Sarkozy reaches new heights

You have to hand it to the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy.

He's not exactly subtle about adding a few centimetres (or inches if you like) to his height when he deems it necessary.

For the second time in almost as many weeks, the French media - all right then, some parts of it - have focused on Sarkozy's height to poke fun at him.

Mind you, he does rather make himself an easy target.

At the beginning of the month of course it was Sarkozy's visit to a Belgian factory that was the source of comment, when an employee admitted that she (and others) had been invited to share the stage with him based on their height; ie they were shorter than the French president who measures in at around 1.65 (or five foot five inches).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8243486.stm

And during his speech at the United Nations on Thursday, Sarkozy needed some more help as he was at the podium, as Yann Barthès the presenter on Le Petit Journal on Canal + was keen to point out.

While the US president, Barack Obama and Britain's prime minister Gordon Brown obviously didn't need to appear to be taller than they actually were (they're 1.85m and 1.80m respectively) the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev at 1.64 metres (and therefore shorter than his French counterpart) could have sought a little extra help on the podium.

Only he didn't.

But as you can see from the video, Sarkozy did; stepping up a couple of centimetres before speaking, and then down again at the end.



The wonders of stage management.