| Angela Merkel destroyed the paparazzi with contempt For the first time since taking office as Federal Chancellor of Germany in November 2005, Angela Merkel became the target of a paparazzi attack. The head of the cabinet spent her short vacation with her husband (pictured with Merkel) in the southern part of Italy on the island of Ischia. Italy has long been a pan-German health resort: former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in recent years called this country his favorite holiday destination.
It is now difficult to say whether Angela Merkel will adhere to the same opinion as her predecessor. True, it was not Italian photographers who “came upon” her, but British ones - from the London tabloid newspaper The Sun. This tabloid was previously famous for its lack of not only taste, but simply basic decency. In the case of Angela Merkel, his photographers’ hunt for sensations crossed all boundaries of what was permissible.
In one of the images, the chancellor is photographed from behind, in the process of putting on the bottom of her bathing suit. The woman threw on a white terry robe, but the paparazzi probably deliberately waited for the hem of the robe to treacherously creep up, and at that moment he pressed the shutter of his camera. The texts under the photo were also composed in the merciless and obscene style of the scandalous publication. In the sense that, they say, the German Chancellor is tightening up the economy, and at the same time his own panties.
Frau Merkel showed iron composure. She refused the temptation of legal prosecution of treacherous violators of her personal life - which, by the way, increased the already fairly high rating of the 51-year-old chancellor. The verdict passed by public opinion was quite enough for her. German government spokesman Thomas Steg called the behavior of the Sun reporters far from “noble English manners.” But he thanked the German press on behalf of Angela Merkel: for the “great respect” shown both to her personally and to the “dignity of the position of Federal Chancellor.”
Chancellor Merkel is, of course, not the first European politician whom tabloid photographers managed to catch in a negligee. Three years ago, Prime Minister Tony Blair was photographed by paparazzi in Barbados wearing only swimming trunks. In the following days, the entire British nation heatedly discussed the figure of the head of the cabinet and made fun of his taste in clothes. They were arguing whether the swimming trunks that Mr. Blair had put on himself were too tight for his age. National consensus was achieved only regarding their “ugly green color”.
And Helmut Kohl, Frau Merkel’s party father in the Christian Democrats, was caught by photographers in the Australian port of Douglas in 1997. Then even the serious and conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung did not deny itself the pleasure of giving its expert assessment of the physique of Herr Kohl, who was popularly called Grusha. However, this time the outrageous attack against the female chancellor angered even the German tabloid Bild, which in terms of good manners is not very different from the Sun. He called on the German national football team to take revenge on the British and “give them a good beating” at the upcoming World Cup in London this summer. Yuri Shpakov, Berlin |
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