FRANCE:A VIDEO of French president Nicolas Sarkozy telling a bystander to "get lost" has become a hit on the internet.
Mr Sarkozy was filmed by a journalist from the daily Le Parisienon a walkabout at the annual farm fair in Paris on Saturday.
Mr Sarkozy offered his hand to a man who said: "Don't touch me, you are soiling me." In reply, Mr Sarkozy said, without dropping his smile: "Get lost, dumb ass." The video was posted on Le Parisien'swebsite www.leparisien.fr.on and by midday yesterday it had been seen by more than 350,000 people, a spokeswoman for the newspaper said.
"It has created quite a controversy," she said. The video is the first to come up when searching for Sarkozy on Dailymotion and YouTube.
Mr Sarkozy's popularity ratings are in freefall and his hands-on style of government is attracting growing criticism.
In November, he had a heated exchange with fishermen during protests against fuel costs. The president challenged a fisherman who had insulted him. "Come down and say that," Mr Sarkozy was quoted as saying. "Don't think that by insulting me you will solve fishermen's problems."
François Hollande, head of the Socialist party, said Mr Sarkozy was not behaving like a head of state and called on him to improve his behaviour.
- (Reuters)