Columns

France - Merde! France erupts...again.

by Roger Macdonald

Good old Saint Nicolas (Sarkozy) has managed to achieve the impossible - once beloved, idolised and more or less serialised (well, his private life anyway), the French president has managed to turn the crowd against him by suggesting he'll make them work until they're 62, instead of just 60...

But back in the glory days, a fly on the wall in the life of the diminutive Bonaparte, errr, or rather, Sarkozy may have been a bit more like this:

[Act 5, Scene 2: Consulting rooms in Paris: the President of France has come to consult the psychiatrist reported by the media as believing that the entire country is gripped by Sarkosis, an obsessive fascination with their head of state]

Hefez: Good morning. I am Dr Serge Hefez, the famous psychiatrist. Please lie down on the couch. What are you calling yourself today?

Sarkozy: Dubois. I mean, I am Monsieur Dubois.

Hefez: When did you stop being President Sarkozy?

Sarkozy: So you’ve guessed.

Hefez: It wasn’t difficult. Carla Bruni is in my waiting room, looking at herself in the magazines.

Sarkozy: How can you tell? The door’s shut.

Hefez: Easy. We don’t have any magazines without pictures of your wife.

Sarkozy: Anyway, my problem is…

Hefez (sighing): I know what it is; all my patients suffer from it. Sarkozy is part of their deepest fantasies.

Sarkozy: Exactly! What can be done about it?

Hefez: For them, nothing I’m afraid. There’s more hope for you. You must know deep down, none of this is real.

Sarkozy (indignantly): But I am the President of France.

Hefez: But do you take any decisions? Or do any work?

Sarkozy: Of course not. I’m in love. Love conquers everything. I’ll get round to it when Carla goes off me.

Hefez: You’ve booked seven more sessions with me, so you might just get to finish the course before that happens. How do you intend to pay, by the way?

Sarkozy: Carla will pay. She has a credit card.

Hefez: From which bank?

Sarkozy: Bank of Sarkozy.

Hefez: Of course. How stupid of me. The same name as that very tall metal tower in the heart of our beautiful city.

Sarkozy: Absolutely. Le Tour Eiffel-Sarkozy.

Hefez: And that bridge across the Seine?

Sarkozy: It’s not called the Seine any longer…it’s called the Sarkozy. Like that mausoleum.

Hefez: You mean the Panthéon.

Sarkozy: It’s called…

Hefez (wearily): …not the Panthéon, I know, I suppose it’s the Sarkozean, just as the Louvre is now the Sarlouvrean.

Sarkozy: Don’t be ridiculous. The Louvre will always be the Louvre.

Hefez: Ah, a breakthrough…

Sarkozy: But its Egyptian room now has a Sarkozycophagil.

Hefez: You may be working too hard. What do you do to relax?

Sarkozy: I listen to music, well, to Carla playing guitar, which is the next best thing.

Hefez (sarcastically): No opera then?

Sarkozy: Oh I went to a performance last month. It was very good.

Hefez (hopefully): What was?

Sarkozy: Sarkozy Fan Tutte.

Hefez: Like everyone else in France, even me, you are suffering from Sarkosis, an unhealthy fascination with Nicolas Sarkozy.

Sarkozy: Is that bad?

Hefez: It can lead to worse symptoms, Sarkophrenia and Sarkonoia, which depict a man obsessed with himself, turned toward pleasure, autonomous and narcissistic.

Sarkozy: It’s a good job I’m as sane as the next Frenchman. By the way, have you been to the new Disney World, Sarkozyland Paris?