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POLITICS

Has former French president Sarkozy really got taller since he left politics?

As soon as this week's cover of Paris Match magazine featuring Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni was released, the questions began: how was the diminutive former French president seemingly taller than his towering wife?

Published: 5 July 2019 08:07 CEST
Has former French president Sarkozy really got taller since he left politics?
Former French president Nicholas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni. Photo: AFP

The front-page photoshoot might have sparked speculation the 64-year-old rightwinger was thinking of a political comeback, coming on the heels of his new book called “Passions” which has become a summer best-seller.

But social media users mostly wanted to know how Bruni, a former singer and model who measures 1.75 metres (five foot, nine inches), appeared to be standing up while nuzzling the neck of her husband, who is around 10 cm shorter.

 

The image sparked a series of cruel photoshopped pictures involving step-ladders and platform shoes before Paris Match put out a statement to deny suggestions it had doctored the image.

“Some people were surprised to see Nicolas Sarkozy taller than his wife Carla Bruni,” the magazine admitted, adding that the photo in question had been taken in June on some steps outside the couple's home.

“In the image chosen for the cover, Nicolas Sarkozy was on the higher step than his wife,” it added.

Paris Match brought unwelcome attention to Sarkozy's frame in 2015 with another front-page shot which appeared to show him taller than his wife as he led her across the sand on a beach in Corsica. 

 

The glossy celebrity and news magazine is often used by French politicians for publicity, knowing a flattering photoshoot and intimate interview can put them back in the public eye and spark interest.

Sarkozy has quit politics on two occasions in the past after election defeats, most recently in 2016 when his bid to become the presidential candidate for his rightwing Republicans party failed.

 

He is still embroiled in multiple corruption investigations dating to his five years in office from 2007-2012 focused on campaign financing and allegations he accepted money from the regime of late Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi.

 

He denies all of the charges.

In his new book, he recalls his early years in politics and also touches on his private life, relating how his first wife Cecilia announced her desire for  a divorce on the eve of a crucial television debate ahead of his election as president in 2007.

The book has shot to the top of the best-seller lists and is the latest in a long line of his publishing successes which include “Together”, “France for Life” and “Everything for France”.

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POLITICS

Why is France accusing Azerbaijan of stirring tensions in New Caledonia?

France's government has no doubt that Azerbaijan is stirring tensions in New Caledonia despite the vast geographical and cultural distance between the hydrocarbon-rich Caspian state and the French Pacific territory.

Published: 17 May 2024 08:48 CEST
Why is France accusing Azerbaijan of stirring tensions in New Caledonia?

Azerbaijan vehemently rejects the accusation it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the Paris government.

But it is just the latest in a litany of tensions between Paris and Baku and not the first time France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind an alleged disinformation campaign.

The riots in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, were sparked by moves to agree a new voting law that supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.

Paris points to the sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols in the protests, while a group linked to the Baku authorities is openly backing separatists while condemning Paris.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” interior minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2 when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.

But he added: “Even if there are attempts at interference… France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better”.

“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said.

“We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”

In images widely shared on social media, a reportage broadcast Wednesday on the French channel TF1 showed some pro-independence supporters wearing T-shirts adorned with the Azerbaijani flag.

Tensions between Paris and Baku have grown in the wake of the 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive that Azerbaijan waged to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Darmanin said Azerbaijan – led since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar – was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, the Paris government also banned social network TikTok from operating in New Caledonia.

Tiktok, whose parent company is Chinese, has been widely used by protesters. Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation coming from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told Public Senat television that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months”.

He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors”.

But he accused Azerbaijan of “seizing on internal problems.”

A French government source, who asked not to be named, said pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts had on Wednesday posted an edited montage purporting to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

“It’s a pretty massive campaign, with around 4,000 posts generated by (these) accounts,” the source told AFP.

“They are reusing techniques already used during a previous smear campaign called Olympia.”

In November, France had already accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at damaging its reputation over its ability to host the Olympic Games in Paris. Baku also rejected these accusations.

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