So, according to a press release from the Elysée Palace, Sarko married girlfriend Carla Bruni yesterday, Saturday 2nd Feb.
He met the former model in 2007, divorced his 2nd wife Cecelia late last year, and married Bruni within months.
I wish them all the best but his standing on the global stage has really taken a tumble … whirlwind romances are all well and good but this one has ’short-term’ written all over it.
I’m not going to ask “what kind of world do we live in?” as I believe that the majority of level-headed people already know.
So let’s put a few irons into the fire and see who gets worked up into a frenzy … let’s see where this goes, shall we?
Nicolas Sarkosy, the President of France and his bride to be, the new First Lady (pictured). Do we care that she counts ex-lovers in order to get to sleep at night? Do we care that little Nicolas is both the youngest and smallest lover she’s had? What a superb advertisement for the country she truly is. By the way, you won’t see any anti-Sarko or anti-Carla stuff in the French newspapers – Nico’s friends own the media.
Amy Winehouse is currently ‘battling her drug addiction’. Really? Then why was a video if her ‘battling this addiction’ shown across the globe of her smoking crack cocaine while, at the same time, the public face of this silly bint is saying “it really is a problem and I’m doing my best to give up drugs”. If she wants to end up a drooling ninny by the time she’s 40, then let her. Life is hard and we all have to make decisions – not all of us have the same parachute-style bank balance to make it easier.
Pete Doherty. Lost cause – completely. No judge dares to jail the little twerp.
The Oscars may be cancelled due to the on-going writers strike. Who cares that the Golden Globes were nothing short of a press conference? Who cares that the Oscars may end up being the same style of presentation? Is all mutal handjobs anyway. Give the money away to charity and stop being so ‘me me me’ all the tie.
Hollywood Publicists seem to revel in the fact that one mention of one of their clients falling pregnant has the media clambering for details. I feel it would be far more newsworthy if the starlette in question could positively identify the father …
Britney Spears … I just can’t see the point. A career launched in 1999 and, to date, has sold 88 million records worldwide. She’s only 26 and the mother of two children and divorced. However, she’s a multi-millionairess … give someone of immature years so much money (as she was when she hit it big-time) and that’s what you get. People bouncing off the walls and in all sorts of emotion states … a state which the Hollywood media lap up like thirsty dogs.
English Premier Soccer Players are much like Britney. Young, rich and stupid. There’s a constant stream of spotty youths in ill-fitting suits, paying cautionary fines to British courts as they will insist on ‘going out on the town’ and beating some poor sod up.
I’m feeling a lot better now and, like myself, I thank you for not caring …
Tsarkosy has a new love – both ’she’ and ‘it’ had all been stage managed by the Elysées press office.
In the weeks leading up to Christmas, Tsar Nick was photographed at Disneyland Paris with former model, now singer, Carla Bruni. A more wholesome family photograph you couldn’t have hoped for, his press office directing the show with just about the right amount of ‘tackiness’.
Europe’s shortest leader (but with the largest carbon footprint) jumped into another plane with his new ‘love’ on Christmas Eve and jetted off to the Egyptian resort of Luxor – care of billionaire buddy Vincent Bolloré.
This was such a low-key event that Tsarsko waved at onlookers as the pair arrived at their luxury hotel. Security was as tight as a nats chuff and plain-clothed cops were deployed around the town. Two journalists were briefly detained on Monday night after filming the couple’s hotel.
Sarkosy, 52, divorced his wife and former model Cecelia, after 11 years of marriage last October. Now he’s picked up with another ‘former’ who, if you can handle the shock, has launched another career as a singer/songwriter. Bruni has been linked to men including Mick Jagger, Donald Trump and Eric Clapton, making Sarko not only the youngest but shortest lover. She’s only 39, so she’s packed them in somewhat.
It might be useful to learn that both Carla and her talent have been signed to the ‘Naive’ label. There’s a message in there somewhere.
At the beginning of his/her career with SNCF (the French railways), a TGV train driver earns a monthly wage of between €2 200 and €3 200 ($3200 – $4600), ending his/her working life on a monthly wage of around €4 880 ($7000).
In addition, they each receive;
- an end of year bonus
- a working bonus (whatever that is)
- a TGV bonus
- a coal bonus (yes, you read that correctly)
- a holiday bonus
- compensation for additional hours worked
- benefits for working away from home (difficult for a bloody train driver, no?)
They work, on average, 25 hours a week (not the 35hrs advertised). For a 40-yr old train driver, his annual salary, with all bonuses included, comes to a staggering €75 000* ($109,800)
He then has to work a further 10 years at 25hrs a week with a nice fat month off during the summer season, and can take retirement on a FULL government-funded pension at €75 000* ($109,800) per annum – their last recorded salary.
Did you know that the word “customers” does not exist in SNCF language? People who take trains are called “les usagers” (the users). Hmmm. Yet they are holding the country to ransom because they feel that they are being treated unfairly. I wouldn’t normally use foul language on this blog, but **** me!
* source: Life On The Rails magazine
In May, the French elected Nicolas Sarkozy. Why? Because they said they wanted change. So how come, just seven months into his presidency and his programme of reforms, are train drivers, public utility workers, teachers, civil servants and magistrates going on strike?
