9 posts tagged “nicolas sarkozy”

Carla Bruni on the cover of Point de Vue

The Nobel Prize committee likes that President Obama is warm. Over in France, Carla Bruni likes that presidents are cosy.
   Thanks to Michelle Kleinsmith for inspiring this post.

[Cross-posted] Yves Saint Laurent’s passing is such a shock to the fashion media because he was the world’s greatest couturier.
   When we broke the news on Sunday night at Lucire, it was obvious that we were marking the end of an era.
   The casual observer might say that the end occurred in 2002, when Saint Laurent retired to his house in Marrakech. But while he remained alive, there was always that link to one of fashion’s pure geniuses.
   Saint Laurent, perhaps like Mozart, did not have formal training when he created clothes for his sister and mother. He was talented enough to be accepted into the Chambre Syndicale. When he created the trapèze look at Dior in 1958, he was not following some great marketing-trend projection. Nor were brand advisers present with studies about liberating women when he gave the world le smoking or the safari look.
   It was only with hindsight that we, the media, made the connections for him, hiding the real inspirations that he had in his quest to become France’s greatest couturier.
   The great irony is that as his influence grew, so did the YSL brand, which meant his name became so tied up with marketing, business, financial projections and trend forecasts.
   While that brought Saint Laurent wealth, it was always clear that he was happiest simply being a créateur. It was a sign that it was better to preside over a genuine maison de l’amour than seeing if money bought happiness.
   His passing perhaps marks the demise of a pure couturier who drew from something within, finding the essence not only of his muses, such as Catherine Deneuve, but of himself.
   Today’s couturiers, while incredibly talented, are also more calculated and savvy. Saint Laurent could leave the calculations and savvy to his lover and company president, Pierre Bergé.
   I am not saying one method is better than the other. But I do miss that era where we praised Saint Laurent because he was simply so good at what he did, setting the Zeitgeist for the simple reason that he did not watch the Zeitgeist.
   Today’s designers, such as Gaultier and Ford, and even to an extent Saint Laurent’s contemporary, Lagerfeld, have a more balanced outlook, which obviously have kept them away from the down sides of Saint Laurent’s behaviour: his severe depression and his reclusiveness, especially during the 1980s.
   It is also Yves Saint Laurent the recluse, the victim of school bullying, the man who saw himself as a latter-day Swann, that also makes today’s story all the more compelling. But again, it hides that single-minded desire, one which few of us would dare to do because we know of its personal cost.
   When President Sarkozy made him an Officier of the Legion d’Honneur, the title of ‘hero’ wasn’t inappropriate for Saint Laurent.
   He is a hero for that reason, and he has set the bar so high that it will take an extraordinary person to beat his record.
   The Proust connection—Saint Laurent as Swann, by his own reckoning—does point to how he saw himself, cast out by society. It is invalid, because we are all the poorer now.
   We have lost one of the purest designers; one fewer great figure on whom we can not only report, but bask in his genius.

From France 2, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy got a much better reception in the UK than in France. A nice summary of the very packed two days for the Sarkozys, with an emphasis on the First Lady. The kiss in the segment is a nice, romantic finalé to the piece.

This video, from the Élysée, was taken yesterday when the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, and the First Lady arrived in London to meet HM Queen Elizabeth II and HH the Duke of Edinburgh. I wrote in a comment on Timothy’s Vox blog, after reading an article about it, that Mme Sarkozy did not know where to stand and tried to follow her husband and the Queen on the inspection. I was wrong: looking at this video, the First Lady knew exactly where to go and accompanied Prince Philip in her meet-and-greet. The Jacqueline Kennedy comparisons aren’t invalid.
   And it seems the newly hyphenated Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is on her way to being the most photographed woman of 2008: her image sells political, fashion (she’s wearing Dior by John Galliano) and gossip media.

This video is doing the rounds in France and is the number-one result for searches on Dailymotion for Sarkozy. The story: it’s an agricultural show and President Nicolas Sarkozy turns up. There’s a bloke in the audience who won’t shake the President’s hand, because he says he could get himself dirtied up. The President tells him to ‘Bugger off, you dumb bastard,’ which is about as accurate as I dare make the translation. (Various translations on the ’net differ, especially around the words pauvre con that M. Sarkozy actually utters—it can be as harsh as ‘dumb c***’.)
   I know, his opponents are saying this is not very presidential, and some are crying out that they do not like how President Sarkozy is so “hands-on”. It’s odd: I’d rather my head of state be hands-on, meeting the people, being the Ordinary Bloke.
   I will say that M. Sarkozy’s language could have been a lot better though, but I am willing to bet we antipodeans have a greater stomach for our PMs getting colourful.
   However, our head of state is technically HM Queen Elizabeth II. We may wish for her to be more hands-on, but we only expect that language from her husband.

