not entirely El Reg's fault but...
The "quality" of that video was awful, and im not talking about the suspect dialect.
Sarko boosts standing by standing in front of dwarves
The wheels appear to have come off French prez Nick Sarko's latest attempt to boost his international standing, after it was revealed he was backed at a motor technology plant speech by the shortest workers the company could rustle up. Sarkozy, whose modest 5ft 5in frame was shamefully snapped standing on a box to deliver a …
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Monday 7th September 2009 14:09 GMT Ian 11
Sarkozy...
...is an evil little poison dwarf.
Why do people like this ever even manage to get into power? Not only is he incompetent at his job, but he is also a corrupt little manipulator treating the public like they're stupid, paranoid about something that frankly just does not matter - his height.
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Monday 7th September 2009 14:12 GMT Anonymous Coward
WTF?
Why do small minded cretins in the British press think that it is ok to mock another country's president on the basis of his/her personal appearance?
I don't see Le Figaro, Le Monde or Liberation running front page features making a mockery of Prince Charles's big ears or Gordon Browns double chin!
What do these people hope to achieve by running down Sarkozy?
Seems to me a childish jealous resentment of another nation having a successful, dynamic and respected politician?
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Monday 7th September 2009 14:12 GMT Anonymous Coward
Napoleon complex
Lets see...
- french. check..
- shortarse. check.
- workaholic (he only takes a 1hr lunch, afterall). check.
- inexplicably attractive wife, who in the real world wouldn't touch him with a barge pole. check.
- believes everyone in Europe is "out to get him". check.
- ego the size of a small planet. check.
Time to start building up our over-priced, under-gunned, under-equiped and out-of-date navy hardware. No wait...
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Monday 7th September 2009 14:45 GMT Sabine Miehlbradt
@ASG
No - he isn't as touchy.
Compared to him, the Fink is well-mannered, calm and collected.
Our French frères used to call him Iznogoud, but that turned out to be too flattering after he got to be caliph in place of the caliph. Iznogoud got style and self-confidence.
There was another situation last year when he had his mates in the press edit away his paunch on a photo.
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Monday 7th September 2009 14:45 GMT frank ly
@AC14:08 re WTF?
"Why do small minded cretins in the British press think that it is ok to mock another country's president on the basis of his/her personal appearance?"
His personal appearance is irrelevant. It's his behaviour (or the behaviour of his entourage) that is cause for amusement and scorn. (Notice that I used four words of french origin there? We don't have a problem with the French, they made some of the tastiest words in the world and some fairly decent wine).
"I don't see Le Figaro, Le Monde or Liberation running front page features making a mockery of Prince Charles's big ears or Gordon Browns double chin!"
No, the UK press does it for them, but not on the front page, they're not important enough.
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Monday 7th September 2009 14:56 GMT Richard 39
@ AC 14:08
Clearly you've never spent a significant amount of time England, we ridicule Charles for his ears and Gordon Brown for his double chin (and much much more) constantly.
Oh and it's called British sense of humour, it's fun and enjoyable to slate someone and when you couple it with the fact the person is incompetent it makes it all the sweeter.
The insults soon get boring if the recipient doesn't let it affect them, Sarkosy is playing on it for political/personal gain rather than ignoring them so therefore the insults will keep coming.
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Monday 7th September 2009 14:56 GMT DT
@ a/c 14.08
The point isn't about his appearance- it's about his insecure self image, the evident manipulation, and the very public mid-life crysis (and new found fear of being deep-fried and eaten if his singing and dancing isn't up to scratch).
Tthe uproar about Gordon Brown's you tube clip, wasn't about his double chin,or his glass eye, but the creepy false smile and put on mannerisms.
Equally if Prince Charles started wearing deerstalker hats indoors at public functions, or headbands to hold in his ears, a good mocking in the press would most definitely be in order.
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Monday 7th September 2009 15:01 GMT Boring Bob
@ ASG
"I don't think the french pres. has thrown anybody in a dungeon for saying he's a bit short though :-)"
You are joking! What kind of libertarian free-speech democracy do you come from? As one of the commentators has already pointed out the French TV channels have not dared criticise the President. In France if a journalist criticises the president he risks becoming blacklisted.
There was even a case of a crowd of protesters booing Sarko once. Sarko fired the Prefect (the regional head of the police) the next day!
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Monday 7th September 2009 15:29 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: WTF?
"Seems to me a childish jealous resentment of another nation having a successful, dynamic and respected politician?"
Hilarious! Even various French people I've spoken to regard Sarkozy as being only one step above Berlusconi in the political gutter where distracting the public with glitz and pretty ladies is what matters most. The only good thing that comes across to us foreigners is the way Sarko has duped various despots, but I imagine that the civil and intelligence services have plenty of fingers in all sorts of pies to pull this kind of stunt off regardless of which figurehead is involved.
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Monday 7th September 2009 16:06 GMT Patrick R
move on, Belgium.
