Bored French reduced to reading Nicolas Sarkozy’s latest potboiler

We are not yet at the end of the Silly Season in France, what the media (though no one in real life) likes to refer to as le retour des serpents de mer. To the best of my knowledge, there has not yet been a sighting of the gallic equivalent of the Loch Ness Monster, but nor has there been much of note to report beyond the several heatwaves that have come and gone and the will-he, won’t-he saga of the PSG striker Neymar, who is reportedly miserable in Paris and anxious to return to Barcelona.

There may or may not be a government reshuffle when President Macron and his wife get back to Paris from their Mediterranean retreat. There almost certainly will be a Tony Blair-style repackaging of government policy aimed at convincing a dubious public that the second half of the Macron mandate, far from being more of the same, will be exciting, dynamic and weighted in favour of the needs of ordinary workers and their families.

Oddly, the President most in focus these days is not Macron, but the King of Bling himself, Nicolas Sarkozy, whose latest fictional potboiler, Passions, has sold some 250,000 copies since hitting the streets at the end of June. As Le Parisien put it on its front page the other day over a picture of a smiling ex-Pres signing copies: “Le bestseller de l’Été, c’est Lui!”

Who could not warm to Le Petit Nicolas’s attempt to present himself as one of the people?

All my life I have been lucky, very lucky, maybe even too lucky when I think of all those who have no choice but to face the grayness and frequent pain of desperate daily lives. It’s not as if the media spared me [true]. I  have had my share of ups and down, both professional and personal. I even feel that I have sometimes had to pay a high price for my success and celebrity. But never, never, have I known boredom. As far back as I can remember, I have been able to live with passion, meeting extraordinary people and participating in events that will live in history. Passion and the need for commitment have always been at the heart of my identity. Though I can’t explain the reason for this deeply ingrained tendency within me, I can at at least recount the impact it has had. I took a long time before embarking on this path of truth [true again] that I wish to be the most sincere possible, although I know it will be, in the way of things, relative.

It rather tails off towards the end, you might think. But roll up, little people! Uncle Sarko is here to brighten your drab, inconsequential lives.

Alas, not everyone who happens to be French gets to buy an autographed copy of Passions. The rest of the country has to make the best of what news and views are available. According to today’s online edition of Le Monde, the following have been among the paper’s most-read news items and articles over the last couple of days:

• Deforestation: Dismayed by President Jair Bolsonaro’s support for logging in the Amazon, Norway – where, as Le Monde notes, one third of the country’s cars are now elecric – is to suspend 30 million euros in grants to Brazil

• A flock of seagulls forces an Airbus to an emergency landing in a cornfield in Russia: a feel-good story that requires no mention of Vladimir Putin

• Israel bans US Congresswomen and opponent of Trump, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar: And (though Le Monde does not say so) Trump says Israel is doing the right thing because Tlaib and Omar “hate Israel and all Jewish people”. 

• Jeremy Corbyn wants to cancel Brexit by taking the place of Boris Johnson…yes, the French are interested in the bizarre twists and turns of Brexit, but more as soap opera than politics

• Despite pressure from the United States, the Iranian oil tanker Grace 1 has left Gibraltar: can the UK barter its way out of the latest Gulf crisis?

• Malware saves the screen of the French visiting pornographic sites: the computer security company ESET has warned of the existence of a malware known as Varenyky that sends threatening demands by email to those watching porn in France. 

• “Top of the Lake”: the return of the “sublime” New Zealand police thriller starring Elisabeth Moss. Most drama on French television is American.

• Shanghai ranking: why French universities are lagging behind – just 35 French institutions in the global top 1,000, against 61 for the UK (and 51 for Germany)

• Germany faces extreme right-wing violence: more than 8,600 crimes and offences attributed to the German equivalents of The English Defence League have been recorded in the first six months of this year

• Italy: the humanitarian drama of the migrant ship Open Arms accelerates the break-up of the coalition. Foreign Minister Matteo Salvini (who has spent much of his summer on the beach showing off his pecs) ignores the order of Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to take in children on board the Open Arms as it entered Italian waters.

So the world continues to turn and the French, its seems, are continuing to follow the news. M. Macron should be aware that his return to Paris is likely to signal a busy, and risky, start to what remains of his presidency.