Don’t Make Angry, You Won’t Like Me When I’m Angry …

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President, walked out of an interview with American Broadcaster CBS when he was asked about his recent divorce from wife Cecilia.

Sarko, who announced his divorce on October 18th, has always refused to divulge titbits about his private life in public. When asked about the divorce by 60 Minutes journo, Leslie Stahl, he replied “If I had something to say about Cecilia I would certainly not say it here”.

Of his press secretary, he described him as “an imbecile” and “stupid” for scheduling the interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes show.

Sarko brought a swift end to the questioning when asked about his ex-wife, “You asked me that question,” Sarkozy seems to say as he pulls off the microphone, stands up and walks away from the interview.

“Bon courage,” Mr Sarkozy was heard saying off camera before leaving the set.

It seems to me that CBS continued to ask him the same question as they were not getting the answers they wanted to hear and that Tsar Nic’s press secretary may well have had briefed CBS not to mention the divorce.

Still, as of tomorrow morning there’ll be a new job opening on the boards of the job centre in Paris’ 8th district …

One Hell Of A Week …

What’s been going on in the past 7 days?

Well, ‘Tsar Nicolas 1′ has been a busy boy. To avoid press coverage over his divorce, he jetted abroad to press the flesh and fill up his agenda with all sorts of everything:

- he’s announced a new rail link between Tangiers and Marrakesh, Morocco (to be build by by French group Alstom)

- then he invited leaders of Mediterranean countries to France and to a summit to discuss “economic, political and cultural union”

- and, back home, the government has passed a new immigration bill introducing DNA tests for foreigners who want to join their relatives in France.

- meanwhile, more transport strikes are planned for November.

Goody. Can’t wait.

Message In A Bottle …

The town of Lorient is tucked away on the wild Brittany coastline. It proudly holds the records for the highest suicide rate and has the highest level of drunk-drivers in this country.

It is also happens to be the birth and final resting place of Henri Paul, Ritz Hotel driver and chauffeur to Diana, Princess of Wales.

Not a lot of people know that.

Yet they feel the need for another bloody inquest …

Le Mob de Lavender ‘ill …

It has been announced that the new head of the International Monetary Fund is to be Frenchman Dominique Strauss-Kahn. The former French finance minister and presidential candidate now wants to restore the IMF’s battered credibility.

Meanwhile, the European Central Bank chief, Jean-Claude Trichet, has attacked France for being Europe’s “number one spender”. He warned that in comparison to its GDP, the country was well on the way to spending much more than its European neighbours during 2007. Interestingly enough, Trichet’s a Frenchman too.

Hang on … not only does one Frenchman critsise his own country’s spending spree, but then another one is put in charge of the global cash register …

Strauss-Kahn has promised to stay in his new post until the end of his mandate which means … missing out as a candidate on the next French Presidential Election.

Who’s been stamping his little feet and getting what he wants then, eh Sarko?

Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick …

French rocker, Bertrand Cantat, was released from jail last week. He’s just spent 4 years of an 8 year sentence in Muret jail, near Toulouse, for beating his actress girlfriend, Marie Trintignant, to death in a Lithuanian hotel in July 2003. He claimed it was an accident. Some accident, m’lord …

Toulouse prosecutor Paul Michel denied that 43yr old Cantat, of the band Noir Desir, had not received any special treatment.

Of course not. I’d say that being repatriated from Lithuania and having your sentence sliced in half for ‘beating your girlfriend to death’ was special enough as it is …

Sinking Ship Syndrome …

Latest figures show that, each week, around 100 young French leave these shores to start a new life in England. Go-ahead-young-guns are finding that ‘les rosbifs’ can offer them a better start in life as opposed to their tax-laiden and admin-loving homeland.

In the UK they can take advantage of it’s lighter taxation laws and it’s appreciation and support of entrepreneurs – something that France only frowns at – then taxes the crap out of all and sundry.

Shortly before the French took on their long-time rivals in the semi-finals of the 2007 Rugby World Cup, one Frenchman announced that the match was to be “our revenge for Waterloo …”.

… which just happens to be where these youngsters arrive each week to start their new uncomplicated lives.

Bad Month, Best Forgotten …

So far, the French haven’t had a good October:

Firstly, they didn’t beat England to qualify for the Rugby World Cup Final, then the President and his wife announced their ’separation’ and on the same day that there was a general transport strike. Just to rub salt into the wounds, their national rugby team went on to loose to Argentina for the 3rd place play-off in the Rugby … and those lovely transport people extended their industrial action.

The divorce:
Well, a statement from the Elysée Palace said “What is intended by the word separation is divorce,” it said. The couple’s lawyer said they had seen a judge to formalise the split and “there was no problem, they resolved everything amicably”. Furthermore, they stressed that it was a private affair – so private to the extent that Cecila Sarkosy went running off to the papers …

Cecilia Maria Sara Isabel Ciganer-Albeniz was born in Paris, in 1957, to a father of Russian origins and a Spanish mother. She became a law student and a model, In 1984, aged 27, she married 51-year old TV presenter Jacques Martin at the town hall of the chic Paris suburb of Neuilly. The man who performed their marriage ceremony was a certain Nicolas Sarkozy, who was then the 29-year old mayor of the suburb.

The marriage with Mr Martin produced two daughters but in 1987, she met Mr Sarkozy again and he was apparently “struck by lightning” as he fell in love with her and she with him. The two left their respective spouses for each other, finally marrying in 1996.

A year later, she gave birth to their son, Louis. Cecilia was one of her husband’s closest political advisers and when he became minister of the interior, her office was next to his. Ahh, bless …

However, in 2005 the couple had a well-publicised split when Cecilia went running off to New York and to the unzipped trousers of international communications consultant, Richard Attias. She told friends that she had had enough of being treated like “part of the furniture”.

Glossy magazine, Paris Match, published a series of photos of Cecilia with her lover in New York. The secret came out and Sarkozy’s was furious. However, in January 2006, Cecilia returned to Sarkozy. In the meantime, only a few newspapers had dared to report his affair (during her absence) with a French political journalist.

Last year, Mr Sarkozy wrote: “Today, Cecilia and I are reunited for good, for real, doubtless for ever … We are not able and do not know how to separate from each other.”

In 2007, in the run-up to the Presidential elections, controversy surrounded her absences during the campaign. Was she, wasn’t she going to turn up somewhere? She was present during the first round of voting but not the second but she was with her husband as he claimed victory on Place de la Concorde on the evening of 6 May.

Since Sarkozy’s win last May, she has certainly demonstrated her unwillingness to act like a traditional first lady. In August she raised eyebrows when, using the ’sore throat’ excuse, turned down an invitation to a picnic with President Bush and family – only to be photographd out shopping on the day before and day after.

All was not well and the separation/divorce announcement was made on the same day that the country’s transport system went on strike … spoilt workers bitching about their overly-generous retirement packages which kick-in when they reach the ripe old age of 50.

So, Cecilia went to the papers and Nicolas went to a European Council meeting in Portugal, no-one went to work and the French rugby team took the ‘cuillère en bois’.

Best put a line though this month, eh?