More Ferrero Rochers for Richard Boyd Barrett and Patricia McKenna

The Labour leader turned down the invitation to meet Sarkozy on Monday saying of the hour-long meeting that

"In all probability such a meeting would probably become a re-enactment of the Lisbon debate. That debate is over and the referendum has delivered a result"

But the Irish Times today also says of Labour and Fine Gael that

Quote :

Both party leaders were angered by the plan for an hour-long meeting at the French embassy, at which they would be accorded the same status as unelected anti-Lisbon campaigners.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2008/0719/1216398986809.html

Hmm - The Democratically Elected, the Representatives of the People etc. getting a bit irked at the idea of Richard Boyd Barrett and Declan Ganley sitting in there with Nick even if it is only for an hour.

How sincere can Gilmore be about the Treaty? Has he gotten wind of the New Left party that was also reported in the Times today
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/0719/1216398986702.html

An hour is an insulting amount of time to do anything besides make plans for a future meeting and munch on a few Ferrero Roches with the coffee before the bell rings. What can really be achieved in an hour and what could Gilmore or Kenny say anyway? And aren't they surplus to requirements?

Kenny and Gilmore are quite right not to attend. Sarkozy is a media whore and I suspect this meeting has more to do with the headline story in le monde than it does the Lisbon Treaty.

Everything about the visit is a joke - if he was serious about encouraging the Irish to engage more with Europe and therefore Lisbon, there isn't much more he could have done to diminish that aim.

He is a media whore and he should have done his historical homework on our Irish Catholic past before thinking he could breeze in, take advantage of us and pick up his rewards on his way out.

Utterly counterproductive.

The impression I get of Sarkozy's visit is that of a headmaster summoning a few pupils to his study for a stern talking to. He's not even bright enough to see how counter-productive it is. Both sides in the Lisbon debate should ignore his visit.

Kate P wrote:

Everything about the visit is a joke - if he was serious about encouraging the Irish to engage more with Europe and therefore Lisbon, there isn't much more he could have done to diminish that aim.

He is a media whore and he should have done his historical homework on our Irish Catholic past before thinking he could breeze in, take advantage of us and pick up his rewards on his way out.

Utterly counterproductive.

Yes, somebody should have told him about the 800 years.

It was the French embassy that organised the whole thing so let's not heap all the blame on Sarkozy's head. It does looki a lot like a media event though.

At the end of the day though, it's the unelected boyos at the table, Ganley et al. who represent the Irish people better on this particular issue. So I can't see why Labour and FG or any party bar the Shinners should be given special treatment. They're not the one's that need to be understood. I thought this trip was about finding out why we voted no, not about sorting it all out in one visit.

Lestat wrote:

The impression I get of Sarkozy's visit is that of a headmaster summoning a few pupils to his study for a stern talking to. He's not even bright enough to see how counter-productive it is. Both sides in the Lisbon debate should ignore his visit.

Yes, agree. One thing we Irish are good at is collectively getting our backs up at the prospect of a sneery little foreign upstart telling us what to do..

Sarkozy views Ireland as a gnat that has stung him somewhere unmentionable.
He is also viewed as a loose cannon in his own Parish. Ultimately though, the feck up of the visit to Ireland is an indication of the feck up that is the EU federal project. If they were just looking for a federal EU no problem - but a federal EU steered to benefiting the corporations at the expense of the unwashed - a bit harder to pull off.

Does anyone know is he here in his capacity of President of France or as Head of State of the Presidency of the EU ? Is he on a solo run here or did he have the backing of the appropriate EU body ?

He has no backup. When you"re "President of Europe" you're just chairman of the Council of other heads of states who are your peers. You prepare meetings at best.

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The official position of "President" in relation to the Council on the contrary compells you to meet elected representatives only. Arranging meetings with the national opposition or NGOs who have recently opposed the elected government is showing a taste for institutional chaos.

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The case is made worse by his being the president of a large and central country, going to a small and peripheric country that has caused trouble, and asking everybody to stand to attention for a quick review.

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The fact that the whole of Europe accepts this visit and that the Irish will have to "explain" in 3 minutes interviews why they voted wrong, is in itself highly ominous for the future of QMV.

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The fact that the Irish government accepts the visit of a foreign head of state who said just a few days earlier that the Irish constitutional process was invalid also shows how far the Irish government will be able to resist in the future whenever Irish interests are at stake. They are not behaving like heads of a sovereign state, more like the municipal council of Saint Pierre et Miquelon.

Just had to come up by Govt Buildings. The farmers were not so bad but the socialist party loafers and their crusty compadres just would not let you get by. By far the biggest blockage though is being caused by groups of Gardai standing around in groups shooting the breeze and blocking the footpaths.

