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French roast, served up American style

By Anne-Sophie Lechevallier Posted Jan 1 2006

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The splashy photo spread says it all: a young, charismatic politician — the man who could be president — with his stately, dutiful wife and playful little boy. If U.S. President John F. Kennedy comes to mind, he should.

But it's not the 1960s. It's not even America. It's France, and the man is Nicolas Sarkozy. And if you mistake him for JFK, that's fine by him.

The journalism of Camelot has finally dawned in France. Once the unique signature of an American media obsessed with its own political royalty, John F. and Jackie Kennedy, this “celebritization” of politicians and intense fascination with the private lives of public figures is commonplace among the French media.

Embroiled in a personal drama of his own making, Nicolas Sarkozy, France's minister of the interior, is now its political celebrity du jour. As the controversial leader of the Union for Popular Majority, the main right-wing political party, Sarkozy is a potential frontrunner for the 2007 presidential election.

Of late, critical matters, such as the turbulent riots that plagued France in the fall, dominated headlines and tested Sarkozy's political mettle and might. Only days before the riots began, Sarkozy, an outspoken crusader against crime and gangs, used the derogatory term racailles (rabble, scum) to describe lawless urban youth in France's poorer neighborhoods. Although highly criticized in the media for this remark, he later announced the deportations of all foreigners convicted of rioting to quell the unrest in the midst of a relatively subdued President Chirac. His popularity with the French public remains high. How he emerges from the riots' aftermath will likely determine his bid for the presidency. But so could his estrangement from wife Cecilia, who, by her own admission, is no Jackie O.

If Sarkozy's political strategy is to monopolize the news by fashioning himself and his family after a beloved American presidential dynasty, he is well on his way; coverage is constant. For example, he is the first politician to have been invited three times to “100 Minutes Pour Convaincre,” a political television magazine on France 2, one of the major national public networks.

Sarkozy likes to think of himself as a great connoisseur of the media. Politically savvy and well-skilled at handling reporters assigned to follow his trail, he is on a first-name basis with many journalists. Extensive media training has taught him to use those short and efficient sentences that are easily transformed into headlines and sound bites.

Typically, three kinds of stories are published or broadcast about Sarkozy. First, there are those that describe and analyze his political acts such as when he makes frequent, on-the-scene announcements, which often emphasize security and immigration. After rushing to the site of a murder in July, Sarkozy told the French daily Le Figaro, “I am trying to win the communication and action battle.”

A second type of story occurs when journalists expose his frequent quarrels with other politicians, most notably with President Jacques Chirac or Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin. These are stories that will likely increase as presidential candidates rise to the surface and elections loom near.

The third and last type of French media coverage of Sarkozy is as American as apple pie — where the news of a politician's personal problems often trumps public policy developments and important socioeconomic concerns.

For example, in early October of this year Sarkozy was featured on front news pages as having suffered a migraine that prevented him from attending his weekly ministerial meeting with rival de Villepin. A story of such a personal nature would likely not have been run prior to 2002, when he was first appointed interior minister.

However, for the past three years the minister has by his own hand put himself and his family on stage for all the media to see. Sarkozy has an 8-year-old son, Louis, with his second wife Cecilia, who he wed in 1999. Despite Cecilia's evident passion for politics, she never ran for public office but remained clearly by her husband's side as his chief-of-staff until this past June. This was the first time in France that a political couple leveraged their high-profile union as a public relations tool. The media were quick to compare them to the American presidential families, such as the Kennedys and the Clintons.

Over the years, the Sarkozys also invited the media to cover their holidays by photographing them biking or jogging. One of the most famous pictures of the family was published in the weekly magazine Paris Match in May 2002. The caption specifies that it is a replica of a similar picture of young John Kennedy Jr., known affectionately as “John-John,” playing in the White House Oval Office.

Sarkozy's strategic use of his young son for political gain was also clearly evident when, during the November 2004 convention where he was elected president of UMP, his son was broadcast on a giant TV screen saying, “Good luck my daddy.”

The Sarkozy family's Hollywood-style story suddenly ended this year. The earliest signs of trouble appeared last April when Cecilia Sarkozy gave an interview to a TV magazine. Asked whether she preferred being compared to Jackie Kennedy or to Hillary Clinton, she replied: “I don't see myself as a First Lady. That bores me. I'm not politically correct. I potter about in jeans, in combat or cowboy boots.”

One month later, the minister cancelled his live evening news appearance on France's most popular channel, TF1. That was Sunday, May 22. Immediately thereafter, the media linked the cancellation to marital problems. Rumors were spreading all over the country: every newsroom knew that Cecilia had left the family house for another man. Strangely enough, no detailed story was published about that speculation in France. Sarkozy, however, quickly transformed his private anguish into a public plea for sympathy. He granted a public television channel, France 3, an interview May 23 for its evening news program and declared, “Like millions of families, mine is going through difficulties. We are currently overcoming them.”