This was interesting today. The Daily Telegraph reported on the campaign spending (specifically on make-up and grooming) by Nicolas Sarkozy and his rival Ségolène Royal during the French presidential election. Despite being thought of as a conservative newspaper, it painted a rosier picture of Mlle Royal than M. Sarkozy.
   First up, Sarkozy’s (over-)spending was the lead-in to the story, even though Royal’s was much higher. Mlle Royal’s spending was left to the third paragraph.
   Secondly, the standards used to round off are biased in favour of Ségolène Royal. Here are the figures I uncovered, compared with the rounding that the Telegraph did.

• Nicolas Sarkozy, spent €34,445—rounded in The Daily Telegraph as €35,000 (I would have rounded it to €34,000 or said ‘around €34,500’)
• Ségolène Royal, spent €53,581—rounded in The Daily Telegraph as €52,000 (I would have rounded it to €54,000—correspondent Henry Samuel shaves off a hefty €1,581 for the socialist leader)

Reimbursements:

• Nicolas Sarkozy was reimbursed €11,482—The Daily Telegraph reported €12,000 (I would have rounded it to €11,000 or said ‘around €11,500’)
• Ségolène Royal was reimbursed €17,220—The Daily Telegraph reported €17,000 (I would have used the same figure)

In every case, it might have been easier just to report the actual figures.
   The message, unless the figures I got from the French media are wrong: overestimate the spending by the right and make it look like the President is getting more state funds; underestimate the spending by the left and understate its burden on the state.
   The Telegraph might need to re-examine its mathematics.

Carla Bruni on the cover of Point de Vue

Carla Bruni has been romantically linked to French president Nicolas Sarkozy, according to Point de Vue magazine in France. The cover headline reads (translated), ‘Carla Bruni: the woman in the President’s heart.’ The magazine launches tomorrow (December 19) and contributes to the largely positive press M. Sarkozy has been receiving since his election. (More at the Lucire Insider blog today.)

Fred Thompson announced his candidacy for President of the United States, on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show a few nights ago.
   A great analysis appears in the Murdoch Press, where the conclusion is that the former senator from Tennessee stands a good chance, not because of his political views (closer to those of Sen. John McCain than his other opponents), but because he is a celebrity who looks the part.
   The Tonight Show audience in Los Angeles was delighted with Mr Thompson’s announcement, though it was noticeably silent when the Iraq war was discussed.
   Applause returned when Thompson noted that the United States had spilled a lot of blood for other nations’ freedom, an idea that still has resonance in that nation.
   This shows the division that must come in the US: a country known for defending and promoting freedom, yet tired of sacrificing its own in a war that its own President warned would be a lengthy, tiresome fight when he was campaigning in 2004. Yet Americans do have their pride in their history and what they stand for. And rightly so.
   For those torn between a pro-war and an anti-war position, which the one Tonight Show audience seemed to demonstrate, Thompson may offer a third way. Toward the end of his interview, he hinted that the War on Terror, under him, would have more allies: he would try to unite all the good guys against the bad guys. France was a powerful example, as Thompson cited how Nicolas Sarkozy, before his win in the Presidential Election there, came to the US to meet President Bush. He returned to France saying that he would be more pro-American. The French elected him.
   Sarkozy’s win wasn’t anywhere near that simplistic, but in the age of sound bites and people getting their news from late-night talk shows, it was a skilful move. In Thompson-speak, it means: let me get other countries involved so we don’t have to sacrifice as many of our boys and girls.
   It is a tricky third position to be in, but it may appeal to some voters who feel that the pull-out position of Sens. Clinton and Obama is unpatriotic at worst or risky at best. There is always a difficult ‘What if?’ that comes from any withdrawal, especially given that the US still holds the peace together in Korea with its base there, and maintained a lot of troops in West Germany during the Cold War—so why not the Middle East? Those who are internationalists may see a point. It will definitely appeal to the pro-war brigade.
   The staunch members of the anti-war brigade will not welcome Thompson, regardless of a third, intermediate solution.
   Nevertheless, this tact highlighted several things about Thompson: he is a gifted actor and once he was a skilled lawyer. (Lawyer-haters might not have a choice this time around: Clinton, Obama, Romney, Edwards and Giuliani all have practised law.) He has an image that has been fuelled by his Hollywood appearances. A southern accent makes one look down-home—and his choice of URL, fred08.com, also looks very personal. He knows how to use his words, and to use them well. All these ingredients make him a powerful opponent to the Democrats.

I began logging some of my predictions at Facebook for fun. My first was that Nicolas Sarkozy would win the French presidential election, which has come to pass.
   I have had no major 9-11-type events, just little, trivial things. I dreamt that the French president was a woman in a dream over a month ago, and since my dreams are never literal, I concluded that it would be Sarkozy. Unfortunately, by the time I logged the prediction, it was becoming clear, after the first round, that Sarkozy would pip Ségo.
   The group is just for fun, though if we start getting a better-than-average score, then we might have to admit to having some abilities.