Bravo RTBF (french speaking Belgian TV), bored of corruption reports from own country, you can't come up with the same headline every day, you have to find something deeper abroad. I like how they make it sound so serious (along with the only other high profile broadcasting of the week, which is about football). Like the time they implied he was drunk then had to back down, they were kidding, ...they're only reporters, hé. Doesn't Tom Cruise get away with it ? Oh he's not president. Err... so what ?
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Tuesday 8th September 2009 09:36 GMT Chris 191
Not short on precedents
Napoleon (Time Bandits)
"Alexander the Great, five feet exactly. Isn't that incredible? Alexander the Great, whose empire stretched from India to Hungary, one inch shorter than me. Oliver Cromwell,1 the only man with any guts in British history, not a big man at all. Louis Catorze, five foot two half. Charlemagne, dumpy little five-footer. He's quite a little chap. Atilla the Hun, five foot one half. Cyrano deBergerac, five foot three half. Tamerlane the Great, four foot nine and three quarters."
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Tuesday 8th September 2009 09:36 GMT Pascal Monett
We don't have dungeons anymore
At least not until the Institut de Veille Sanitaire okays the construction of a new one that complies with all Human Rights regulations and UN criteria, which will cost billions and take at least another decade or four.
Meanwhile, notre illustre Président needs not to throw anyone anywhere, he just slips a note to his aid and scores of people get fired, or administratively displaced. The French media, like the good whipping dogs they have become in the last twenty years, keep a low profile because the various CEOs of the various French TV channels don't want the runt jumping on their balls either. And having a bad note from a President is never a good thing on a CV, now is it ?
Sarkozy is a dangerous man, so much so that three different political parties (left and center) are creating a coalition for the next presidential election. With Sarkozy's despotic behavior and unappealing demeanor, along with his plummeting ratings, it is quite possible that his current term be his only one.
His feverish efforts in "renewing" the administration and failing twelve things at a time have annoyed, then angered much too many people. His repeated appeals for patience have worn off, as has his steadfast assurance that the government is "working". Flailing about blindly is a more apt term.
Several of my friends who voted for him have told me they won't do it again. I voted for him as well, but only because the alternative was too exasperating to consider. I'll wager that a lot of blue-collar workers won't either. In any case, some people are already saying that he's done, but you won't ever hear that in a French paper. Well, not before 2011.
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Tuesday 8th September 2009 09:36 GMT JimC
Ah yes, but was the gathering of the not so tall
A presidential decree to make himself look better or was it an attempted exercise in derriere licking by Faurecia? Personally I suspect the latter, although I suspect that as a result of the publicity any effect on the organisations standing with the president has, well backfired...
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Tuesday 8th September 2009 09:36 GMT Sceptical Bastard
@ AC WTF?
Quote: "...jealous resentment of another nation having a successful, dynamic and respected politician?"
Eh? Which nation? Which politician?
You can't mean... ? No... ? Sarko! Now I know you're having a larf.
We don't take the piss because he's the runt of the litter. We take the piss because he's a strutting, self-regarding, trophy-marrying, pompous, hubristic, smirking smug prick!
BTW, the reason we don't take the piss out of Brown is he's so inept, so risible and such an abject failure that it would be cruel to laugh. We English are kind like that (but not to Frenchmen of course).
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Tuesday 8th September 2009 09:36 GMT Emilio Desalvo
Rule Britannia?"
"We'd advise Austria, Prussia, Russia, Spain, etc, etc, to keep a close eye on developments, just in case. ®"
To give a Lewis Page spin to this piece of news, I would like to remind that this time around the French Navy has nuclear powered conventional decked carrier, with supersonic fighter-bombers, with long range ANS anti-ship missiles.
This time around the Royal Navy would probably last a whole quarter of an hour.
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Tuesday 8th September 2009 10:52 GMT littlebigman
Not shown on French television
> French telly then broadcast the whole shocking espisode, complete with footage of the short-arsed 20 being bussed in from around Faurecia's sprawling facility:
Like someone said above, this broadcast if from belgian television (RTBF = Radio-télévision belge francophone). It's very unlikely this thing would be shown on French television.
The mass-media in France is owned by a few of Sarkozy's friends (Lagardère, Bouygues, Bolloré, Dassault), and it's already tough enough getting a job as a journalist without taking the risk of criticizing our Great leader...
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Tuesday 8th September 2009 19:16 GMT disgruntled yank
the height of folly
In US politics since early days it has paid to be tall. The British press has not always been fond of some of our big fellows--one could compile quite an anthology of abuse directed at Jefferson and Lincoln, to name two, and I don't remember Britons other than Blair much liking GWB. And how much did you care for De Gaulle?
It is notorious what ... lengths ... Hollywood will go to keep some of its shorter actors looking big. One might have hoped that politicians would be above such shifts. One might then be an idiot.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
