That press conference rumbles on
According to a blogger on the “nEUrosis” section of TOL blogs, only Charles Bremner and I have posted anything about Sarkozy’s press conference when he appeared drunk.
“The French press has barely reported the infamous press conference; even the more left-wing media (Liberation, for example) have been almost silent on the issue. The clip has still not even been broadcast in France - it was first aired by Belgian broadcaster RTBF. The RTBF reporter was subsequently made to apologise. Charles Bremner in The Times and Tim King in Prospect have reviews of the limited coverage.
“Yet thanks to good old YouTube, over 3 million people have watched the clip anyway. ”Was he drunk?” has become Question of the Moment in France (well, they needed something to talk about after ”Should Zidane have been sent off?” got boring).
“Is this self-censorship? Or something more sinister?”
If it is true that the Belgian TV reporter was made to apologise and that Charles and I alone wrote on the event, it is appalling. Publishing a photograph of a man’s wife with her lover is an invasion of privacy. Writing about or showing a clip of a man giving a press conference is not. If that man is a newly elected president it is of undoubted public interest: proved by the apparently 12 million people (according to Charles Bremner) who have visited the YouTube site. Failure to report it, even as a minor, regrettable incident, shows a level of self-censorship in the French media greatly to be deplored, an evasion of responsibility.
On a lighter note, and in a more recent blog, Charles quotes (in translation) the wonderfully sycophantic coverage by Paris Match of Cecilia Sarkozy’s visit to the G8 summit. Paris Match is of course owned by Sarkozy’s close friend, the multi-faceted businessman Arnaud Lagardère. Well, it would be a lighter note if it didn’t resemble the sort of one-eyed rubbish we were used to in the Soviet press. At that same G8 summit Cecilia affronted her fellow guests by leaving early, cutting the official dinner given by her host, in order to “organise” her 20 year old daughter’s birthday. Paris Match does not, of course mention that.
For the record, TOL blogs is an interesting site for those who wish to use the web to expand their understanding of the world. It collects together, in English, the views of many individuals in post-communist countries – particularly those countries which get scant coverage in the British or French press – Armenia, Moldova, Roumania etc. With their recent, often vivid, memories of Soviet domination, their proximity to Russia and their mixed feelings towards Brussels and the European community generally, their views give a different and often invaluable perspective.
June 20th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
While the Belgian reporter did indeed make apologies, the video has been largely commented in French newspapers (not much on TV) and in French blogs. Sarkozy discussed the issue in an interview today for Le Parisien in which he says he was just breathless because he ran in the stairs as he was late.