Nearly a year into his term Presi-dent Nicolas Sarkozy of France has hardly mentioned the arts or culture. In late February he said that French cuisine should be added to the Un-esco World Heritage list.

法國總統沙克吉就職將滿一周年，但他很少提藝術文化政策。二月底，他倒是說了，法國美食應列入聯合國教科文組織世界遺產名單。

De Gaulle had Andre Malraux at his elbow. Francois Mitterrand renovated the Louvre. Just before he left office, Jacques Chirac opened an immense museum for non-Western cultures, designed by Jean Nouvel, which in its confusing, heart-of-darkness, over-wrought layout epitomizes a certain kind of French arrogance and archi-tectural megalomania. Naturally, mil-lions of tourists now flock to it.

戴高樂總統請作家馬勒侯就近當法國首位文化部長。密特朗整修羅浮宮。席哈克下台前，才為非西方文化的大型美術館揭幕，該館是由（3月底甫榮獲建築界諾貝爾獎、2008年普利茲克獎的）努維爾設計。該館令人困惑、黑暗的心、過分考究的佈局，具體而微展現某種法國的傲慢及建築的妄目尊大，自然吸引千百萬遊客湧入參觀。

Every French president since the liberation has cooked up some such pharaonic new museum or opera house or library or initiated some legacy-minded cultural program, until now. Sarkozy's taste is said to be for Lionel Ritchie and Celine Dion. (Mitterrand mulled over Dostoyevsky; de Gaulle consumed Chateaubriand.) The current president's fondness for showbiz pals, his marriage to the Ital-ian model-turned-singer Carla Bruni and the appointment of a culture minister, Christine Albanel, who is intelligent but widely regarded as weak among Sarkozy's ministers, have combined to produce something of a culture shock.

法國自解放後每一位總統，無不策畫推出這類具有法老雄圖的新美術館或歌劇院或圖書館；甚或發想一些注重文化遺產的計畫，直到現在為止。沙克吉的品味，據說只到萊諾李奇和席琳狄翁。（密特朗一心想的全是俄國作家杜斯妥也夫斯基；戴高樂則是對法國作家夏多布里昂著迷。）現任總統熱愛演藝人員，他和義大利名模出身的歌手卡拉布妮結婚；又指派克莉絲汀．阿巴內爾為文化部長，她很有見地，但一般認為在沙克吉內閣部長中算是很弱的，凡此種種產生一種文化衝擊。

"A rupture," is what the political scientist Pascal Perrineau callsit."An incredible change," said Jean Lacou-ture, de Gaulle's biographer. "When de Gaulle returned to a liberated France in 1944," he recalled, "he made a show of visiting famous writ-ers like Paul Valery and Francois Mauriac. It was his way of declaring a renewed sense of French glory."

「撕裂，」是政治學家裴里諾的說法。戴高樂傳記作家拉古杜爾則說：「驚人的改變。當戴高樂1944年重回解放後的法國，他煞有介事地拜訪名作家，像大詩人保羅．瓦萊里和諾貝爾文學獎得主弗朗索瓦．莫里亞克。他要藉此宣示，法國榮光再現。」

These days Paris kiosks advertise copies of a special issue of Le Canard Enchaine, the satirical newspaper, with yet another photograph of Sarkozy in his familiar aviator Ray-Bans, a yacht and a private jet superimposed onto his two mirrored lenses. "President Bling-Bling" has already become a cliche.

近日來，法國報亭可以看到走嘲諷路線的「鴨鳴報」特刊廣告，上面又有一張沙克吉戴著飛官雷朋墨鏡的照片，一艘遊艇和一架私人飛機疊印在他那兩片折反射的鏡片上。「金光閃閃的總統」早已是陳腔濫調。

"Sarko l'Americain" is another common insult. The French, though, may soon have to think up a fresh one if the United States elects a president who delivers speeches like the one Senator Barack Obama gave on race while this country has its first modern leader not to have graduated from the country's upper-crust schools, a head of state who on a recent visit to the Vatican arrived late, with an excep-tionally crude French stand-up comic named Jean-Marie Bigard in tow. The coup de grace: the hyperactive Sarkozy reportedly text-messaged somebody or other while with the pope.

