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Here, there and everywhere
26/09/2007 10:40 - (SA)
Paris - They call Nicolas Sarkozy the "omnipresident" because he seems to be everywhere at once, dominating news coverage with his big personality and even bigger plans.
Take this week. The French president went to the United Nations to expound on his vision for the world at the General Assembly. He jogged in Central Park in an NYPD T-shirt. Back home, an actor played Sarkozy in a TV docudrama about his role in saving nursery school children from a 1993 hostage crisis. And the list goes on.
All that exposure has generated buzz about Sarkozy's energy and vision, but it has come with a backlash. Critics complain that a cult of personality is developing, a "Sarko show", amid deeper concerns that Sarkozy is drowning out political dissent.
France's opposition Socialist Party said it was lodging a complaint with the national audiovisual authority CSA, asking for limits on how much airtime Sarkozy gets in comparison to other politicians.
Didier Mathus, a Socialist lawmaker, complained that Sarkozy gave two prime time interviews last week on France's biggest channels, one private and the other public.
"Is he going to ask soon that his speeches be broadcast from loudspeakers in the streets of our cities?" Mathus wrote on his blog.
Rules should be changed
The French audiovisual authority traditionally grants one-third of air time to the government, a third to the parliamentary majority and another third to the opposition - but the president himself has never been counted in that equation. France's opposition says the rules should be changed to account for Sarkozy's style.
Jean-Louis Missika, a prominent French media specialist, says many in France are "shocked that one person can have so much coverage without a counterbalance".
Part of the problem is that France's main opposition group was weakened when its presidential candidate, Segolene Royal, lost the election to Sarkozy in May, and the party has been mired in infighting instead of rallying against Sarkozy.
There are also serious questions about Sarkozy's influence over the media. Critics say Sarkozy has suppressed stories and editors he doesn't like, and that his close friendships with the country's press barons are also troubling for France's media independence.
One association is urging a boycott of media coverage and even small talk about Sarkozy on November 30, a day of "detox". The group bills it as the "Day without Sarkozy".
"Enough is enough," said Pierre Bitoun, a sociologist who founded the group, which calls itself Rally for Democracy on Television. "This is leading to a tainting of public opinion, to the detriment of other schools of political thought."
Sarkozy, who was elected in May on pledges of overhauling France to make it more competitive, says he is baffled about complaints that he is omnipresent.
Closer rein on government
"What was I elected for?" Sarkozy, 52, asked in a TV interview last week. "To take naps?"
Sarkozy' predecessor, 74-year-old Jacques Chirac, was fond of afternoon siestas. Chirac largely confined himself to diplomacy, letting his prime minister handle the contentious domestic reforms that often end in street protests.
Sarkozy keeps a much closer rein on the government. His prime minister, Francois Fillon, has been relegated to a backseat role, and Sarkozy aims to strengthen the presidency and make the head of state more accountable.
Sarkozy has been a telegenic figure from early on. He shot into the public consciousness in 1993, when he intervened in a hostage crisis in a school in Neuilly, the ritzy Paris suburb where he was mayor.
The event inspired a docudrama, aired on Tuesday on state-run TV, showing Sarkozy's daring negotiations with an explosives-strapped man holding a nursery school class hostage.
No one was hurt, and Sarkozy, at one point, emerged with a child in his arms.
- AP
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