimes) is that if all goes true to form and planning, France's opponents in the quarterfinal match would be...Germany.

World Cup fever - let's get a grip

What is it with football?

Yes the World Cup - warts (Fifa) and all - is a major sporting event.

There's no doubting that.

But really, does it mean our elected leaders can afford to forget the really important things happening in the world to ride - albeit briefly - the crest of the feelgood wave they hope might somehow benefit them?

Russia reduces its gas supply to Ukraine "raising the possibility of disrupted transit of gas to Europe" and a difficult winter ahead if things aren't sorted.

And what are our illustrious leaders up to?

Well, the German chancellor Angela Merkel hot-footed it over to Brazil to watch "die Mannshaft" make clinical mincemeat of Portugal (with a little help from an imploding Pepe early into the game)

Back in France as the country limps through its economic muddle, now complete with the inevitable industrial ("non") action from SNCF employees and les intermittents du spectacle, how did the president François Hollande spend his time during Les Bleus' opening game?

He ostentatiously invited 200 people (and the cameras) to la salle des fêtes at the Elysée palace to gawp ("with collective passion") at a giant screen as France ran out victorious over mighty Honduras in their first match.

Giant screen at the Elysée palace (screenshot BFM TV)

Oh well. Winter is months away, so why should politicians care about gas supplies right now?

Perhaps the football commentators will help jog their memories by broaching the subject during Russia's first game against South Korea on Tuesday!

Nigeria kicked off its tournament on Monday with a thrilling 0-0 draw against Iran, and in the meantime the 200 or so missing schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram in April are still being held hostage. They've been located apparently, but still haven't been freed.

Never mind. Who gives a damn anyway?

French TV news reports spend an inordinate amount of time analysing and speculating on the Les Bleus' chances, interviewing individual French players and managers - past and present - wheeling in the "experts" to give their opinions and asking the man and the woman in the street what they think.

And at the same time Sunni Islamist militants have taken control of Iraq's second city Mosul and are now approaching Baghdad.

The world watches - says little and does nothing as the focus of media attention seems to be elsewhere.

And that "elsewhere" of course is Brazil - the host country, profiting from the glory and the money it's not going to make and the prestige the whole tournament will bring as an answer to its social problems.

Just ask South Africa, the host of the 2010 tournament.

Don't get me wrong. I love the so-called beautiful game. But I also care about other things.

And a World Cup which is as much about business and displays of exaggerated patriotism (whatever that might be) as it is sport, surely simply deflects attention away from those other things that really matter.

Jean-Marc Ayrault's "productively awful" German gaffe

It can happen to the best (and the worst) of us can't it?

A slip-of-the-tongue while speaking another language - or even our own come to that.

Usually it's both amusing and perhaps a little embarrassing; a quick smile and a laugh will make light of it though.

But sometimes there's maybe something more...er...significant about the mistake...as though subcosnciously we're really thinking what has inadvertently just come out of our mouths.

Take the case of the French prime minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, during his two-day trip to Germany this week.

He came out with a gaffe that could be...well revealing?

Jean-Marc Ayrault (screenshot TF1 clip)

Now as we all know relations between France and Germany are not the easiest at the moment.

The so-called two powers of the European Union - well at least the Euro - seem to have been dancing the unprettiest of jigs around one another, at least since François Hollande became president of this country.

To the rescue comes Ayrault, a former German teacher, ergo fluent in the language and well capable of reading out a prepared statement (yawn) in German in front of the invited entrepreneurs.

Not!

Because he clearly either couldn't read his own handwriting or actually wanted to say what he did when he substituted the word "fructbar" (literally "fruitful" or "productive") with  "furchtbar" ("terrible" or "awful") in describing how he wanted the discussion and exchange of ideas with the German chancellor Angela Merkel to proceed.

He didn't even bother correcting himself!

Er M. Ayrault, a word of advice perhaps.

Stick to French the next time and let the interpreters do their work.

Schönes Wochenende

En Allemagne, Ayrault parle de la France… en allemand (vidéo) Vidéo LCIWAT sélectionnée dans Actualité

Is Germany's Angela Merkel leading a "boycott François Hollande" pact?

How could anyone think such a thing?

Of course there's absolutely no substance to the report in the German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel that some European leaders have agreed collectively "not to meet the French Socialist party's presidential candidate, François Hollande, when he comes to their respective countries."

François Hollande (screenshot BFM TV news report)

The agreement, according to the magazine, is between Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel and the prime minister of Italy and Spain, Mario Monti and Mariano Rajoy.

They've apparently promised to snub Hollande because of "his plans to renegotiate the treaty on tighter budget discipline for the euro zone."

