French ministers fight fat for Sarkozy
Out with the red wine and foie gras: half the French cabinet are
fighting the fat to please their clean-living boss President Nicolas
Sarkozy and his supermodel wife, a top nutritionist has said.
Sarkozy is said to have lost seven kilos (15 pounds) in the two years
since taking office, and the mix of a punishing diet, gruelling
work-outs and a high pressure job was blamed for causing him to collapse
while jogging this summer.
Coached by the sylph-like first lady Carla Bruni, the slimline
president appears to have kicked off a health craze in the cabinet,
where before-and-after shots show several ministers to have melted.Most
spectacular is the transformation of Brice Hortefeux, the interior
minister and lifelong Sarkozy friend, who was reported this week to be
on a draconian diet of soup, low-fat yoghurt and red berries.
But he is not alone in watching his waistline, according to
Jean-Michel Cohen, a star nutritionist who says he counts several
ministers and a host of other politicians among VIP clients at his diet
clinic in the Paris suburbs.
"It's a well known syndrome. People copy their boss and in this case
the boss has lost weight, he is watching his image," Cohen told AFP.
"Half a dozen ministers are on a diet. It's all done very discreetly.
"Our clients used to be 25- to 50-year-old women. Then there was the
wave of artists and TV journalists," he said. "Now it's politicians both
men and women, who are even sending their children."
-AFP
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