Sarkozy takes a chance in Syria

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, arrives in Syria on Wednesday at the beginning of a two day trip, which is potentially full of political risks.

He will meet his Syrian counterpart, Bashar al-Assad and attend a four-country summit on Thursday.

It's all being reported in the French media as part of Sarkozy's attempt to reach out the "hand of friendship" to Damascus.

And also one of consolidation after the Syrian president's recent visit to Paris for the opening of the Mediterranean Union, and when he was one of the guests of honour at the Bastille day parade.

During that visit Bashar al-Assad announced that Syria would open an embassy in Lebanon for the first time in the country's history.

Sarkozy's office insists that this visit is political rather than economic and an attempt to break with the policy of his predecessor, Jacques Chirac, who distanced himself from Syria after the murder of Rafik Hariri, a former prime minister of Lebanon, in 2005.

Damascus has long been accused by many of being behind the assassination, but has continually denied any involvement.

Just as important as improving Paris-Damascus ties, is Sarkozy's hope that he can also help boost relations between Syria and Israel. Those two countries are "talking" indirectly to each other through Turkey, which has been acting as a mediator.

And the timing to make an impact internationally perhaps couldn't be better for Sarkozy. France currently holds the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union, and Syria is similarly head of the Arab League at the moment.

And on Thursday Sarkozy and Bashar al-Assad will attend a summit in Damascus with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister and in a sense the Israeli-Syrian go-between, and Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani of Qatar, who currently heads the Gulf Cooperation Council.

The hope perhaps that the four will issue a statement making them jointly responsible (Syria included) for anything that should come out of discussions.

Many political commentators here see Sarkozy's visit as a risk, especially as Syria has been accused of transferring arms to from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon, and providing support to those fighting the government in Iraq.

Sarkozy himself admits that he is willing to take a chance that perhaps the major outside player in the region - the United States - is unwilling to consider.

And he is known to want to use Syria's influence and power in the Middle East to increase the "positive" role it could have in that region.

"I prefer to try to get things moving", he told French ambassadors gathered in Paris last week. "It's probably true that it's more risky, but at the same time it is also opens up more of a possibility of success."

Who has been juggling with Carla's figures?

No it's not a story about unsubstantiated tittle-tattle surrounding the possibility of the patter of tiny feet at the Elysée palace, the official residence of the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy.

Rumours that by the way have been circling for the best part of this year.

Instead it's the mystery surrounding the exact record sales of the latest album by the country's first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.

Before you read any further, you might want to grab something to drink, don a pair of dark glasses or clear your mind completely, because there's a fair bit of (conflicting) number crunching to follow, and it could leave you with something of a headache. You have been warned.

You may remember Bruni-Sarkozy's latest album "Comme si de rien n'etait" was released simultaneously in France, Britain and Germany on July 11 and later throughout the rest of Europe and the United States.

After just one week it had knocked the new album from the British band, Coldplay, off the number one spot here in France according to the Syndicat national de l'édition phonographique (SNEP), the music industry group that tracks record sales here, although it didn't issue exact numbers.

Instead we had to rely on figures supplied by the singer's record company, Naïve, which maintained that 14,000 copies had been sold in that first week.

Now that same company is insisting that Bruni-Sarkozy's album has sold a whopping 300,000 copies worldwide with 160,000 in France alone, thus ensuring gold status in sales.

But hang about a mo'. What does SNEP have to say about all of this?

Well, according to its figures, reported in the national daily Le Parisien, sales are in fact far lower in France - at 80,657 to be precise. Quite a disparity in numbers by anyone's reckoning.

But while SNEP calculates its tally on copies bought over the counter, the record company has quite a different method for counting sales.

It uses one which apparently tells a far rosier picture and explains how an album with a rather mediocre performance can in fact be made to look as though it's selling pretty well.

Naïve told Le Parisien that its computes "sales" by including the number of albums still on stock in the stores (common practice apparently).

Hence with this gentle reinterpretation of reality, Bruni-Sarkozy's record has notched up that magical figure of more than 160,000 (and counting) in France enabling it somehow to surpass the SNEP marker of 100,000 for gold status and fast approaching the double-gold standard of 200,000.

Confusing but clever n'est ce pas?

Whatever the true figure, Bruni-Sarkozy will begin the autumn with another media promotional blitz here in France for this, her third album, with a round of television appearances.

Already slated are a popular Sunday afternoon chat show, Vivement dimanche, a specialist music programme,Taratara and a round-table prime time news talk show (a French speciality) Le Grand Journal.

If the French hadn't already heard that their first lady had released an album - and that's probably a little hard to believe given the coverage it received when it came out - they certainly should have over the next couple of months.

Of course that won't necessarily get them out there buying it, although perhaps the record company will come up with yet another way of telling us all that sales have hit double or even triple the "real" number as they aim for 200,000 domestic sales by Christmas.

Just for the record (groan) the best selling album over the summer here in France was Coldplay's "Viva" according to SNEP. But for the sake of sanity, perhaps it's a good idea not to dwell on the figures.

Pass the aspirin.

Sarkozy's women in government - Rachida Dati, a star on the wane?

