Sego v. Sarko: Round 2

Posted By Joshua Keating Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - 2:33 PM Share

In a new book of interviews, former French Socialist leader and presidential candidate Segolene Royal doesn't exactly mince words about her rival Nicolas Sarkozy, describing his "lack of morality" and "bulimia for money":

Describing a meeting with Mr Sarkozy at the Elysee palace in the wake of the 2007 election she lost to him, Miss Royal said he came across like a puffed-up child.

"I found his behaviour pretty mediocre," she said. "There was no grandeur, no allure, no momentum, no sense of fair-play. His energy is impressive, but he really is a show-off. A little boy happy to be surrounded by his new toys. With his little sheriff's star and his plastic gun, his cowboy outfit. As if he had climbed up on the biggest horse in the merry-go-round, and plucked down the prize."

She claimed that Mr Sarkozy spent their meeting "badmouthing journalists, flashing his watch at me, telling me how, sure, he was here now, but he could just as well have been elsewhere making 'loads of cash'.

She added: "In fact he is much duller than people think.

This follows last week's revelation from Royal that she "inspired Obama, and his team copied us." Looks like France might have wound up with a "show-off" either way.

Sean Gallup/Getty Images

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8:05 PM ET

January 28, 2009

I'll have to start keeping up with the French news sites...

the two of them going at it again should be fun to watch.

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