From the Observer piece:

According to Le Monde journalist Philippe Ridet, 'La Firme Nicolas' is a crack team of thirtysomething workaholic men, with the latest mobile phones, Ralph Lauren suits and an image-building obsession that stops at nothing: 'It's a political style we have never seen in France before.'

I see this as being unprecedented, also. To me it suggests that politicians are taking a leaf from the book of Anglo-American political campaigns and careers. Political debate and inquiry are being shut out by content-poor media domination of what remain, for the moment, two purported candidates.

Both Sarkozy and Royal have abandoned true political debate in favor of bolstering high profile media personae, and are effectively being exempted from scrutiny and debate.

I'm confident that the population is too smart to be fooled by such vacuousness, but time is nigh to be asking pointed questions of these two.