Sunday, March 25, 2007

Sarko Bio, part 1


I am going to attempt to profile Nikolas Sarkozy, though I don't think I can do it all in one post. The video illustration for this piece was published in the political journal, Marianne, because it has been jammed by Sarkozi supporters and found by them to be too dangerous for public consumption. It's a pretty snappy little number that insults Sarkozy in a very accurate way. It's just the truth.
My first Sarkozi anecdote concerns his appearance on France Europe Express last week.
There were a number of candidates invited for the broadcast and all arrived early, except for Sarko, who arrived late with an entourage of body guards and his professional make up staff. When the make up artists finished working their magic on him, he walked into the room where the other candidates were sitting and talking before the show. They had all gathered their chairs themselves and no one got up for Nikolas. He stood glaring for a few minutes, then erupted into a black rage, screaming that he would not be treated like this, where was his chair? Diid they expect him to find it himself? Screaming at the staff that when he was president, there would be big changes at France 3! One of his entourage got him a chair and the speaker of the show remarked that it was just a typical Nikolas Diva fit.
For a man whose maternal grandfather had to go into hiding to escape deportation by the Germans during World War 2, he shows a remakable lack of compassion for those in the same situation now. His mothers father was a Sephardic Jew who converted to Catholicism before the war. That of course was not good enough for the Vichy French Occupation Authorities who were having people with Jewish backgrounds deported. He hid in the Correze for 4 years until the war was over. Today, in his campaign, he talks of starting a Ministry of Immigration and National Identity, which would perform pretty much the same function. Today all over France there are good honest people who are putting themselves on the line by helping immigrant families stay together and avoid deportation. It is a resistance movement.

1 comment:

liberal_dem said...

Today all over France there are good honest people who are putting themselves on the line by helping immigrant families stay together and avoid deportation. It is a resistance movement.

Wonderful to see the willingness of the French people to reach out, once again, to give a hand to people in need!