Off with his free-spending head! Is it cheque-mate for Sarkozy?
Crisis? What crisis? There is a febrile, pre-revolutionary feel to France these days. The Marie Antoinette of the moment is French leader Nicolas Sarkozy, who has been accused this week of adopting a do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do policy in his handling of the country's economic problems.
For while ordinary French people are being asked to "tighten their belts" and swallow "austerity measures" to balance the country's books, France's ruling class is, it is claimed in a new book, still living it up.
Suggestions that they are eating cake in the Gallic corridors of power while everyone else is on rations of stale bread is not a good image for France's right-of-centre leader Nicolas Sarkozy; with just 80 days to a presidential election, in which he is expected to seek a second term in office.
Trailing badly in the opinion polls, he is desperately trying to bury his previous Rolex-wearing, Aviator-sporting 'bling-bling' reputation.
There are some, however, who will not let Sarkozy forget that within hours of being elected in 2007 he dined at one of Paris's most chic restaurants, Fouquet's on the Champs-Elysées, before taking a holiday on the luxury yacht of a billionaire businessman friend.
"Sarkozy led people to believe if he was elected he would retreat to a monastery for a few days to reflect on how he would govern. Instead he was eating in an expensive restaurant and on an expensive holiday. French people were shocked by this and still are," said Manuel Valls, spokesman for Sarkozy's presidential rival, socialist François Hollande.
"That and the fact he immediately raised his salary by around 140 per cent ... the symbolism was terrible," added Valls.
René Dosière, an MP for the opposition Socialist Party, is a particular thorn in the president's side. His mission to dig into the Elysée's spending and pose embarrassing questions has earned him the nickname the "Sherlock Holmes" of France's parliament.
Those in power call his inquiries "old chestnuts" but Monsieur Dosière is neither deterred nor dismayed.
He has just published a book, L'Argent de L'Etat, ('The State's Money') in which he outlines some of the alleged excesses of the Elysée and the French government, the "dark corners of our democracy", as he describes them.
Why does the administration need €113m a year -- reportedly more than Britain's queen, who has expensive castles and even more expensive relatives to fund -- and a pool of 121 cars, he asks.
Why does the Elysée's food bill run to around €11,000 a day -- including Sundays? Why do Sarkozy and his supermodel-turned-singer wife Carla Bruni spend around €220,000 a year on flowers?
Can't the president take the train instead of his new plane, nicknamed Air Sarko One, with its expensive meat grill and sound-proof rooms, that cost anything between €176m and €259m, depending on who one believes?
The president's spending on opinion polls has risen from the €500,000 of his predecessor Jacques Chirac to €3.3m. Each time he makes a speech outside of Paris, up to 30 flags have to be transported too, and the special backdrop will have cost an estimated €141,000, reveals Dosière. And who will pay for the Falcon military aircraft Sarkozy scrambled to Ukraine to fly home his eldest son Pierre after he was struck down with a stomach bug a couple of weeks ago?
'Sometimes it does feel as if we are back in 1788," Dosière told the Irish Independent. "When you see the difference between the lifestyles of the elite and the efforts those same elite are demanding of the people ... well, the situation is pretty revolutionary."
The Elysée has made some savings, Dosière points out; the budget for small handouts made to those who write to the president pleading poverty and who are found to be in genuine need, has dropped by 47pc, he says.
The author says the French do not take kindly to their president's allegedly spendthrift ways.
"Sarkozy has never made any secret of the fact he wants to make money, has no hang-ups about money, and, for him, a sign of success is being rich," Dosière said.
"But the French think their leaders should be motivated by more than money. It's one of the major reasons why so many no longer like Sarkozy."
Originally published in
