by J.N. PAQUET

Created on: April 09, 2009   Last Updated: April 10, 2009

At the end of the G20 summit last week, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said in a press conference that he was happy with the accomplishments made by the 20 leaders, mainly with the new international financial system regulation, which goes even beyond what we could have imagined. "I have never seen anything like that!" , he added. But two worlds (or should we say two visions of the same world) opposed each other before and during the G20. Nicolas Sarkozy's (little nervous Frenchman, slightly isolated in the world, but with an idol: Napoleon) and Barack Obama's (coupled with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, they end up looking a bit like Laurel and Hardy).

The gap between the two men is not new. This War of the Worlds started last November, after Obama's great victory at the Presidential election.

SARKOMANIA

Since his was elected President of France, Sarkozy was able to enchant, to charm the crowds. Amongst is "new" friends one could count celebrities, sports idols, cinema stars, journalists, entrepreneurs, etc. All the media on the planet discovered suddenly the young (52 years old when he got elected) president who was to govern France.

After hitting misfortune with his marriage, and despite being President, Sarkozy divorces! Nobody expected it to happen and the attention was once again focused on him. Whenever he would travel abroad alone then, newspapers would talk about the President. A rumor even talked of him seeing a Top Model from Eastern Europe for a while.

But when Sarkozy, who became for many a kind of single playboy President whose heart was available, appeared at Disneyland, Paris with a former Top Model called Carla Bruni, the whole planet wowed him! Thereafter, their discrete wedding at the Presidential Palace of l'lyse, their meetings with foreign officials abroad or at home, everything the couple was doing was of interest to everyone. One would talk about them every day in every single house and bistro in France, either to worship them or criticise them.

CARLA "KENNEDY" AND NICOLAS "BLING-BLING"

Some newspapers even referred to Carla as "the new Jackie Kennedy", while critics were calling Nicolas "Mister Bling-Bling" (mocking his way of showing off very openly his wealth: wearing Rolex watches or Ray-Ban sunglasses, having dinner at Fouquet's on the night of his election victory, and enjoying sunny holidays thoroughly paid by his entrepreneur friends).

And the first French "people" President started to think bigger and travelled all over the world

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