'Bling-bling' president loses shine

PARIS - He stood alongside de Gaulle in the dark hours of June 1940.

He witnessed JFK getting shot in Dallas in 1963.

In 1989, clutching a pair of shopping bags, he defied the tanks in Tiananmen Square.

Nine years later, he led France's football team to victory in the World Cup.

According to these and other satirical pictures posted on Twitter's nicolassarkozypartout (Nicolas Sarkozy Everywhere) section - he's even planted the tricolore on the Moon.

If ridicule, as some say, is a politician's most redoubtable foe, France's President has plenty to fear.

At the halfway point in a term that began with talk of reform, belt-tightening and meritocracy, Nicolas Sarkozy is being mocked as a puffed-up emperor with an eye for the lavish and a soft touch for his sons, and surrounded by yes-men.

"Have we gone back to the days of such perverse courtly practices that no one dares tell the monarch he's way out of line?" the daily Le Monde asked rhetorically.

Eyebrows began to be raised shortly after Sarkozy's election in May 2007 when he revealed a preference for the company of billionaires, Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses and chunky Rolex watches strapped to the outside of his shirt cuff. The cheesy style, backed by his public courting of Carla Bruni, a model with a long record of celebrity lovers, earned him the nickname of "le President Bling-Bling."

Even so, his image largely held up, supported by the deferential mainstream media and a wide belief that a bit of flash was in keeping with Sarkozy's mercurial character and boundless energy.

But the good times came to a crashing end last month.

A nationwide bellyload of anger prompted Sarkozy's son Jean, a 23-year-old undergraduate law student, to back away from a bid to run the board governing the country's wealthiest business belt, the La defence district in western Paris.

The young Sarkozy's hope of running the glittering EPAD skyscraper zone - and the suspicion that his father was fixing it all - raised dismay or bemusement around the country. "No, dad, you misheard me - I didn't want an EPAD, I wanted an iPod," went one joke.

Some compared the President to Italy's cronyistic premier, Silvio Berlusconi.

Amateur psychologists saw in it an attempt at redress by the thrice-married Sarkozy to get a plum job for the son he barely saw during the years of child-raising.

Even some members of the President's UMP party broke ranks to give a public snigger over the "Prince Jean" affair.

More bad news came a few days later, when the official budget watchdog excoriated Sarkozy's Government for spending a massive €171 million ($346 million) on its six-month presidency of the European Union (EU).

The bill included €15.6 million to fit out the Grand Palais exhibition hall for a one-day EU summit that showcased France's national glory and Sarkozy as Europe's action-man leader.

The just-refurbished 19th-century glass palace was given a presidential suite and office for the day.

It had a high-tech power-shower that was dismantled after never having been used.

Adorning the building with potted plants cost €194,000. The end-of-summit dinner hosted by Sarkozy cost taxpayers €1,010,256, or more than €5000 euros - that's $7500 - a head.

"The summit will be remembered as a record of sorts, in terms of its scale, the irregular procedures that were followed and the massive impact on our public finances," the Cour des Comptes said witheringly.

The stunned public also learned that the Elysee presidential palace spends €200,000 a year at the butcher's, €100,000 on cheese ... and €650 a day for flowers.

Now it is open season. The Elysee's press office today spends a large chunk of its working hours fending off stories that migrate from internet chat rooms and blogs to serious news outlets, casting the President in a grim light.

No, it insists, Sarkozy has not named the newly purchased presidential airliner "Carla".

No, he did not get an aide to lobby for a government grant to help his son Pierre, a music producer seeking funds for a hip-hop project.

No, Sarkozy definitely was in Berlin on November 9, 1989, the day the Wall fell, despite media evidence to question the claim.

UMP spokesman Frederic Lefebvre denounced a systematic campaign of "low blows" aimed personally against the president and his family.

"I imagine this won't stop here," he said. "Next time it will be the [family] dog."