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Nicolas Sarkozy cannot bear 'liar' Netanyahu
French President's frank exchange with Barack Obama was overheard by journalists at the G20 summit
NICOLAS Sarkozy told Barack Obama he "cannot bear" Benjamin Netanyahu because he is a "liar". The comments were made in private but overheard by journalists at last week's G20 summit because the leaders' microphones were left on.
The exchange was initiated by the US President, who took his French counterpart to task for supporting a bid by Palestine to become a member of the United Nations cultural agency Unesco.
According to the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, Sarkozy said in response: "I cannot bear Netanyahu, he's a liar."
Obama spent much of last week dealing with the fallout from the Unesco decision to welcome Palestine. He told Sarkozy: "You may be sick of him, but me, I have to deal with him every day."
The BBC says that the comments went unreported initially, apparently because the French press did not want to embarrass their president. However, the French website Arret sur Images broke the silence and a Reuters journalist has confirmed the veracity of the exchange. ·
