Word: libbing
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That's exactly what happened this week when French daily Libération revealed that Sarkozy had delivered some astonishingly unflattering comments about several foreign officials - including American President Barack Obama. During a lunch with a group of French legislators Wednesday, Sarkozy reportedly described Obama as inexperienced, ill-prepared by advisers, and thus far "not always up to standard on decision-making and efficiency." And those turned out to be relatively kind words. Sarkozy said German Chancellor Angela Merkel had been reluctantly forced by economic realities to copy his own policies for dealing with the recession. Spanish Prime Minister Jose...
According to Libération, parliamentarians at the meeting said Sarkozy had described the new U.S. president as having "a subtle mind, very clever and very charismatic, but he was elected two months ago and had never run a ministry." On matters like Europe's efforts to fight global warming and in his call for a world free of nuclear arms, Sarkozy apparently said Obama...
Sarkozy also suggested that Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi's multiple elections wins is proof of his greatness. "What is important in democracy is to be re-elected," Libération cited Sarkozy as saying, a phrase unlikely to join "fraternité, égalité et liberté" as a description of French democratic ideals...
...doubly disgusted reports from abroad frequently contained condemnations similar to the Times of London's description of Sarkozy as a "bitchy little princess". Spain's ABC said Sarkozy's behavior confirmed frequent complaints in France that his "superiority complex has no limits." By midday Friday, the global coverage of Libération's report had come full circle, with French media like the daily Le Monde running stories about "The Arrogant Sarkozy Fingered By the International Press...
...Nicolas Sarkozy, for one, has broken ancient taboos by suggesting France study American-style equal opportunity, quotas and the use of ethnic data within official statistics to get a more accurate picture of the nation's face. "There are two Frances," Arab-French businessman Yazid Sabeg told the daily Libération. "One wants to look things in the face - meaning the way demographics in this country have changed. The other is conservative France, which is prone to immobility in the name of largely artificial equality." (See pictures of France's Bastille Day celebrations...