「美式作風的沙克吉」是另一個常常被貼的羞辱標籤。但如果美國選出一位新總統，發表類似參議員歐巴馬談種族問題時的演說，沙克吉則是第一位未能從一流學府畢業的法國現代領袖，他也是最近訪問梵蒂岡時遲到的國家元首，隨行還包括一名極端粗鄙的法國脫口秀諧星讓瑪麗．畢加爾，那法國恐怕得趕快想個新標籤了。最後致命一擊：過度好動的沙克吉據說在晉見教宗時，還傳訊給某人。

That incident infuriated some French Roman Catholics along with many stodgy Gaullists and other tra-ditional French conservatives who, though they helped elect him, now find Sarkozy, to put it bluntly, vulgar.

那次事件激怒部分法國羅馬天主教徒，以及很多死硬戴高樂派和其他傳統保守人士，雖然得他們之助他才選上，但現在他們發現沙克吉，坦白說，實在很粗俗。

Patrick Rambaud's satiric novel "The Chronicle of the Reign of Nicolas the First" has become a best seller in France. The mak-ing-fun-of-Sarkozy business has brought him a surprising windfall. "We are all ashamed," he said, about the president's lack of interest in cul-ture and his general bucks-and-babes style. Rambaud recalled the sophisti-cation of earlier presidents. "Look, we need a president who is cultivated," he said.

帕特里克．朗博的諷刺小說《尼可拉斯一世（暗指沙克吉）統治實錄》（暫譯）已經成為法國暢銷書。嘲諷沙克吉意外給他帶來一筆財富。對總統不關心文化建設，及他一般而言花花公子幼稚的作風。他說：「我們感到難為情。」朗博回想起過去那些總統的世故和教養。「哎，我們需要一位有文化素養的總統，」他說。

Georges Pompidou published an anthology of French poetry and con-ceived the national center for modern art named after him. Valery Giscard d'Estaing left behind the Orsay muse-um. Chirac, to enhance his aura spread word while president that he had translated Pushkin as a teenager. And aside from the Louvre, Mitter-rand's grands travaux included the new Bastille Opera and the new Na-tional Library. They may be calami-tous, much-loathed buildings, but under Mitterrand and his powerful culture minister, Jack Lang, culture rose to something like a state religion in France.

龐畢度出版法國詩詞選集，還構思出法國現代藝術中心，並命名為龐畢度中心。季斯卡留下奧塞美術館。席哈克則為了提升自己的光環，當總統時放話說，他十來歲時譯了普希金的詩。另外，除了羅浮宮，密特朗的大建設計畫還包括新的巴士底歌劇院和新的國家圖書館。它們可能是悲慘的、令人憎恨的建築，但在密特朗和他強勢的文化部長賈克朗提倡下，在法國，文化提升到有如國家宗教的水平。

Perrineau said: "With his jeans, his rudeness, his crude language, no tie, he establishes a new iconography for France. Casualness translates into a more secular sort of leadership, which is why people who don't like him here talk about the Americanization of France. For both the left and right this means anti-intellectual." Cam-paigning for culture might help rem-edy that. As Chateaubriand put it, "Taste is the good sense of genius."

裴里諾說：「他穿牛仔褲，魯莽無禮，言語粗俗，不打領帶，為法國形塑新的偶像圖騰。不拘禮節、打扮輕便轉化為比較世俗的領導，那也是這裡不欣賞他的人會批說法國已經美國化。不管左派右派，這就代表反知識分子。」鼓吹文化有助於解決那個問題，誠如夏多布里昂所說的，「品味是天才的準確判斷。」（取材自紐約時報）