Further, he is more dangerous than uncut cocaine manufactured in Colombia.
We could dismiss this claim as a trifling verity if we heard it from the French left. They’ve long had the gall to decry the neo-Gaul. Between dismantling centuries of perfectly functional social infrastructure and calling Africa’s rural workers “peasants” he was bound to attract a few comparisons with potentially lethal scheduled narcotics. The left, after all, can only silently take so much dishonour and defeat.
But, on this occasion, it was not the Parti Socialiste who called Sarkozy a big old gram of Kabul Brown Sugar. It was, in fact, his wife – in the lyrics of one of her newly released pop songs.
Perhaps you’ve heard of the delicious Carla Sarkozy nee Bruni. She has, I like to imagine, an in-seam that feels even longer than a decade of right-wing rule. Once, those long, long legs were pressed into the service of flogging Guess Jeans et al. (When she wasn’t hawking masstige brands, she kept herself busy pleasuring a cycle of wrinkly petits amis including Mick Jagger, The Donald and Eric Clapton.)
She soon grew weary with the business of casually fellating (corporate) cock and turned her attention to song. Then, last year she wed Sarkozy after the sort of romance unstintingly described by the press as “whirlwind”. And now it seems, although recently installed as France’s Femme Premiere, she has no wish to stop with the beige chansons.
Madame President has a new album. With the apposite title Comme si de rien n’etait, or, As If Nothing Had Happened, Carla carries on. And sings about a man who is, as aforementioned, as compelling and unsafe as drugs with a legendary provenance. This follows her record with the apposite title, No Promises, in which Carla fails to do anything but piss on the memory of many great poets including my favourite, WB Yeats. Earth, eject this nasty pest: will dear Will Butler have no rest?
All of this is surprising. The French, to be sure, are capable of producing extreme kitsch. One needs only to look to Eurovision for evidence. However, generally speaking they tend to leave (a) great versifiers and great art the eff alone and (b) soap operatics to the lumpen mass. First Ladies, to the best of my knowledge, are rarely involved in the production of French tack.
Now the western world’s custodian of taste is ruined, I imagine that other nations will be quick to follow. First Ladies are now free to snub those bothersome and conscientious examples set by Mesdames Rodham Clinton and Whitlam. And they can refuse the smug and ineffectual silence of Mrs J Howard and Mr D Thatcher. They can now turn their attention to tinsel.
As I understand it, Britain’s First Filly is experienced merchant of spin, Sarah Macaulay Brown. She need now feel no shame in offering her marketing services to Tesco, Pfizer, Exxon or, indeed, any globalised purveyor of poison.
Our own Therese Rein is permitted to take that famous business acumen for a good stride. Not only can she reclaim her interests in companies once denounced for the conflict they threatened. She can, if she wishes, make a heavy investment in the Daily Planet or, indeed, any brothel conglomerate. Heck. Thanks to Carla Bruni, Rein may now initiate an international chain of pole-dancing workshops if she so desires.
As for Michelle Obama: I am unable to envision her in anything but the most upright enterprise. The most unorthodox business into which my imagination will allow her is a scrapbooking and crochet franchise. She’s lovely and pure.
Which is more than can be said for Madame Sarkozy. May her fragile voice and poor drug analogies return the great republic to its benign leftist lords.