France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy’s Offensive Remarks On World Leaders Sparks Off Another Stir In France

France s President Nicolas Sarkozy

FRANCE – President Nicolas Sarkozy of France is not new to fierce attacks made against him by both internal and worldwide critics who keep denouncing his personality for lacking the kind of diplomacy required in modern politics. The latest controversy, which begun Thursday with the publication in the French daily Libération of Sarkozy's alleged remarks concerning several world leaders, including US President Barack Obama and Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, was exacerbated on Monday when French Socialist politician member Ségolène Royal revealed that she had sent her sincerest apologies to Spain's Premier for the infuriating comments Sarkozy is believed to have uttered at a ministerial meeting last week.

In an article titled “Sarkozy se voit en maître du monde” (Sarkozy sees himself as the master of the world), Libération revealed that the French President had declared that Barack Obama has “a subtle mind” and is “a very clever and very charismatic” leader; but that he presently lacked the requisite experience a Head of State should normally acquire before ascending to power. “Barack Obama was elected only two months ago and has never run a ministry in his life, and isn't always up to standard on decision making or efficiency,” Sarkozy appraised the performance so far of United States' President Barack Obama.

With regard to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero, Sarkozy supposedly said, “she had no choice, but to come round to my position when she saw the state of German banks and car companies,” and “José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is perhaps not very intelligent”.

François de Rugy is a member of L'Assemblée Nationale de France and was present – along with Nicolas Sarkozy – at the ministerial lunch held on Wednesday. “Nothing is false in Libé's article,” the Green Party member is reported by the newspaper to have said, in line with Ex-French Premier Lionel Jospin's statement made on the public radio Radio-Canada, “my opinion is that what was reported by the newspaper Libération must be true”. “There were too many invitees,” Jospin went on to add, in a way to justify why it cannot be possible that the President never pronounced those words.

Even Bernard Kouchner, France's Foreign Minister who was expelled from the Socialist Party – in May two years ago – after he had accepted a ministerial post within the President's opposition party, the UMP (the Union for a Popular Movement), has confirmed the report of Libération as being trustworthy, but wholly misinterpreted – notably by the press.

Thus despite the intervention of Luc Chatel, the government spokesperson, who refuted on Tuesday the alleged distasteful remarks of the President, claiming that he himself was “very shocked by the fact that the whole statement of the week was based on rumors”, most French and Europeans alike still believe the news spread by the French daily Libération was indeed accurate.

Chatel was also quoted by the AFP – according to Libération – to have said on the same day, “Mrs. Royal gives the impression that she is so afraid of being forgotten, first by her friends and then by the French people, that she is always ready to utter something shocking”.

But whether Royal sent the Spanish Prime Minister her apologies on behalf of her political rival and the nation in a bid to make him understand that “these words have nothing to do with France, nor the French” – as she later on told reporters in a statement – or whether her gesture is in fact more about making use of an unscrupulous strategy to drastically deteriorate the risen level of popularity Sarkozy has been enjoying lately, there is little doubt for Bruno Jeanbar, interviewed Saturday on RFI, that this new case will eventually compromise the reputation and consequently the popularity of the French President, not only in France, but also abroad.

“If you look at the polls on the popularity of the President now, since February-March, it was beginning to win again some points and is about 42-45% - it depends on the polls – and the trend was favorable for him now, for one or two months.” The director of political studies at the Opinion Way Institute in Paris further told an RFI journalist Saturday in an interview that he thought it was very likely that the fallouts of Sarkozy's recent candid comments would soon reflect negatively in the President's popularity polls, and worst, “be very problematic with the upcoming European elections, for example”.

It is not the first time that Ségolène Royal attempts to clear France's image abroad for 'insulting' statements made by her 2007 presidential rival, Nicolas Sarkozy. Only about two weeks ago, Royal returned to Dakar, which is also her birthplace, and asked her audience to forgive her country for Sarkozy's famous 'racist' Dakar Speech pronounced back in June 2007, shortly after he was elected President of the nation.

Standing before a group of Senegalese elites and scholars on June 2007, in a large lecture room at Cheikh Anta Diop University, Sarkozy said, “The tragedy of Africa is that the African man has not sufficiently entered history… They have never really launched themselves into the future”, judging that this was the result of Africans being inclined to accept an “eternal re-starting of time by the endless repetition of the same movements and words”.

On April 6, Royal tried to persuade, first of all, Senegalese, and secondly, Africans as a whole of the fact that all French did not share their President's perception of the African continent and of it's peoples. She declared in front of at least 500 people who had gathered to come and listen to her, “Someone came to tell you in Dakar that the African man did not enter History. Pardon for those humiliating words that never should have been spoken, and which – I tell you in all certainty – represent neither France nor the French people.”

Sarkozy and Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero are due to meet next month on a State visit.

French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, said on Canal + Sunday that he was confident the controversy would not badly affect the upcoming meeting; at least, this is something Sarkozy himself may well want to wish for too…

Written by Christiana A.