NINE months along, the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy is drawing comparisons to a bad soap opera. He is ruthlessly lampooned as a monarch and a money-obsessed dilettante, with a passion for yachts, country estates and travel on private jets — with the tabs typically picked up by tycoon friends.
NINE months along, the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy is drawing comparisons to a bad soap opera. He is ruthlessly lampooned as a monarch and a money-obsessed dilettante, with a passion for yachts, country estates and travel on private jets — with the tabs typically picked up by tycoon friends.
His presidency has been marked by public temper tantrums, a 172% pay raise, a divorce and marriage four months later to an Italian model-turned-singer he'd known for 80 days.
Such acts have led to questions about what goes on inside the man's head. "It's a conversation everybody's having," said Nicole Bacharan, an analyst at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris. "The whole country, especially people who voted for him, are turning into therapists."
All this comes from a man elected on sober promises. He said he would revitalise a stodgy presidency and reinvigorate a morose country. People's hard work would be rewarded with higher pay. He would run a can-do administration.
Mr Sarkozy's approval rating has sunk to about 39%, a fall attributed to his failure to improve economic conditions and overexposure to his personal life, parts of which strike people as nouveau riche and vulgar.
A popular TV news parody sometimes mocks Mr Sarkozy's love of Rolex watches by giving him an armful. He has also been saddled with a disparaging nickname: Bling-Bling.
"He is the President of France, and I wish that he was a little more classy," said communications executive Felix Noir. He faulted Mr Sarkozy for publicising his affair with Italian supermodel Carla Bruni. "It was pathetic … That was the beginning of the end — the hunter got captured by the game."
If the French think they've seen everything, they can think again. Three books are hitting the shelves that deconstruct the Sarkozy-Bruni love affair in glorious detail — such as Bruni supposedly telling a friend, "I want a man with nuclear power".
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