(Photo Source: IMDB)
No, today is SOTU day in the United States.
But in France, it is the President's birthday - Nicolas Sarkozy is 53 today.
It's not a holiday, but there has been some fun. At the President's expense, mostly. France Inter - for Americans, this nationwide radio station has some aspects of the Stateside NPR - had a cute rendition of Marylin Monroe's public ode to JFK, with inevitable references to current girlfriend singer Carla Bruni's guitar-strumming.
This injection of the personal into French media coverage of their head of state has been one of the recurring themes in the half-year since Sarkozy's election in summer 2007. One of the best summaries of the resulting desarroi in French media and political circles has been "Love and Politics" in The New Yorker by veteran Sarkozy-watcher Adam Gopnik
What distinguishes the ballad of Carla and Nicolas from similar tales is that this time the media is not trying to pry into the private life of a public man; this time, a public man is trying desperately to parade his private life in front of the media. Sarkozy not only performed for the press, welcoming photographers along as he and Bruni holidayed in Egypt and walked on the beach in what used to be called bathing costumes; he insists, to everyone’s embarrassment, on talking about their bonheur and their approaching marriage at press conferences. This is not tacit complicity, of the Princess Di-and-the-tabloids kind; it is Presidential leadership. Sarkozy wants people to think about his sex life, in the way that Bill Clinton didn’t want people thinking about his.
There is no shortage of serious subjects in France these days:
- The world's biggest banking fraud/loss at Societe Generale
- The first elections (municipal) since the 2007 Sarkozy presidential and parliamentary victories
- Presidential visits abroad, most recently to India
These topics are covered, sure. But many people are convinced that just when news starts getting dicey for the Presidential palace, out comes some photo op involving the President and his friend. Or some hint at forthcoming news, like rumors of an incipient wedding. The difference, as Gopnik shows, is that it is Sarkozy who usually is the source.
Just don't try to go too far, though, in referring to the Prez and his squeeze. Ryanair, the Irish low-cost airline, is being threatened with a Presidential lawsuit for its advertising campaign using a photo of the loving couple, with references to flying Ryanair to bring the "whole family to the wedding."
It is one thing for Sarkozy to oppose an Irish capitalist capitalizing on his love affair. It is quite another to use Presidential influence to suppress the press. Today, the latest in a long line of episodes of quasi-censorship: "Direct 8," a newish private TV channel owned by Sarkozy friend Vincent Bollore (whose private yacht was the scene of the very first Sarko-show with former wife Cecilia just after the election victory) canceled a show entitled "Sarkozy et les femmes." Noblesse oblige.
Earlier, there have been several incidents of a similar nature involving the print media: Sarko buddy Arnaud Lagardere, publisher of Paris Match, fires the editor when Sarkozy was still Minister of Interior, for an early eruption of lese majeste; a flurry of recent books about the former - and very short-lived - French First Lady, Cecilia, some of which were held up; and a mostly silly episode of airbrushed love handles during the Presidential visit to New Hampshire last year.
Adam Gopnik again on the good old days:
Those who loved the dignity and the sporadic secrecy and the sudden intimacies of traditional French civilization are bound to long for the days when President Mitterrand would go on long walks alone to old bookstores, and then make love to his mistress on the way home to his wife, patting his love children on the head while making sonorous pronouncements about life and destiny. The ballad of President Bling-Bling and Carla Bruni is a reminder of a deep and permanent truth, which the French once knew better than anyone: there are worse things in this world than a little organized hypocrisy.
So, happy birthday, Mr. President, but let's resolve to see, read, and hear a bit less on your private life in your 54th year, and hope that you get back to business.