It was the French-language Swiss daily Le Matin that finally ran a May 25 cover story breaking the news of the separation details and of Cecilia's affair with a prominent advertising executive. At the time, the story was considered hearsay, and Sarkozy filed a lawsuit at Le Matin claiming violation of the French law protecting private life. He is suing for one euro. The action was filed in France where Le Matin is also sold and as of GJ press time, the case is still in litigation.

Le Matin's story was not referenced in French newspapers. It took just over one month for the drama to literally invade France's media sphere. Then, five newspapers and magazines all dedicated their June 30 covers to the interior minister's personal turmoil. A national daily, Le Parisien, announced “Cecilia's Choices” on its cover. A left-wing weekly news magazine, La Nouvel Observateur, led with a front-page picture of Nicolas Sarkozy and asked, “Populist Drift or Hysterics?” The right-wing daily Le Figaro published an interview with Sarkozy with a quote headline, “My ideas are progressing.” A right-wing weekly, Le Point, chose “The Sarkozy Enigma” as its headline. Paris Match printed a year-old photo of the couple with the title, “The Summer of Challenges.” But not one of these stories leaked the name of Cecilia Sarkozy's new lover.

Then came a fateful day in August when Paris Match ran a cover story featuring an incriminating paparazzi photo of Cecilia with Richard Attias, an advertising executive for Publicis Group who traveled between New York and Paris. This last story is said to have infuriated the minister. In addition to being portrayed as a deceived husband, Sarkozy supposedly felt betrayed by Arnaud Lagardère, a close family friend and chairman of French air, defense and media conglomerate Lagardère who, through his subsidiary company HFM, also happens to be the owner of Paris Match.

The political soap opera continued in October when the daily newspaper France Soir revealed the name of Sarkozy's mistress, Anne Fulda, a journalist at Le Figaro assigned to cover him. She has since switched beats in order to avoid any conflict of interests. And once again, citing the law protecting private life, Nicolas Sarkozy and now-girlfriend Fulda announced they would sue France Soir and the Agence France-Presse, the state-owned news wire that uncovered the mistress' identity. Thus far, the French print media have refused to run any of the numerous photos of the new couple that are on the market.

For the first time in French media history, public politics and personal intimacy are being mixed together. In France, there has been a long-standing tradition of respecting the privacy of public persons, provided that private circumstances have no impact on professional responsibilities.

Not so long ago, editors in France were almost unanimously shocked by the nonstop media coverage of American President Bill Clinton's affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. And, during the 14-year span of his presidency, François Mitterrand frequented his mistress and their daughter under the eyes of every journalist in town. Nevertheless, the media did not reveal the love story until 1993 when Paris Match ran a picture story — though only with the president's consent. In the case of Sarkozy's personal drama, the media have not been as sure of their decisions. Those who choose not to investigate his story because of an alleged lack of newsworthiness still convey any developments by running the reportage of competitors.

As evidence of their insecurity with this new reporting trend, several newspapers have explained their reasons for the continuing coverage of the Sarkozy scandal to readers — an unusual occurrence. The daily left-wing newspaper Liberation wrote: “Whereas the name of the Figaro journalist has been available for weeks in the newsrooms and on the Web, Liberation has decided, in the name of the respect of private life, not to mention her relationship with Nicolas Sarkozy.” On the other side, France Soir, which had originally revealed the name of the woman, justified its actions in an editorial and claimed, “Nicolas Sarkozy's private life has an impact on his public life, a political impact.”

As conflicted as some French media are about whether and how to report on Sarkozy's affair, the minister's communications advisers don't know how to react. One advisor was quoted anonymously in Le Monde saying, “As far as such an intimate event is concerned, any media planning is useless.” Through all of this, only one person looked like he knew what he was doing. In putting the press on trial for covering news of his own making, Nicolas Sarkozy finally took political advantage of his personal controversy. He so much as admitted it to Le Monde at the end of June: “It creates effect. So far, one was speaking about my personal ambition. Now, one speaks about my humanity.”

One may have been hard pressed to link humanity with Sarkozy in light of the interior minister's latest struggle with the media. In the midst of France's riots, Sarkozy allegedly used his iron-fisted approach to suppress the publication of Cecilia's authorized yet controversial autobiography, at her request. After a private meeting with the publisher, Vincent Barbare, publication was halted. However, Sarkozy's office has not confirmed his intervention. The book's author, Valerie Domain, was quoted in The Guardian as saying Sarkozy's action was “an act of censorship that has completely floored me.” It's unclear whether a star-struck media will feel the same. But it begs the question: as Sarkozy continues to bite the hands of the press that feeds his Hollywood-style persona, how long will it take before the press bites back?