Last week saw government ministers return to work here in France with the first cabinet meeting after the summer break.

But one minister in particular, Rachida Dati, will be hoping that the media will be a little kinder to her than they were in the earlier part of the year.

And if rumours currently doing the rounds on the Net turn out to be true, the justice minister could soon make an official announcement that she is pregnant. For the moment though, her office isn't commenting.

Now ministers are back from their break it seems like a good time to bring to a wider audience some of the names and faces that have been making the political headlines here over the past year, and in particular to take a look - in an occasional series - at some of the women who have been making their mark.

When the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, came to power in May 2007, he promised gender parity in the government. And he delivered by appointing seven to front line ministerial posts in the 15-strong cabinet.

All right so in reality it was actually the prime-minister, François Fillon (appointed by Sarkozy), who drew up the government, but not without the president's seal of approval.

There wasn't supposed to be any particular pecking order in the choice of who to start with in this series, but speculation in the media has perhaps forced the issue in the decision to plump for the justice minister, Rachida Dati.

Ah that speculation - let's get that out of the way first before taking a closer look at what she has brought to government and her chances of holding on to office for much longer.

The buzz doing the rounds on the Net is that the 42-year-old Dati is expecting.

Admittedly the rumour hasn't yet been reported in any of the daily newspapers but it has, perhaps not unsurprisingly, been picked up by some of the weekly glossy magazines such as Voici and Gala, and even made it on to national radio on Monday morning.

Gala reports that Dati turned up at last week's cabinet meeting showing the first visible signs of a likely pregnancy and when contacted, her office, rather than issuing a denial preferred "no comment".

Anyway it'll surely not be too long before the rumour is either confirmed or scuppered, but in the meantime if you want to find out more of the buzz for yourself, try googling "Rachida Dati enceinte" and see what you come up with.

On to the more serious business of who Dati is and how she has fared in office so far.

First up Dati was, on paper at least, a pretty smart choice as she represented just about everything Sarkozy could wish for as he set about the task of "remodelling" the country.

She’s the first person, let alone woman, of North African origin to hold a top government post and her rise from relative humble beginnings as one of 12 children to high office is the stuff of every Hollywood director’s dreams.

Her appointment raised many a proverbial eyebrow as she had never even run for office let alone hold it, and was politically pretty inexperienced.

And that started to show in just the first few months as she received a fair amount of flak for the manner in which she tried to push through reforms to France’s antiquated judicial administrative system.

Even though there was general political support from all quarters for the need for reform, Dati was criticised for total incompetence by some Socialist parliamentarians.

Unfortunately she has also had the tendency to look a little like a rabbit caught in a car’s headlights when facing the cameras or standing up in parliament, and before Carla came along seemed to spend just a little too much time as Sarkozy’s “second lady” on his official trips to Morocco, China and the United States.

And therein lies another problem. Dati was – and still is – good buddies with Sarkozy's former wife Cécilia and has had to face a fair amount of ridicule from the press and accusations that she only got the job over others more qualified because of the former (non) “first lady’s” influence.

Then there was a “storm in a teacup” scandal over an apparent false declaration of academic qualifications before she enrolled in the prestigious National College of Magistrates that certainly didn't endear her to the chattering classes.

And the knives were definitely out over her quest for genuine political credibility when she (successfully) stood for a seat in one of the capital's most swanky suburbs in this year's local elections.

She has also been mocked untiringly by the weekly satirical le Canard Enchaîné, which has charted the succession of resignations from her office since she took over (11 and counting), portrayed her as an overbearing boss, and broken the news on her department's "extravagance" when it came to entertaining.




In March, just as the government was encouraging people to tighten their belts, Dati was forced to confirm that her department had already spent two-thirds of its annual €200,000 entertainment budget.

And then a couple of months later, in June, she found herself under fire again from all sides as she became embroiled in a ruling which did her no political favours. Dati was forced to do a volte face and ask the public prosecutors office to appeal a court decision, which had previously annulled a marriage because the wife of a Moslem man had lied about being a virgin.

At first Dati refused to intervene, but changed her mind after the ruling made the national (and international) headlines and the prime minister was forced to step in.

All the while of course, Dati has not exactly been a shrinking violet in public.

Far from it. She has almost appeared to bask in the notoriety that public office has brought, regularly appearing on television (or not, when her own terms weren't met) and on the front cover and inside pages of the weekly magazine Paris Match - for all the part looking and behaving (according to her critics) as a Dior-dressed A-list celebrity.

So long seemingly protected by Sarkozy, Dati has not exactly been among his most closely sought advisors for the past couple of months. Indeed Le Figaro just last week reminded its readers that since May she has no longer appeared to enjoy the prestige of being in the inner circle of ministers consulted over future government strategy.

So perhaps her star has already begun to wane.

In the meantime next up for Dati - politically speaking - is reform of the country's overcrowded prisons. The latest figures from June show that over 64,000 inmates are currently held in a system that has room for around 51,000.

Reforms have already been discussed at cabinet level and are expected to be put before parliament next month.

But it's anybody's guess as to whether Dati will be the minister presenting and defending those reforms.