The degree of public self adulation from French president Nicholas Sarkozy is as ridiculous as it is misplaced and outright awkward. This past weekend the man in the Élysée Palace at last dared to come out of his cocoon and announced his reelection effort in front of a few hundred less than enthusiastic followers.
The muted response from his own support group, coming just 8 weeks ahead of the election, did not irritate the miniature Napoleon (same size, half the empire), as he ranted on about his socialist rival (and leader in the polls) François Hollande - "he's lying from dusk to dawn" - and praising himself as the savior of the nation, the man who brought France back from the brink.
Unfortunately for the little man, his renditions of self described and self prescribed glamour did not escape the attention of outside spectators (like myself), nor the scrutiny of France's intelligentsia in the media. His record cannot be reconciled with how Sarkozy portrays himself, and his swipe at Monsieur Hollande - the part of "lying from dusk to dawn" - can easily be applied to the president himself.
For, the man with some sixty days left in office has ushered in an era clearly the opposite of an image of a Grande Nation: his first term commenced with riots and mayhem on the streets of Paris and all other major cities (alone in the capital nearly 4,000 cars and hundreds of businesses went up in flames), isolation in global affairs, subordination to what the French consider the arch rival, a perception just a whisker away from the neighbourly arch enemy of the past to stalemate in the permanent and acute crisis of the eurozone. In diplomatic circles this bonmot makes its rounds and is beginning to gain traction with the common folks as well: "If you got a friend like Germany, who needs an enemy?"
Mr Sarkozy's approval rating is the worst of any sitting president since Charles de Gaulle a month before the famous plebiscite which ousted him. The public gaffes of Mr Sarkozy, both in words and in gestures, are innumerous, and have filled the pages of publications like Le Canard, and the comics pages of reputable dailies such as Le Figaro and Le Monde. His private life is the domain for clownery and caricatures.
The man, who demeaned and emasculated French virtues like no other leader before him since WW2, is rife for retirement, and his anachronistical public sermons cannot gloss over the stale, hollow and uninspiring message he conveys. The awkwardly animated man, like a kid who overdosed on sugar, should be the butt of Saturday night comical jokes, not a resident of the Élysée Palace.