And just for good measure, the United Kingdom's prime minister, David Cameron is also party to the alleged "pact", even though he didn't sign up to the treaty.

But it can't possibly be true because Berlin has denied the suggestion of the existence of an anti-Hollande pact as the German news channel n-tv reports.

A government spokeswoman told the channel that, "It's up to each individual government leader to decide whether to meet Hollande. So far in Germany, there has been no date fixed."

Aha. That's all right then.

Everyone can forget about that appearance Merkel made with the French president Nicolas Sarkozy on French television's prime time news as a sign of solidarity for the work the two had put in to saving Europe.

After all, Sarkozy wasn't officially a candidate at the time - that came a matter of days later - and Merkel seemed happy to throw her weight behind a man who is, after all, more-or-less in the same broad political family.

Nothing untoward or inappropriate there then.

And David Cameron not meeting Hollande when the Socialist party candidate was in London recently to woo the many French voters who live on the other side of the Channel and put the minds of the City at rest - well, once again that was completely understandable.

In theory at least, Cameron is on the same political wavelength as Sarkozy, so it's obvious he would support the current French president in his bid for re-election and to paraphrase, it's "just not cricket" (or goes against protocol) to meet candidates during an election period (although it's quite all right to offer support as he did to Sarkozy in an interview with Le Figaro a couple of weeks ago).

So it's not snubbing Hollande by any means. Merkel and Cameron et al are quite at liberty to decide who they support and meet; there's absolutely no obligation to even to appear diplomatic and objective.

But wait.

Is that a murmur of disagreement and a word or two of caution from someone highly placed within Merkel's own government?

Surely not.

Yes it is.

And it comes from none other than the German foreign minister and the former leader of the Freie Demokratische Partei (the Free Democratic Party, FDP) currently Merkel's coalition partner in government, Guido Westerwelle.

In an interview with the Sunday edition of the German national daily Die Welt, Westerwelle, while not directly addressing the reports of an implied pact, had a few words of advice for his own country's politicans.

"I would advise all German parties to exercise restraint," he said.

"The party-political debate in Germany is not one that should be transferred to France and the government is not part of the French election campaign," he said.

"We've worked very well with the current French government but we also should also make it clear that we would work closely with any government French voters choose."



Hollande boycotté par les principaux dirigeants... par BFMTV

German skit of Merkozy "Rescue summit or Euros for No One"

Now it definitely helps if you speak German for a video that has become something of a hit on YouTube ever since it was first posted on December 28.

Merkozy (screenshot from YouTube clip)

It's a parody of a comedy skit broadcast twice every New Year's Eve on German television.

The original is "Dinner for One", a 1963 sketch featuring British comedian Freddie Frinton as James the butler and May Warren as Miss Sophie, who has sadly outlived all her friends but insists on celebrating her 90th birthday party in style...with places set for each of her guests.

Frinton serves each absent guest a drink with every course and raises a toast to the birthday girl on behalf of those invited.

The result is predictable. Frinton becomes ever tipsier until the final scene in which he is about to escort Warren upstairs with the "hilarious" lines,

"Same procedure as last year Miss Sophie?" asks Frinton.

"The same procedure as every year James," replies Warren.

"Well, I'll do my very best," responds Frinton with a saucy wink and a "Good night."

Perhaps it's a German thing, but it has most definitely become an annual institution.

Some bright spark at ARD, one of Germany's two national public broadcasters, though decided to update the whole thing and make it more...well relevant to a modern-day audience.

Satirist Udo Eling of the channel's Morgenmagazin decided to superimpose the heads of French president Nicolas Sarkozy on James the Butler and...well you've probably guessed the other "character" - Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel as Miss Sophie.

The dialogue is different of course focussing on the relationship of the two who're often collectively called "Merkozy" in the media.

And "absent friends" include the former prime ministers Greece and Spain, Giorgios Papandreou and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero as well as UK prime minister David Cameron. Italy's Silvio Berlusconi wasn't invited.

The last line of the parody which has Sarkozy fawning to Merkel, described earlier in the sketch as the "only real statesman Europe has to offer" has the French president asking as they mount the staircase, "Madame Merkel, this time without Eurobonds?"

"Yes of course," she replies.

"As always without Eurobonds."

To which Sarkozy responds, "I'll give you my Triple A Madame Merkel."

Well, maybe it sounds funnier in German.

Enjoy?



And the original "Dinner for One" just in case you're up for it.

A wet welcome in Warsaw as Sarkozy gets left out in the cold

This week saw the revival of the Weimar Triangle summit, a get-together of the Polish, French and German leaders "intended to promote co-operation" between the three countries.

