Sarko verbal spat proves YouTube hit

'Get lost, you stupid b*stard', prez tells voter

By Lester Haines • Get more from this author

Posted in Bootnotes, 25th February 2008 09:55 GMT

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French prez Nicolas Sarkozy has reinforced his reputation as a man to be reckoned with after telling a disgruntled voter to get stuffed at an agricultural fair in Paris on Saturday. The banter has become a huge YouTube hit.

Sarko got a bit stroppy when said pleb refused to shake his hand and insisted: "Oh no, don't touch me." The Telegraph's transcript of the spat continues:

Sarko: "Get lost, then."
Pleb: "You disgust me."
Sarko: "Get lost, you stupid bastard."

Predictably, the leader of the opposition Socialists, François Hollande, decried Sarko's stroppy attitude in a TV interview, saying: "What is unbearable is that the president is not exemplary. He cannot behave like any ordinary citizen. He is the president of the Republic."

While Sarko does indeed show promise as a very unexemplary politico, Monsieur Hollande is evidently not au fait with the public relations skills of our very own John "Slugger" Prescott, who in 2001 responded to an egg-chucking farmer by punching him in the face: