Nicolas Sarkozy visits La Clusaz

Amongst much fanfare from the schoolkids (the blue flags on the left) and the ski instructors (the red dudes on the right) and the general public (everywhere else), Nicolas Sarkozy visited La Clusaz yesterday. If his entourage had been in white, this moment would have looked like a human French flag. I’ve circled him in case you can’t already see him. Organised chaos ensued for a few hours as the French president visited a few sites and met with a group of important people. He was here to discuss the 2018 Winter Olympic games bid for Annecy.

What this photo doesn’t show is the dodgy building site just a bit further to his left — an ugly concrete mess that La Clusaz didn’t bother trying to make pretty despite the bunting and posters through town. The wire work fence in front of the site had one of these posters on it, so job half done. The photo also doesn’t show the man on the balcony just near me, who was out in his night robe and jimjams to greet the president. I wonder if he saw.

So here we have a president who everyone loves, right? Certainly, they love to pick on his height. All around me were French people saying things like: “No, I can’t see him, but no surprise there,” and “Just look for the short guy” from a mother to a child on her shoulders. Worse still came from at least one of the mass of police (of the important gendarme type) brought in for security. A day before his visit, one of them asked a local seller some security questions, explaining it was regarding “the dwarf’s visit”. Vive la France.