Sarkozy recherche la femme
And I thought the French were supposed to be “sophisticated” about this sort of thing.
Talk about rebounds!
[ADDENDUM: I couldn’t resist adding the following tidbit on Ms. Bruni, found at Wikipedia:
“I’m monogamous from time to time, but I prefer polygamy and polyandry…”
While living with Jean-Paul Enthoven, Bruni fell in love and started an affair with his son, philosophy professor Raphaé«l Enthoven, which caused Raphaé«l to divorce novelist Justine Lévy, daughter of philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy. The affair and the subsequent ending of her marriage were the inspiration for Justine Lévy’s best-selling book Rien de grave (“Nothing serious”), published in 2004. In the book, Lévy paints a vitriolic portrait of “Paula”, the female who steals the protagonist’s husband, as “a praying mantis” with “a Terminator smile”…
Bruni has also dated Donald Trump and Mick Jagger. Jagger’s wife acknowledged his affair with Bruni was one of the reasons for the separation.
Here’s one of the more sedate online photos of Carla, future (or perhaps even present, if this news can be believed) First Lady of France:
It appears that Sarkozy will have his work cut out for him.]
A French friend just sent me an article saying Sarko & Carla got married. Post at my blog, with apologies for the shameless self-promotion
Sophisticated? Oh, I tease the French and such, but sophistication in some ways has nothing to do with lawyerly or religious relations, but seems to be a matter of hitting the hammer with the nail and having it and the results be just so. Things and life are what they are. Now, often I disagree with the sophistry of the French specifically and European broadly, especially as it went from an allowance for nature, even warmly embracing nature, to a very cold clinical manipulation of all for simple and often baser pleasures. I am sure you have a slightly different take regarding sophistication, but I think sometimes that take is confused with US puritanical roots, something never really seen in Europe since Victorian, Elizabethan, and a few other periods where attempts at such were made. I am not trying to be offensive, mind you. I am often wrong, I have misread, but that is my view.
I am not sure this is a wise move for him, nor have I been asked oddly. However, I see the strength in their faces and the regained power in his stride, and, yeah, I like it. Oh, the hissy ex is only frosting, and a delicious one, even though I am by nature prone to having a dubious view of divorce. Well, they are French…
Zut alors! I have a feeling they happily abandon their legendary “sophistication” when they have a chance to direct some shock and outrage against their political enemies.
AskMen.com:
Carla Bruni: Herald of Marital Discord.
He certainly got over Cecilia quickly.
(If I remember correctly, we weren’t supposed to be interested in his “private” life back in October *before* the first train strike.)
Actually, Doom and Bugs: most of the French folks I talk to are looking at this as being a media exploit on Sarkozy’s part to detract from terrible domestic policy. They tolerate very well their leaders having a bit on the side; they’re not interested in it being splashed all over the front pages. It’s not sophisticated, it’s tacky.
Oh my. Leadership requires such sacrifice of one’s self.
be,
If it is a ploy, then certainly, it is tacky. Though getting pregnant is a rather huge sacrifice, in modern parlance, especially if it really is merely a ploy. Bill did not even do that, or at least none survived. As well, when has there been good policy from French leadership? That has been kept better hidden than anything else if it did occur, apparently. Still, you might be correct, if second hand. If France goes to war with Algeria or maybe even Poland, I would be more inclined to buy your story.
I believe the unsophisticated American phrase is:
“What a maroon”.
Doom:
Your criteria for believing me (I’m not asking you to, I’m just laying things out as I see them) make no sense. Why would France go to war with Algeria? It’s a great emerging market for French “peaceful” Nuclear technology!
http://cf.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/071204/monde/alg__rie_france_diplomatie_prev
Poland makes even less sense.
I consume”a lot of French news when over there. The last cycle (just got back last week) was so frustrating, as I was looking for news on domestic policy issues (what they call “pouvoir d’achat,” DNA testing to repatriate families, university reform, NHS-style policy being imposed on the securite social system as it’s about to tank, judicial reform, prison sentencing reform, etc) but found most space being taken up by Sarko / Bruni and the D@mn American primaries.
