Isn’t it grand?! The French finally have elected themselves a President with a beautifully functioning brain in his head, a beguiling smile, and a real plan to get them out of the ditch, and all they (at least the howling Left) can do at each turn is rousp√©ter (bitch and moan) (could this be the birth of Sarko Derangement Syndrome – SDS?): he’s too Anglo-Saxon; he will abolish the 35 hour work week – a brute; he jogs! — it’s just not done!, everyone knows that no French President has ever perambulated at anything faster than a majestic stroll; he smiles too much — not French or presidential!; he and his wife got six poor souls out of a Libyan prison — so aggressive!; and to have sent his wife!! How soon they forget the wise words of the greatest of all French statesmen, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord, France’s perennial Foreign Minister (I’m quoting from memory here, but this is the gist, and the second part of the sentence is exact.): “Dans les situations graves et importantes, il faut toujours faire marcher les femmes!” (In all grave and important situations, one must always put the ladies on the case!) — as Talleyrand well knew, having landed his job as Foreign Minister in the first place through the extended good offices of the ladies…..
For my part, I find Super-Sarko more fascinating with each new tour de force. He is a complex man of profound and supple intelligence who knows just what intricate steps are necessary to carry out his plans, and who has the deftness of word and deed to achieve the goal. He’s got panache, and he’s got it in spades. I think he will be a prodigious champion for France. An example: By the end of the June meeting of European Union leaders, Sarko had so thoroughly hammered the competition that Tony Blair, having been forced to give away most of the farm, looked as though he had done far too many laps on foot trying to catch up to a Ferrari. For good measure, and for the supposed benefit of the French economy (though I can’t agree here), Sarko pretty much spiked the EU’s free competition mandate.
For his early performance representing France on the world stage, and for his detailed plans for the resuscitation of the French economy, the French people should be throwing roses in his path as he jogs! Whatever he does, he will do it for them and for France first. This is perhaps something those pundits in America who see Sarko as the second coming of Ronald Reagan should ponder. He will be our friend, but France will always come first — and that’s just as it should be. Our larval leaders-in-waiting would do well to take copious notes. It’s not that often one gets to see a master dans la mati√®re work and create. Good Fortune to him, and all who sail with him!
I’ve been avidly following the French press accounts of the karmic soap opera that is the Clearstream affair with, I admit, great glee. Clearstream in brief: it seems ever more clear that Chirac & de Villepin tried to frame Sarko with a fake bribery charge complete with fabricated Luxembourg bank statements in order to cripple Sarko’s chances of running for President. Each day seems to bring a new exploding grenade for Chirac and de Villepin from the voluminous notebooks, and now recovered computer disk of the formidable General Philippe Rondot late of the French intelligence services, Jean-Louis Gergorin (lifelong, former?, pal of de Villepin, who tried to implicate Sarko in the first place with the fake bank records, who seems to have cut a deal for himself with the judges, and who is now singing like the proverbial canary), and an ever-expanding cast. (Then there’s the delicious ancillary question of Chirac’s alleged $58 million Japanese bank account also discovered by Rondot!) The diva stupenda is warming up in the wings: Dominique de Villepin was recalled to Paris this week, from a vacation in Tahiti, to appear before the investigating judges, yet again, and was formally indicted. Break out the champagne! Now it gets really interesting: will de Villepin grass on Chirac (who claims presidential immunity, sic!, in the Clearstream matter)? What do you think of it all, Nidra? What will happen next?
