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Ryanair Flies Into Sarko Turbulence
From the Times
The Elysée Palace is considering legal action against no-frills airline Ryanair after it used an image of President Nicolas Sarkozy and his girlfriend Carla Bruni in a newspaper advertisement.
The ad showed Sarkozy and Bruni on holiday in Italy. Playing on rumours that the couple are due to marry, Bruni is captioned saying "Avec Ryanair, toute ma famille peut venir assister à mon mariage" - "Thanks to Ryanair, all my family can attend my wedding."
Le Parisien, the newspaper which carried the advertisement, reports that according to his press secretary, Sarkozy was "furious". He is said to have called in his lawyers, and says that "it's unacceptable for his image to be used for advertising."
A spokesman for the Irish low-cost airline claimed that he was surprised that the advertisement was met with such a fierce reaction. He said that Ryanair's ads use humour based on political events: Poland's former PM Jaroslaw Kaczynski and Spain's José Luis Zapatero have been targets of its campaigns in the past. Bachelor Kaczynski was depicted planning a honeymoon with his female deputy, while Zapatero was captioned declaring that Ryanair's prices were better than the 2500 euro 'baby bounty' Spain was offering families to produce more children.
There is a precedent for Sarkozy's complaint: Ryanair had to pay damages to former Swedish PM Göran Persson after using him in an advertisement. However, a brush with French law is likely to drive Ryanair's boss, Michael O'Leary, to further flights of polemic against the French. He has previously denounced French subsidies to Air France by dressing as Napoleon, and recently threatened to pull Ryanair out of France altogether if French law prevented his company from receiving payouts from regional airports for the custom the flights bring.
Photo pinched from The Times
