The president of the French Republic, Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy, left yesterday the Val de Grâce military hospital, were he had spent some hours after a sudden faintness during his daily jogging.
Mr. Sarkozy’s forced visit to hospital gave rise to comments of all kinds. The political class unanimously expressed its encouragement to the President. Meanwhile, pundits from all sides speculated, argued, glossed and pontificated about the virtues and defects of a political animal defined as hyperactive by fans and critics alike. The former denounced again “l’hyperpresidence”, which they see as the president exerting total control and protagonism contrary to the traditional distant leadership of the V Republic, what turns even the government ministers into spectators with no other recourse than running after the presidential initiatives, in a potentially dangerous transformation of the executive power and hence the very balance of powers. Meanwhile, the latter commended again a tireless and selfless man who tries by all means pushing for reform in a rather conservative country which sees itself in decline but yet resists change.
Personal views aside, we are talking about someone famous for being a hard worker, who rarely touches alcohol –which could explain his curious press conference right after a meeting with Mr. Vladimir Putin (see this video), who exercises regularly, some say up to torturing himself, and above all, who has a heavily loaded agenda full of travel within and out of the country. By the way it seems that the first lady has shown her disgust with comments appeared in the British press, which attributed the presidential malaise to her ardent demands. Such comments are coincident with the French vox populi. In any event, what Sarkozy suffered seems no more than an occasional incident which should possibly lead him to lower his pace a bit, but nothing more.
Mr. Sarkozy’s forced visit to hospital gave rise to comments of all kinds. The political class unanimously expressed its encouragement to the President. Meanwhile, pundits from all sides speculated, argued, glossed and pontificated about the virtues and defects of a political animal defined as hyperactive by fans and critics alike. The former denounced again “l’hyperpresidence”, which they see as the president exerting total control and protagonism contrary to the traditional distant leadership of the V Republic, what turns even the government ministers into spectators with no other recourse than running after the presidential initiatives, in a potentially dangerous transformation of the executive power and hence the very balance of powers. Meanwhile, the latter commended again a tireless and selfless man who tries by all means pushing for reform in a rather conservative country which sees itself in decline but yet resists change.
Personal views aside, we are talking about someone famous for being a hard worker, who rarely touches alcohol –which could explain his curious press conference right after a meeting with Mr. Vladimir Putin (see this video), who exercises regularly, some say up to torturing himself, and above all, who has a heavily loaded agenda full of travel within and out of the country. By the way it seems that the first lady has shown her disgust with comments appeared in the British press, which attributed the presidential malaise to her ardent demands. Such comments are coincident with the French vox populi. In any event, what Sarkozy suffered seems no more than an occasional incident which should possibly lead him to lower his pace a bit, but nothing more.
However, this incident raised again the question of information about the President’s health. Sarkozy committed to following the practice established by François Mitterrand of publishing health bulletins every fortnight, with transparency. Mitterrand did establish this practice, yet the bulletins proved to be worth very little. Later we learned that he spent practically five years of his last mandate fighting a prostate cancer which consumed him, leaving him barely capable to do his job. For the time being, Sarkozy’s moves on this were no more than cosmetic, since he did not hesitate in firing one of his spokespersons who was too zealous in providing information about a minor surgery intervention. Secrecy about the President’s health is justified with rather spurious arguments –national security, as he’s the person retaining the nuclear power? Disincentives to power or succession fights?-, and his nothing but another element in the liturgy of power, and on something French people love: secrecy itself.
No comments:
Post a Comment