Nicolas Sarkozy's Mediterranean holiday on a luxurious private yacht marks a departure from the unwritten French rule that you should be discreet about money and wealth, but voters do not seem to mind.
Barely 24 hours after being elected president on Sunday, Sarkozy and his family took a private jet to Malta for a break aboard the 70-metre (230-foot) yacht of a billionaire friend, which media said would cost some 200,000 euros ($269,500) a week to hire.
"It's the first time that someone who has only just been elected is associating himself so openly with the rich," said historian Odon Vallet, adding the trip was clumsily chosen for a leader who will have to defend the need to cut public debt.
"If I was him, I would have gone to a small inn in rural France and would have sent my wife to pay a visit to a pensioners' home," he said, adding he felt that was what former president Charles de Gaulle would have done.
Yeah, but maybe Sarkozy didn't feel like taking a mistress along on the trip.
Left-wing opposition leaders said Sarkozy's stay on media mogul Vincent Bollore's yacht was ironic, given his pledges to do more for poor workers, but voters seemed unconcerned.
Fifty-eight percent said they did not think his holiday was shocking, according to an OpinionWay survey for Le Figaro daily published on Friday.
Thank God the hubris of the left is so often good for a few laughs.
No comments:
Post a Comment