The ancient, and quite honestly, out-dated working practices of public sector workers date back to the age of steam. It allows them the privilege of working for 37.5 years and then retiring on a full state pension at the age of 50, possibly living for the next 30 years or so off the government.
During the reign of the last few presidents, the French have been living of ‘borrowing’ but the government and the national coffers can no longer take it. Sarkosy has said that if the service of a government worker were to work up to 40 years worth of service, then the repayments might just balance-up the books.
Well, the spoilt public sector workers of France don’t believe that’s the case and have decided to down tools. I spoke to a chap cycling to work and he said “The things that the train divers want are positively ridiculous. They want to be luckier than everyone else. They claim that their lot is difficult and that driving a train is hard work. It’s not. Let’s be reasonable. It was when you had to shovel coal … now that the public transport system is on strike, people who live out side of Paris simply cannot get into work, so will loose money for everyday they cannot get in. And this is fair?”
So, the metro and RER service cut to a minimum, with 2 and hour, the occasional TGV, 1 bus in 10 and road traffic chaos – especially outside the city. And the image above? Well, that’s the result of the government treating public sector workers with kid gloves for too long …
The unions expected the public to be behind them but they’re not anymore. 71% of people agree with Sarkosy’s reforms and 61% believe that the government should not back down.
In the UK and the USA, most work until the age of 65 before putting their feet up, but not here. They want it all: to work for 35-hrs a week until the age of 50 and then spend the next 30+ years doing what you want with the government paying for the bloody lot.
I can’t say that I’ve ever enjoyed shopping. For me, it’s in and out. Get what I want and sprint for the checkout.
However, one of the last things Jacques Chirac (who he?) did when he left office was to improve and create closer ties with the Chinese government. To the extent that French business now has quite an extraordinary length of rope (or rein) in the People’s Republic. The latest out-crop of French consumerism to open its wings is Carrefour which has just opened its 101st hypermarket in China – Chongqing to be exact.
Knock-down bargains is one thing but when basic cooking oil rockets up more than a third in price, then something has to be done. Carrefour, the world’s 2nd biggest retailer, was to mark it’s 10th anniversary, so held a sale. Amongst which was rapeseed, at a staggering -20% off normal prices. The public were not going to miss out on that and so, as the doors opened last Friday, a stampede began, killing 3 and injuring more than 30 shoppers.
Is Sarko going to fly out and release the ‘trapped’?
Talking of which, I have it on very good authority that little Nikki has a new love in his life. Let’s just say that her surname is ‘Ferrari’ (no connection).
Watch this space as the French newspaper printing presses top-up their ink-tanks …
This little President doesn’t seem to know when to stop. Well, I guess that now that he’s a single man again, he doesn’t have much to do with his Sunday’s.
Last Sunday, for example, he flew down Central Africa-way to negotiate the release of 3 French journalists and 4 Spanish air hostesses from jail in Chad. 10 French charity workers still remain as guests of the Chadian government on charges of ‘kidnapping’.
Basically, French charity Zoe’s Ark, claim that 10 of their workers (and 3 invited journos) flew down to Chad in the Spanish-owned charter aircraft, in order to airlift 103 Darfuri orphans back to France. Other Aid Agencies, along with the Chadian government, say that most of the children actually have families and come from Chad, not from neighbouring warring Darfur. So, a charge of kidnapping was levied on the lot of them … and straight to jail.
It has come to light that some of the film footage of Zoe’s Ark’s operation shows charity workers trying to establish whether the children handed over were, indeed, orphans. The film also implies that the charity intentionally mislead local people and the authorities that its intention was to fly them out of the country. In one sequence, apparently, fake bandages are applied to some of the children to simulate a medical evacuation.
Enter SuperSarko …
Taking a French government jet (paid for by the tax-payer), Sarko flew to the former French colony, had a few words with someone in an ill-fitting suit, and flew back out with the 3 journalists and the stewardesses. The plane first touched down in Madrid where the stewardesses and Sarko were met by Spanish PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. Then it was off again to Paris, where Sarko delivered the 3 French journos back into the arms of their families. Finally, back home to the Elysée Palace for a hot chocolate and a bedtime story …
Socialist François Hollande asked “this is all well and good, by why does he have to go himself?”
True. As President he’s appointed a Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, but what is this with the Sarkosy personal touch?
You may remember that the International community got into a tizzy last July over the case of the Bulgarian nurses (vis à vis: medical scapegoats) embroiled in the HIV/Lybian children case. Newly-elected President Sarko had only been in the big chair for a few months when he suddenly dispatched his then wife, Cecilia, to Tripoli in a Presidential jet (again, paid for by the tax-payer). On July 24th, the 6 nurses were released from custody and flown to Sofia.
The press were forever present and wired numerous images of happy, smiling nurses on the tarmac … a self-satisfied Cecilia in the background of every image was guaranteed.
Maybe he’s thinking “If a job’s worth doing well, it’s worth doing it yourself”. Either that, or he’s trying to get the record for producing the biggest carbon footprint in 365 days.
So, if you’re held by a rag-tag government, who are you going to call …?
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 …
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.
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 …
