Word: royals
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...storm of controversy continued to rage on Monday, after Royal revealed that she'd written to Spain's Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to apologize for the "insulting" comments Sarkozy purportedly made about the Spanish leader last week. On April 16, French daily Libération reported that Sarkozy had described Zapatero as "not very clever" during lunch with a group of legislators the previous day. According to the paper, he also made belittling comments about U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, landing himself in the middle of an embarrassing international press frenzy. Addressing Sarkozy...
...surprisingly, having Royal deliver an apology for a nation presumably shamed by the words of its own president caused Sarkozy's fellow conservatives to hit the roof. Dominique Paillé, a spokesman for Sarkozy's ruling Union for a Popular Majority (UMP) party, charged it was in fact "the behavior of Madame Royal that dishonors France." Citing the Elysée's denial that Sarkozy ever made the comments, Paillé argued that Royal's saying sorry for them "tarnishes our nation's image abroad for reasons that were false." On Saturday, another UMP spokesman...
Love may mean never having to say you're sorry to those you hold dear, but it turns out apologizing is a pretty good way of cheesing off your enemies. Just ask French Socialist politician Ségolène Royal, who's infuriating foes on the right and left alike by making apologies for President Nicolas Sarkozy, the man who beat her out for the Elysée two years...
...Royal has made a habit of making apologies for Sarkozy, which she's found to be an effective way of pushing conservatives' buttons. Her letter to Zapatero was the second time in two weeks that she caused an uproar by extending France's regrets for Sarkozy's utterings. On April 6, Royal asked an audience in Senegal's capital Dakar to pardon France for a controversial speech the president gave there shortly after his election in 2007. In the speech, Sarkozy said "the African man has not sufficiently entered history" as a result of becoming caught in an "eternal...
...Though those comments were set within the context of Sarkozy seeking to replace France's dysfunctional-and often harmful-post-colonial relationship with Africa with a more open and democratic one, his comments were widely criticized as caricaturizing and racist. In recalling them during her Dakar visit, Royal asked for "pardon for those humiliating words that never should have been spoken, and which-I tell you in all certainty-represent neither France or the French people...