Sarkozy hit by Berlin Wall fantasy and more nepotism

It's been a bad weekend for French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who has been ridiculed for reinventing history with a fanciful account of his experience of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9 1989, while being hit by further allegations of nepotism.

Sarkozy's official Facebook page was updated yesterday with a photo (above) which the accompanying text claims depicts Sarkozy, then the mayor of Neuilly, chipping at the Berlin Wall with a pickaxe.

According to his account, Sarkozy arrived in West Berlin on the morning of November 9 and crossed into East Berlin with Francois Fillon, now prime minister of France, and Alain Juppe, prime minister from 1995-97. "We then headed for Checkpoint Charlie to see the eastern side of the city and finally confront this wall and I was able to take a pickaxe to it," he writes.

But the president's story has been attacked on several counts. Firstly, it is a matter of public record that on the night of November 9 Sarkozy was marking the 19th anniversary of the death of Charles de Gaulle in Paris.

Secondly, Alain Aufray, a journalist for Liberation, poured scorn on the idea that anybody knew as early as the morning of the 9th that the Wall was going to come down: "Radios and televisions in West Germany had begun to describe what was happening at 8pm... It was not until 11pm that Berliners in the west began to gather in front of the border." He also shot down Sarkozy's suggestion that German families were helping to destroy the wall, saying, "The Berliners of the west only began to attack the wall on November 10."

The memories of Juppe, who accompanied the 34-year-old Sarkozy, tally rather better with historical reality. The former prime minister admits to some uncertainty in a blog entry today, but says a book he wrote in 1993, Tentation de Venise, says he was in Berlin on November 16.
 
However, a spokesman for Sarkozy said the president stood by his claim that he knew "something was looming" on the morning of the 9th: "What he said was strictly the truth. Nicolas Sarkozy doesn’t say the Wall was going to fall, he only says there was information about a change in Berlin."

But the Elysee Palace's protestations were cutting no ice with the online community today. On Twitter, a 'Sarkozysuperheros' tag was set up, with French users suggesting the president may have invented the pyramid or been present at the storming of the Bastille. Meanwhile Liberation published a slideshow of Sarkozy in famous photographs, including on the moon and at Tiananmen Square.

The ridicule comes after a weekend during which Sarkozy was plunged once more into a controversy over nepotism involving his sons. Following last month's claims that Jean Sarkozy was using his father's influence to secure a job running a E110m quango at the tender of age of 23, it has now been alleged that one of the president's advisers phoned a government-funded body to ask why another son had been refused a grant.

Pierre Sarkozy, 24, is an aspiring hip-hop producer who runs a label called Da Cream Chantilly. Under the name Mosey, he is credited with writing a track for Poison, a vociferously anti-Sarkozy rapper.

Pierre applied for a grant of €10,000 from the SCPP (society for phonographic producers), a body which awards funding for new musical projects from a tax on CD sales and royalties. The SCPP refused Pierre's application out of hand because he is not a member.

Marc Guez, the head of the SCPP, received a call from one of President Sarkozy's cultural advisers. According to an Elysee Palace spokesman the call was "to enquire why the financing had been turned down".

Electronlibre, a French technology website, claims Guez assured the Elysee adviser that "the affair would be resolved in the right way”. Yesterday, Guez claimed the Elysee spokesman had “not asked me to ensure he received funding".

An editorial in Le Post yesterday asked: "Is it in the remit of an adviser of the French president to find out why his son's dossier was refused by an independent body?"

But it is easy to feel sympathy for Pierre, whose moderate musical success has come despite his father's antagonistic relationship with the hip-hop community. As Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy once ordered the prosecution of a number of rappers for insulting the police.

However, in the wake of the president's Berlin Wall fantasies, it now seems clear that Sarkozy has more in common with hip-hop stars, who are renowned for composing lyrics that exaggerate their achievements, than he or they would care to admit. ·