Saturday, November 22, 2008

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Sarkozy in fresh web video shocker

Monday 25 February 2008

Footage of Nicolas Sarkozy insulting a passer-by at the Paris Agricultural Show has been viewed at least 1.5 million times on the Internet. As the French president faces a deluge of criticism, video sharing websites reap the benefits.

Monday 25 February 2008

By Thomas Hubert /FRANCE 24

French president Nicolas Sarkozy's outbursts are giving video sharing websites a boost. Footage from his visit to the Paris Agricultural Show on Saturday, in which he said "Get lost, you dumb ass" to a passer-by who refused to shake his hand, appeared to pass the 1.5 million-view threshold in the early hours of Monday morning.

 

Newspaper Le Parisien's website, who first released the video after a journalist filmed the scene, said 800,000 visitors had seen the footage Sunday night. Some 700,000 extra visitors viewed copies of the video on sharing websites such as YouTube and Dailymotion, according to the counters they display.

 

This is valuable traffic for those websites. "Dailymotion worked well during the presidential election, and we see things picking up again with the municipal elections coming up," said Martin Regard, in charge of French content at Dailymotion. "Many candidates broadcast their campaigning videos through us," he added.


French television channels are legally bound to stop broadcasting about political issues 24 hours before a vote takes place, including next March's local elections. Asked if Dailymotion was planning to adopt similar rules, Martin Regard said: "Certainly not!"

 

Dailymotion did delete a first version of the Sarkozy video at the request of Le Parisien, in accordance with copyright laws, but other copies have sprung up on the website since then.

 

 

"We only delete illegal copies when the copyright holder gives us the address to a particular video, which was the case here," Martin Regard said. He added that his company was keeping in line with the law, especially regarding racist or anti-semitic content, but had no other restrictions on the broadcasting of political videos – whether they feature insults and controversy or not. 
 
Sarkozy's latest outburst joins other classic web video moments featuring the French president. In 2005, he dubbed young residents of derelict suburbs "scum" and vowed to clean one of those neighborhoods with a "kärcher" industrial pressure-water cleaner. His row with a Breton fisherman and his departure from CBS's "60 minutes" show in the middle of an interview are also major web hits.
 
 
"Like a trooper"
 

Critics – not only in the left-wing opposition – have been slamming the French president for his willingness to display his hotheaded temperament in front of the cameras.

 

Corinne Lepage, a former environment minister in a conservative government and candidate with the centrist MoDem party in the Paris municipal election, has always been a strong advocate of a more direct form of language in politics. But she is far from convinced by Sarkzoy's style.

 

"The controversy stems from the fact that you do not expect the president to swear like a trooper," she said. "Speaking directly is about saying things as they are, without hiding yourself behind your little finger, while keeping out of the fray and bearing in mind the dignity of your office," she added.


Asked about the best way to behave with a hostile voter, she answers: "With a smile! In this campaign, on the streets, I sometimes meet someone who does not like me, they have a right to that." 

 

Corinne Lepage is a member of the multi-party group who signed an appeal in weekly magazine Marianne mid-February, calling for a "democratic watch" against a possible "drift towards a purely personal form of power".

 

She does not fear Nicolas Sarkozy's style as much as the brutality of some of his political moves, such as last week's decision to ask the country's top court to find a workaround after the Constitutional Council found one of his reforms illegal. "Not only is he supposed to guarantee the constitution, but this is also an instance of interference by the executive in the affairs of the judiciary: this is extremely shocking," she said.


Government members have stepped in to defend Sarkozy, arguing that the words he used on Saturday do not justify criticism about the way he carries out his presidential duties.
 
 
"A moment of irritation is not enough to judge the personnality nor the behaviour of a head of state", said Higher Education Minister Valérie Pécresse on Canal+ television.
 
Agriculture Minister Michel Barnier, who was with Nicolas Sarkozy when the incident happened, said on Europe 1 radio that the president and the visitor had a "man to man" exchange and that he "was not annoyed at all".

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