Nicolas Sarkozy has been pleading for change amongs French athletes. He would have been proud to see the changing face of US soccer (football).
But if Nicolas Sarkozy is looking for any French athlete who might have dared to stray from his jogging track or from the soccer field to ponder the vicissitudes of life, he can be reassured. Except for Pierre de Coubertin, and his contribution came more than a century ago, no other man or woman from France made the Scholar Athlete International Hall of Fame. Pindar and Plato do make the list. Plato comes as a wrestler and Pindar as a somewhat woolly headed chronicler of the Pan Hellenic games. These selections will come as a shock to Sarkozy and his notion of mankind as a giant group of wind up toys.
Never fear. All French athletes are hard at toil and not wasting time taking courses at the Sorbonne or École Nationale d’Administration (Enarque). Sarkozy is proud of the fact that most of his administration are not “Enarque.” You are paid not to think but to do. Jogging is in, walking out. The public veneration of money rather than ideas is being celebrated. And Zinedine Zidane’s leads the way with the disclosure that he earned $18 million last year, more than singer Ronny Halliday, or any other political figure.
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