After attempting to remove the gloss from Barack Obama, President Sarkozy of France upset Spain today by suggesting that Jose-Luis Zapatero, the Prime Minister, was a little dim. Mr Sarkozy's latest put-down of fellow leaders emerged from a Wednesday lunch meeting with MPs at which he again boasted of what he sees as his pivotal role in the G20 summit. He cast President Obama as inexperienced and ineffectual - a line that he has taken in private since the the London meeting and the Nato gathering in Strasbourg that followed it. Mr Sarkozy noted that Spain's Socialist government had just announced the end of advertising on state television, a year after Mr Sarkozy did the same for France. "And you know who they cited as the example?" he asked the 24 MPs around his lunch table at the Elysée Palace, according to an account in the Libération newspaper.
After attempting to remove the gloss from Barack Obama, President Sarkozy of France upset Spain today by suggesting that Jose-Luis Zapatero, the Prime Minister, was a little dim.
Mr Sarkozy's latest put-down of fellow leaders emerged from a Wednesday lunch meeting with MPs at which he again boasted of what he sees as his pivotal role in the G20 summit. He cast President Obama as inexperienced and ineffectual - a line that he has taken in private since the the London meeting and the Nato gathering in Strasbourg that followed it.
Mr Sarkozy noted that Spain's Socialist government had just announced the end of advertising on state television, a year after Mr Sarkozy did the same for France.
"And you know who they cited as the example?" he asked the 24 MPs around his lunch table at the Elysée Palace, according to an account in the Libération newspaper.
