Posted on 05/19/2009 5:05:24 PM PDT by Cincinna
A hugely embarrassing video in which Carla Bruni calls Nicolas Sarkozy my ‘chou chou’ has caused a sensation across France. The intimate moments, captured by authorised magazine journalists, marks the first time that a French President and First Lady have been filmed sharing initimate moments in the Elysee Palace. In what appears to be a well choreographed love-in, 41-year-old Miss Bruni continually strokes her 54-year-old husband’s hand.
Among topics of discussion in the interview were the couple’s three dogs, Clara, Dumbledore and Toumi. Earlier this year Mr Sarkozy admitted for the first time that his glamorous wife influences his policies. ‘I accord a lot of importance to what she tells me. Her views broaden my perspective, my thoughts,’ he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
So. What?
Chou chou is a term of endearment.
So, his wife encourages and supports him.
Oh, SCANDAL!
Yeah, I don’t get it. Winston Churchill loved his wife Clementine and (IIRC) called her “my pig” as a pet name. It may be “mooshy,” but what’s the scandal? Are leaders supposed NOT to have loving spousal relationships?
It’s like “honey.” Everybody says it.
And they are French. Is that not the language of love?
What a crap world we are coming to when close relationships between spouses are a scandal.
I mean, Mitterand’s mistress comes to his funeral and people are, like, “So?”
C’est francais.
Carla Bruni whispers sweet nothings and it’s a big deal?
*** FRENCH POLITICS AND CULTURE PING LIST *** FREEPMAIL ME IF YOU WANT TO JOIN ***
This is a charming interchange between a world leader and his wife. Personally I find it quite refreshing to see a couple who are genuine in their affection.
The setting was Carla receiving a group of women from a women’s magazine for a two hour get together.
The very anti-French Daily Mail, as do most Brit publications, ridicule the French, and get almost everything wrong.
In French, “bon courage” means “good luck”. Nothing to do with being brave. “Chou-chou”, or “mon petit chou”, is a very common form of endearment, very much like “sweetie” or “honey” in English. Nothing embarassing or imtimate about it.
Watch it for yourself:
YOU TUBE VIDEO
I agree.
And so much more genuine than the staged Billary photos dancing on a secluded beach ( barf).
Or the stupid “fistbump” and constant ranking out that goes on between Michelle and Barack Obama.
I think it is revolting for a first lady, MOBama to disclose to the press tht her husband is a slob, and leaves his dirty underwear around.
So much nicer to see a couple whose affection is genuine and mutual.
She’s certainly cute, but she can’t play guitar with those nails (or that hand position either)!
The phrase is “mon petit chou chou”. It means roughly...my little honey bun...or similar.
It has always puzzled me how both British and French lose perspective when discussing each other. Considering we colonials are dependent on both cultures for rational and objective viewpoints, this can be worrying.
I've always 'known' "mon petit chou" translated 'my little cabbage". . . literally, a brussel sprout.
I’d let her stroke my...er..ahh..hand.
brussel sprout...that’s right.
funny how things come back to you. I havn’t studied french since 1985(?). I hated the teacher. She didn’t like me either. Reading and writing french was easy for me, but I couldn’t speak it worth a dam. I understood most of what I heard though. I once learned to read modern german in a week...couldn’t speak a single word though.
When I was in grad school, my advisor gave me a stack of german trade magazines with articles marked that he was interested in. He said “translate those for me and type up a summary of each one”. So I sat down at a computer and got on the internet and started translating. By the end of the week, I didn’t need the internet anymore. Instead of a summary, he got a word for word translation.
The reason I got that assignment was because this south american girl(a fellow grad student) one day while we ate lunch at our computers, she wanted to show me all the birthday cards she got from home. There must’ve been 50 of them or more. She started translating them to me one by one. half way through I was telling her what they said. Word got around and my advisor gave me some german to translate.
Isn’t that just another way of saying “Mon petit chou?”
What could be more romantic than calling your love “My little cabbage”?
Too skinny.
In the inimitable words of CW McCall....Not a heck of a lot upstairs but from there on down Disneyland.
I don’t think endearment will last much longer. He’s been married 3 times and she says she’s easily bored with monogamy.
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