So is the French press treating this with any serious coverage at all arnaudherve?

No, no serious coverage. Its more like "he is in Ireland today meeting so-and-so, after the Lisbon refrendum". All papers though note that the Irish felt insulted by his recent declarations.

Is there a French response to the Irish being insulted?

I just had a flick on Le Monde. There isn't alot of coverage, I could find only one vague article. The following is an extract from it:

Quote :

Nicolas Sarkozy n'a pas bonne presse en Irlande. On n'avait pas
apprécié, lorsqu'il était ministre des finances, ses plans
d'harmonisation fiscale. Ministre de l'intérieur, il est resté dans la
mémoire irlandaise avec son invention en 2003 d'un "G5" des ministres
de l'intérieur de l'UE, puis d'un "G6" : un directoire des plus grands
pays européens "pour surmonter les lourdeurs d'une Europe à 27 membres"
(France, Allemagne, Grande-Bretagne, Italie, Espagne, puis Pologne). La
petite Irlande n'en était pas. Elle n'a pas aimé. Le ministre Sarkozy a
laissé l'image d'un Européen peu convaincu de devoir composer avec les
nations moins importantes.

Essentially saying that the Irish don't like Sarkozy because he wanted tax harmonisation when he was French Minister for Finance and he wanted to create a two tier europe with a 'directory' of the six biggest countries when he was Minister for the Interior.

I think le monde has got it quite wrong there and has looked far too deeply into the reasons Sarkozy has not been welcomed. They make no reference to the audacity of his manner towards the Irish rejection of the Treaty. They do however, make small mention of the fact that his desire for a second referendum is unpopular in Ireland and they quote "Mr No", Declan Ganley.

I would imagine there will be more reaction in Le Monde following the meetings but they are currently preoccupied with a French Constitutional issue.

France 2, think RTE 1, also has little coverage of Sarkozy's visit. It is not one of the main headlines on their website, it is however the main headline in the European section of their site. As with le monde, it will be interesting to see the approach after the event.

France 2 make reference to the anger caused in Ireland by Sarkozy's suggestion of a second referendum. They say that his visit has been specifically designed to be discrete (La visite de Nicolas Sarkozy, prévue pour être discrète) so that we don't think he is putting 'pressure' on us.

They go on to report minor protests by farmers against Sarkozy's visit and the fact that Kenny and Gilmore won't be attending at the embassy. I love French politics, they call Gilmore the 'centre-left' leader and Kenny the 'centre-right', centre-gauche and centre-droit.

Love the thread title!!!

France 24, the French Government sponsored English language news station (phew, can stop straining my French language abilities with the translations now!) has Sarkozy's visit as their main headline. Interesting as this might display the mood amongst the French media that this story is far more interesting to the International audience than the French audience.

Similar article, Sarkozy's desire to get Lisbon through but to also respect Ireland; Irish annoyance at the call for a rerun of the referendum; meeting supporters and opponents of the Treaty.

France 24 report large skepticism in regard to Sarkozy's visit

Quote :

But no one is expecting a breakthrough and there has been open
scepticism from some, particularly about the scheduled meeting of just
over an hour with more than a dozen groups representing both supporters
and opponents of the treaty.

"This kind of idea that President Sarkozy can come to Ireland and
persuade us to change our mind or try and hear what we have to say and
give us all three minutes each, I think there is a little degree of
arrogance in that," Ireland's Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore told
public broadcaster RTE.

They finish off their report with the statement that a light handed modification of the text followed by another Irish vote is the only way to overcome this institutional crisis.

arnaudherve wrote:

That's a bit personal isn't it? And I've only just sussed that yer man is dressed as a frog, but Sarko will be quicker off the mark. I'm guessing it's not one of the farmers.

905 wrote:

arnaudherve wrote:

That's a bit personal isn't it? And I've only just sussed that yer man is dressed as a frog, but Sarko will be quicker off the mark. I'm guessing it's not one of the farmers.

An agent provocateur?

The Irish are far more put out about him not bringing Carla than anything else arnaudherve. You think that we don't understand the depth of insult

I thought johnfás's quote from Le Monde was very interesting. He has not given up on two speed EU at all - when Poland was getting jumpy over signing up for Lisbon the other week he made a speech saying "Poland is one of the 6 great countries of Europe - we cannot do without Poland" - the subtext being that he could perfectly do well without the rest (and Ireland in particular).

Perhaps "the rest" should pull out and form an Interreg Boundaries group of peripheral countries. We'd have a hell of a lot of fish and NATO bases

On second thoughts, not bringing Carla is true indication of the ineptness of the once famous French diplomatic service. If Sarko wanted to cement relations with Ireland, an hour or so of Carla downing Guiness and singing in a small bar would probably done it. Pff.

