What Putin taught Sarko
June 18th, 2007 by Laura Citron
Judging from the evidence on YouTube, French President Nicolas Sarkozy got a lesson in vodka-drinking from Russia’s President Putin at the G8 meeting last week. But has Putin also been teaching new-boy Sarko a thing or two about ‘press management’?
The French press has barely reported the infamous press conference; even the more left-wing media (Liberation, for example) have been almost silent on the issue. The clip has still not even been broadcast in France - it was first aired by Belgian broadcaster RTBF. The RTBF reporter was subsequently made to apologise. Charles Bremner in The Times and Tim King in Prospect have reviews of the limited coverage.
Yet thanks to good old YouTube, over 3 million people have watched the clip anyway. ”Was he drunk?” has become Question of the Moment in France (well, they needed something to talk about after ”Should Zidane have been sent off?” got boring).
Is this self-censorship? Or something more sinister? Either way, Sarko seems to have the French press firmly in his pocket - perhaps he picked up some tricks from the master over a couple of (bottles of) vodka?
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