Blessed Cecilia
Surely the august Prospect Magazine (or at least its somewhat less august French political blog) is not going to insult its readers by adding to the idle speculation about Cecilia Sarkozy? We shall see…..
As we all know, there is a law in France which protects personal privacy. So potent is it that back in 2005 Nicolas Sarkozy was able to phone up the owner of Paris Match, his friend Arnaud Lagardère, and demand the instant dismissal of the editor for publishing a front-page photograph of Sarkozy’s wife with her then lover. Since that traumatic moment many journalists have protested about failing press freedom in France, but their protests do not seem to have led to any changes. Cecilia Sarkozy is once again hogging the limelight by her absence, upstaging everyone else simply by not being there – and the press dares not even mention the fact, let alone say why. “The Tribune”, a financial daily, ran a story that France’s first lady has spent the last 3 weeks in Geneva, but since then, silence. Speculation is rife, particularly in newspaper offices where apparently some editors know what is going on but do not dare pre-empt an official comment – presumably afraid of the Fatal Phone-Call.
That seems to me a worrying situation. Publishing what they know does not mean they have to copy the British gutter press with over-blown headlines and compromising photographs. There is a world of difference between deliberately digging up and paying large sums for details about someone’s sex life and writing soberly about things known by many journalists. Things that matter.
Cecilia Sarkozy is extremely important to France – not because the First Lady has a Constitutional role, but because Nicolas Sarkozy decided long ago that he wanted her to be important. Every article about her has stressed that she is (was?) his principal advisor, not necessarily on policy but on how that policy was put across. Her office was next door to his at the Ministry of the Interior and during the election campaign she made many very important strategic decisions. Since she has never expressed any personal political ambition, one can assume the decisions to elevate her to this semi-official position were in large part his (with her agreement). He decided to send her (and she agreed to be sent) as his emissary to Libya to negotiate the release of the Bulgarian nurses. It was not necessary to do that – the European Commissioner (also a woman, which nullifies one of Sarkozy’s principle justifications) had been negotiating for months and if despite that France wanted to get in there quickly to sew up a trade deal, his own Foreign Minister would have been better qualified than Madame Sarkozy. He has given her an important, if unofficial role and if that is about to change, if he has lost one of his chief advisors and emissaries (it was said that Mme Sarkozy would be sent to Columbia to negotiate the release of Ingrid Bettancourt) the media should be able to tell us. To hide behind “we are not going to spread rumours” is treating their readers/audiences as if they are complete fools. The French media, like every other, depends on publishing rumours – about possible take-overs, politicians’ intentions, a drop in sales, a rise in interest rates. Rumours about a hitherto extremely rare event – the break-up of the family life of a head of state while in office – are also important.
Rumour has it that the official announcement will come tomorrow, Tuesday. Rumour also has it that the announcement will include mention of a divorce (these rumours are spread by the French press, where evidently rumours of official announcements are not the same as rumours tout court). That will start speculation that if things have got as far as divorce, they were pretty bad at the end of July, when the president sent his wife to Libya. Did he give her that role in order to try to keep her interest, to keep the couple together? “Mere speculation!”, terrified media editors will cry. Maybe. But only by speculating will we ever find out the truth – and it’s important to know the truth about how a president runs his country. Who knows, M. Sarkozy might give the job of advisor to the next pretty woman who turns his head.
October 16th, 2007 at 8:12 pm
A not so popular episode of the last presidential campaign, last February, had Mr Sarkozy, then a candidate, disclosed his reprobation of there being a text by La Princesse de Clèves given to the candidates of a competive examination for a post in the French Administration. Commenting on one of the masterpieces of French lieterature, here is what he said, according to the newspapers:
“La princesse de Clèves ! Voilà ce que donne l’Education nationale pour épreuve d’examen ! Etonnez-vous que ça aille si mal. Si c’est ce qu’on enseigne à nos enfants.»
Now Mr Sarkozy would be well inspired to read this book, for it has many thinks in common with his own story, which is so well disclosed by the media, but in a less elegant style as Madame de Lafayette’s.
October 17th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
We all reach for our battered Livre de Poche copies…………are you suggesting that Nicolas de Clèves is going to die of what used to be called a broken heart? For those unfamiliar with this wonderful book there is a Gutenberg edition in English (I have no idea what the translation is like) http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/467.
October 17th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
I am suggesting that Mr Sarkozy, in circumstances not so unlike those in which Mr de Clèves finds himself (but I would certainly not compare Cecilia to the Princess!), would be better inspired to imitate this gentleman, and most of all, that he should revise his judgement about the unworthiness of reading such novels for education. But it’s true that his language is closer to that of San Antonio or of his friend Jean Marie Bigard.
sorry ofr a telling mispring in the previous post : “thinks” instead of “things”