Coverage on the Private Life of the President Increase Media Sales

A survey released by La Croix on Wednesday, January 23, concluded that 93% of the French consider the media give too much space to privacy Nicolas Sarkozy. Only 1% of those polled consider that the privacy of the president of the Republic does "not enough room" in the media, and 4% who think that he attaches "the place it need."

However, according to the 21st barometer TNS-Sofres/La Croix on the confidence of the French in the media, when the press coverage on the private life of the president, its sales increase. This view is expressed irrespective of the political sensitivity of those polled, gender or professional situation.

Like every year at the same time, La Croix and the French Sofres interview on French relationship with the media - print, television, radio, Internet - and the confidence in them. The opinion appreciates 41% the objectivity with which the media deal with Mr. Sarkozy, considering the treatment "neither positive nor negative".

La Croix state, 37% of the French think that the media coverage is "rather favorable" to the Head of State, and 22% "somewhat negative". But 57% of French believe that journalists are not independent faced with the pressures of political parties and power.

There was a time when the French prided themselves on their discreet attitude to the private lives of public persons. But now, suddenly French political privacy is over. Changes have now emerged with President Sarkozy, approaching his third marriage with the beautiful Italian model, Carla Bruni.

Suddenly, the President is talking candidly about his private life and, instead of discreetly keeping a mistress in the background, he is parading her all over the place and planning his third marriage, in the American fashion. Sarkozy, 52, who divorced his second wife Cecilia in October, said that his relationship with the 40-year-old Bruni was "serious", but declined to be drawn on a possible wedding date.

Nicholas Sarkozy has not only blabbed openly to the celeb magazines about his intoxication with Ms Bruni, but boasted that it is much better to show 'candour' about such personal liaisons. He specifically mentioned the hidden love-lives of the late President Mitterand, and even the laddish reputation of the former president Giscard d'Estaing.

While Sarkozy adorns the pages of newspapers worldwide amid rumours of a secret wedding to Italian singer and former supermodel Carla Bruni, his ex-wife is fighting a court battle to keep their personal life out of bookstores.

Cécilia Sarkozy, the former 'first lady' of France, is trying to block the publication of a new book about her life which quotes her saying that the president is "cheap", and a "womaniser". Entitled Cécilia, the book by journalist Anna Bitton is one of three being released this week about the French president's private life.

Sources:
http://www.la-croix.com/illustrations/Multimedia/Actu/2008/1/22/sondage.pdf
http://www.la-croix.com/article/index.jsp?docId=2326724&rubId=1097
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3236,36-1002482,0.html