It's an informal arrangement which allows a meeting of minds and an exchange of ideas between the leaders of three of the European Union's largest countries (in terms of population).

The event first took place in 1991 and was held regularly until 2006, when the late Polish president, Lech Kaczynski, put an end to them because he was upset at the way in which he was covered in the German media.

Monday's meeting in Warsaw was a chance for the Polish president, Bronisław Komorowski, to resuscitate the event by playing host, and also preparing the ground for Poland which will take over the six-month rotating presidency of the EU in July.

But somehow Komorowski's interpretation of "informal" seemed to go just a little too far as he committed a series of gaffes which left the Polish media amused with his apparent lack of "savoir faire" when it comes to diplomatic protocol.

First up as the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, arrived at the Wilanów palace to be met by their host, nobody really seemed to know who should enter first or where they should go.

Television news reports showed Sarkozy almost being left behind and then having to be pointed in the right direction by an attending official.



As the leaders stood on a podium in front of the palace with the flags of the three countries fluttering in the background while their respective national anthems were played, it became clear that someone has made a protocol faux pas as the position of the flags didn't correspond with that of the leaders.

But that was nothing, as far as the Polish media was concerned, to the embarrassment of seeing just one umbrella held up to protect the three leaders from the rain.

Because it didn't - shelter them that is. Merkel and Komorowski were covered, but Sarkozy was quite literally left out in the rain.

Merkel and Komorowski sheltered by an umbrella. Sarkozy left standing in the rain (screenshot from Polish television news report)

Interviewed on Polish television, Janusz Sibor, a specialist in diplomatic protocol, said quite clearly that each guest should have been provided with an umbrella, and if anyone had to get wet then it should been the host.

And it brought short shrift from a former head of diplomatic protocol, Jan Piekarski.

“To me, this is quite simply a lack of manners,” he is quoted as saying.

Out of the rain and into the palace, Komorowski once again showed his lack of social graces when he quite happily plonked himself down in a chair not waiting for either of the others to be seated.

"This again seems to me a break with protocol," said Sibor. "The order should be exactly the same as it is when seating guests at home for dinner. The host should show the others where to sit and then take his or her place last."

Amusement and embarrassment might well characterise the Polish media's coverage of what happened, but Sarkozy clearly didn't seem to be too put out and he even went as far as to praise Komorowski for his idea of inviting Russian president Dmitri Medvedev to the next meeting.

Perhaps though a word or two should be whispered in Komorowski's ear before Poland takes over that rotating EU presidency...along the lines of, "Mind you manners Mr President."

Poster ad' pokes fun at Sarkozy's height

There could be trouble ahead for the car rental company Sixt following its latest advertising campaign.

A German poster for the company carries a picture of the French hatchback the Citroën C3 with the slogan encouraging customers to "Do the same as Madame Bruni, choose a small French model" ("Machen Sie es wie Madame Bruni. Nehmen Sie sich einen kleinen Franzosen").


Oops.

The reference of course is to the height difference between the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and his wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.

Sarkozy reportedly measures 1m65 or 5' 5" (it differs according to which source you believe) while his wife is 1m78 or 5' 10".

"The advertisement is just meant to be amusing," says the president of Sixt in France, Jean-Philippe Doyen.

"It's typical of the kind of humour we use in our campaigns and it's not meant to be taken seriously."

As yet there has been no reaction to the Sixt poster from the couple. They're currently on a trip to China.

But given their past record, it's surely unlikely they'll be "amused".

Back in 2008 they successfully sued the low-cost carrier Ryanair for the damages after the airline used an unauthorised photo of them in an advertisement.

And during his presidency Sarkozy has resorted to legal action on more than one occasion, such as the infamous "Voodoo doll" case

The height difference between the French president and his wife has often been the subject of satire in this country and the opposition Socialist party has referred to him at times as suffering from "small man syndrome".

He's known to wear raised shoes in public, while his wife prefers to wear flats.

And then there's the so-called "Sarkozy stool" with which the French president travels and has been caught using on several occasions to give him the appearance of being taller than he actually is when making official speeches.

The media had a field day back June 2009 when a video caught the French president using the footstool during a speech at the D-Day commemorations in Normandy.

And in September last year there was a clip on "Le Petit Journal" on Canal + poking fun at Sarkozy's use of a similar "accessory" while making a speech to the United Nations.



Just for the record Sarkozy is apparently one of the shortest world leaders.

Although he's taller than the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev (1m60 or 5' 3") he's considerably shorter than his US counterpart Barack Obama (1m88 or 6' 2), the British prime minister, Gordon Brown (1m80 or 5' 11") and the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel (1m72 or 5' 8").