In fact that solution is so obvious that it seems to me that the agent provocateur is Sarko himself. He wishes to shed the little nations and thinks that by behaving to them like an oaf that he will drive them away. No one told him about the 800 years.

cactus flower wrote:

Perhaps "the rest" should pull out and form an Interreg Boundaries group of peripheral countries. We'd have a hell of a lot of fish and NATO bases

cactus flower wrote:

The Irish are far more put out about him not bringing Carla than anything else arnaudherve. You think that we don't understand the depth of insult

I admit that the image is insulting, I am a bit sorry but here are my reasons. The French are used to hear all sorts of rumours about the private lives of their leaders, but usually it's considered as private business, hence not published.

Sarkozy chose to marry a woman who is a top-model and sleeps around without hiding it, and he did so during his mandate, so it's not really private life anymore is it? A first lady has a private life if it is not part of her profession to display her private life in the tabloids I think.

More than sleeping around "normally", it's her affair with a father and having a baby with the son, and convincing the son to divorce, that was a bit too much even for the French. At least if she wanted to become a first lady. She is beautiful AND dangerous.

The photograph shows her in swim suit, but it's not like she had been like, say, a dentist, who had been shot on the beach by a paparazzo during a private holiday. It was her profession being photographed in swim suits. And you can find much worse on the Internet.

[comic mode on]And no, I won't give all the pervert guys on this forum the links. Ibis, you are with Patricia McKenna, you stay with Patricia McKenna. So stop with your private messages about that. Ard-Taoiseach, no I can't arrange a rendez-vous either, so stop phoning me all the time, because of you my line is bugged by the secret services now.[comic mode off]

But maybe I can reveal a secret about Sarkozy, which probably you don't know yet: Sarkozy doesn't exist, he is a ghost in the media.

During the early 90s, Sarkozy was an ambitious young man, with sharp and pointed teeth that glittered when he smiled, and was already mayor of his posh district in Paris (Neuilly), through various aggressive treacheries and betrayals.

In 95, there was a private feud between two leaders of the right, each running for the presidential election. Sarkozy chose the wrong side, and lost with his leader. He was then ridiculed and caricatured, portrayed as some hyperactive ambitious Iago who is ready to bite your ankles at any moment.

His career at the national level was over, and he could hope to become MP at best. At the very best because of long term resentment from the winning side.

Then, a few years after it is the media who began a campaign in his favour, chanting his name so repeatedly that it began to look like a heathen ceremony. To such an extent that some citizens movement suggested a "national day without Sarkozy" in the media. And that's how he got elected.

Now it is revealed that his wedding with Carla is not a "real" wedding. It has been arranged in a few days by a well known advertisement expert. Carla was suffering a low in her singing career (since she cannot really sing), and Sarko needed a wedding to make the French forget that he had cheated them with his former wife Cecilia, running away before the elections, then coming back for the elections with apparent family love, and then running away again immediately after.

Now Carla is publishing a new album, as could be expected, and benefited from broadcast in the national media, even in intellectual shows that had nothing to do with singing. Sarko goes on inventing all sorts of eccentric moves in order to continue appearing in the media everyday. He doesn't care if it's negative or positive, as long as he occupies the media.

And his visit to Ireland was not made for Ireland or the treaty, but for appearing once again in the French media. For example, he insisted on meeting representatives of the No, which is obviously not "understanding the Irish" (in 3 minutes), but preparing the entry of eurosceptics in his own government in the coming months.

To put it shortly, he is not not at the level of a statesman, he is more like an ageing rock star who survives only in tabloids. Hence the lack of respect. Sorry for being so long.

You make it sound as though it was you in that outfit arnaudherve. I don't see why the Irish should indulge in a very French obsession with Sarkozy's love-life.

As for your assertion that the man is a non-entity, I would venture to disagree myself but this is all opinion. It would be very un-French, I think, to vote in such a man, though he was a bit against type anyway. And I've said before that the Irish voted no and therefore are better represented by Ganley and the gang, hard as that is for me to accept.

This is the second media creation you've pointed out. I'm thinking of introducing quotas.

905 wrote:

It would be very un-French, I think, to vote in such a man, though he was a bit against type anyway.

France seems in decay. My former employer, an immensely rich man, spends more and more time in Canada investing his money. He thinks we are heading towards an Argentinian situation, because the nation is too indebted. He is not the only rich man doing that.

As for the left, it seems in decay too. A more cultural decay. You cannot participate to debates without people calling you a fascist or something like that as soon as you have an opinion.

Maybe you don't realize it because you're too close, but I would like to point out the excellence of the Irish campaigns. Being able to display slogans in French is far above the continental level.

Having a minority who speaks French is normal everywhere, but organizing that during a mainstream demonstration shows a high level of education nationwide.