She certainly looks like a true femme fatal.
Be:
I know how you feel .. last year when the UK show Dispatches did their Undercover Mosque episode, I was looking forward to the media debate.. because I figured something that explicit and obvious and fundamentally frightening couldn’t possibly be ignored… was ignored… becuase some actress on teh show Big Brother called the other from India a name or something.
That was soon followed by Iran taking UK Navy boys and girls hostage and UK doing nothing.
That’s when it hit me.. the UK is finished.
What a depressing year.
I was quite tongue in cheek, referring to Bill’s foolish war regarding Kosovo. We we there for the same reason France would, presumably, be in Poland or Algeria. And, apparently, for the same reason you are indicating Sarkozy is front and center with this affair, marriage, whatever.
con-alt-del
I am doing a side by side comparison for Sarkozy and Bill Clinton. As if that was a true guide to whether a leader is sending people politically off track by his actions or what is brought up in news. It was, and arguably so, believed that Clinton’s public follies and wars were all media events aimed at covering one or another major weakness, political evils, or other such. So, I am saying, if Sarkozy is being so bold and public to hide his own administrative follies, then expect a war with an unlikely receiver. I picked two countries France might actually have some chance at winning, loosely, given no international resistance at least.
Now, it truth, he will never go to war with those countries no matter how bad (or most likely simply unpopular with the “people’s front” types) his policies are. It was satire, a jab at past politicians, and a silly notion. However, I will debate it all day if you insist and still cannot see.
Actually, Doom – I call Sarko the French Bill Clinton, which pisses all my Frenchie friends off.
Please keep in mind that Sarko didn’t win by a large margin, and that he won based on the fact that he could out LePen LePen (seen as something like 12% of the electorate.) Hortefeux and Guy Moquet aside, he’s even p-ssing a lot of the FN types off, based on the affiches I saw last Oct/Nov:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVr06fs1_W8
(FN posters stating that Sarkozy lied about Turkey)
Anyway, he led the better media campaign against lame-o Royal, but that doesn’t mean that he was the best for the job.
***
Something that really bothers me here is how much people (particularly neo and other PJM people) were trumpeting that he was some sort of Agent of Change and that he was actually Reforming France. Anywhere I mention that he’s probably worse than Chirac in a lot of ways, I hear that France was never going to reform, and that I was an idiot to think otherwise. Mind you, I’m only a translator, and not a shrink or a politic, but the hypocrisy kind of hurts. (Especially from PJM, given that I’ve had a comment deleted by Poller when she couldn’t rebut it. Thought that they were supposed to be above that sort of thing.)
This is a woman that is gravitated towards power. She can certainly keep and hold the attention of the men, though, given how many people in positions of importance have gotten relationship problems over her.
ooh la la, that’s no monica…. and france is again our friend, so perhaps that’s hopeful….. the question is can they, along with the rest of western europe survive their own myopia in the long run…. between those nasty demographics, and the car burnings every weekend, in the long run…..
A: good choice on the picture. I googled her name when this started to come out and came up with a bunch of bland [natural-esq] pictures. Now I get it. Poor Sarko… stands no chance / doomed…
B: as to sophistication…. I’ve talked with some bilingual [primary] French speakers and maybe I’m wrong, but from it, I took that I don’t think French (the language) has a corollary to things like ‘sophistication’.. sooo, can you understand such a word without it? IM(Anglo-English speaking)Opinion, no… As in, they no have no equivalent to a word like ‘simple’ which has a positive connotation to counter ‘sophisticated’ (the closest was ‘simplistic’… which in both our languages has a negative connotation)… In the end, sophisticated becomes a sort of code word like equality… not meaning what it means… in some minds… (it ends up meaning, ‘without restraints of traditional morality’… not wise… or even.. what it should, sophisticated…).