French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence • Hacker News Board

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#381

Post by kakwa_ » Wed, Oct 22, 2025, 5:13 PM UTC

adolph wrote: post #345

Foobar8568 wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

French media are owned by his literal relatives, one (Bouygues, owner of the largest French /media? With TF1 etc.) being the witness of one of his wedding and godfather of his son Louis. The other son is married to the heir of Darty/FNAC. I don't remember where Dassault (major newspaper owner) fits but they were both close as well.

Dassault (major newspaper owner) Is that like Lockheed Martin owning a major newspaper or GE owning a TV network?

It's actually kind of worse. Because you get a mix of Dassault (the company)'s agenda (defense spending, pro-industry) and a push for the fairly conservative views of the Marcel Bloch/Dassault descendants themselves.

To be fair, le Figaro was The French conservative newspaper long before the Dassault's ownership (like +100 years prior), so it's more a case of "Le Figaro has a more comfortable budget to push its views".

The closest I can think of in the US context is Bezos owning the Washington Post to both push his personal views and Amazon's interests.

Or maybe lately, Larry Ellison's take over of Paramount/CBS (but it feels more like he is buying a toy for his son).

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#382

Post by Telemakhos » Wed, Oct 22, 2025, 5:14 PM UTC

hamandcheese wrote: post #378

returningfory2 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you so much for this comment - you've put a name ("contrarian and counter-cyclical reporting") on a phenomenon that I've observed a lot and is one of the main reasons I don't consume the media anymore. The craziest example for me was NYC congestion pricing. When it was about to happen, all the reporting was about all of the downsides of the tolls starting. A week after the New York Governor "indefinitely paused…

So the media intentionally stirs controversy and they aren't even getting paid to do it by hostile states or the ultra-wealthy? There really is no hope is there.

The media relies first and foremost on advertising revenue, which depends on ratings or viewership metrics, which become the goal. The more viewers you get, the more expensive advertising slots become: the point stops being to report the facts and starts being to engage the audience at an emotional level, so that they come back for more.

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#383

Post by lapadite2 » Wed, Oct 22, 2025, 5:16 PM UTC

greatgib wrote: post #146

Something really scary in France right now is that you can see really clearly how most mainstream media are used for propaganda. Since a few days, there is an abundance of cover and articles in most major newspaper here with propaganda and repeated lies supporting him. It's hard to imagine but non stop. You have everyday interviews of his family saying that it is an injustice, that he did nothing, that the judgement…

[dead]

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#384

Post by rsynnott » Wed, Oct 22, 2025, 5:16 PM UTC

tsoukase wrote: post #178

A former Prime Minister of a first world country in jail is insane. He must have made a crime without the help of others because in political scandals usually a whole gang of public people is liable. Then you have to convict the monkey with the bananas and the whole tree. If we follow the French justice, in my country (Greece) about 10% of people including almost all the politicians of the last decades should be in j…

Chirac also got a jail sentence, though it was suspended on account of his age.

In Ireland, we prefer to just tie them up in tribunals for the rest of their lives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Haughey (PM til '92, under investigation from '97 to '06, at which point he died)

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#385

Post by leptons » Wed, Oct 22, 2025, 5:16 PM UTC

pbkompasz wrote: post #79

leptons wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half of them are, half of them are not.

more like third of them are, third of them are not and a third doesn't care

I can agree with that. I sometimes forget that quite a lot of voting-age people just don't vote.

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#386

Post by CamperBob2 » Wed, Oct 22, 2025, 5:16 PM UTC

hamandcheese wrote: post #378

returningfory2 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you so much for this comment - you've put a name ("contrarian and counter-cyclical reporting") on a phenomenon that I've observed a lot and is one of the main reasons I don't consume the media anymore. The craziest example for me was NYC congestion pricing. When it was about to happen, all the reporting was about all of the downsides of the tolls starting. A week after the New York Governor "indefinitely paused…

So the media intentionally stirs controversy and they aren't even getting paid to do it by hostile states or the ultra-wealthy? There really is no hope is there.

There really is no hope is there.

No, there's not. The incentives are hopelessly misaligned.

If the biggest, most profitable story is the destruction of civilization itself, then the news media -- which like so many other institutions in our society is owned by people too old or too wealthy to suffer the eventual consequences -- will cheer it on.

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#387

Post by brohee » Wed, Oct 22, 2025, 5:20 PM UTC

stickfigure wrote: post #373

thesumofall wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worked in a 2nd-tier city in France for a while. And, yes, salaries are low in comparison but I found it a very livable place. The French just emphasize different things. Good quality restaurants are very affordable, I had 45 days of paid vacation, etc.

I just spent a few weeks in southern France. Lovely place, lovely food, lovely people... ...with one national flaw. All that lovely food is available strictly between the hours of 12 and 2 (for lunch) and 7 and 9 (for dinner). If you don't eat on the precise timetable as everyone else (say, jetlag) then you don't eat.

It's a small city thing. In Paris and Lyon at least, some establishments have very extended hours or are even 24/7. And you can get a kebab at ungodly hours in even small cities.

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#388

Post by juliendorra » Wed, Oct 22, 2025, 5:22 PM UTC

stickfigure wrote: post #373

thesumofall wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worked in a 2nd-tier city in France for a while. And, yes, salaries are low in comparison but I found it a very livable place. The French just emphasize different things. Good quality restaurants are very affordable, I had 45 days of paid vacation, etc.

I just spent a few weeks in southern France. Lovely place, lovely food, lovely people... ...with one national flaw. All that lovely food is available strictly between the hours of 12 and 2 (for lunch) and 7 and 9 (for dinner). If you don't eat on the precise timetable as everyone else (say, jetlag) then you don't eat.

Wider range in bigger cities, I think it’s quite common everywhere? Small town restaurants need pauses

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#389

Post by Demiurge » Wed, Oct 22, 2025, 5:23 PM UTC

This is slightly off-topic, but is it "jail" or "prison"? I see this switch all the time, and French does not make a difference. But, in English, and many other languages, jail is more specific than prison, and is usually for short term or pre-sentencing holding. If someone is sentenced, it's usually a different facility called "prison". Is BBC making a mistake, or are they actually saying Sarkozy will be held in in an actual jail?

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#390

Post by bnjms » Wed, Oct 22, 2025, 5:24 PM UTC

adriand wrote: post #233

schmidtleonard wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's crazy to me is seeing this happen at an individual level. In 2022, my conservative family members were reluctantly but firmly on board with the idea that Trump did the crimes: lied to the tax man, stole the classified documents, leaned on the Georgia secretary of state to "find me 11780 votes," and on Jan 6 set up fake electors and asked Pence to overturn the election. In each case, they gave a good fight, but…

Man, that's a scary story. The Georgia thing especially is so easy to understand: just listen to the tape!

I’m going to go find these recordings now. But do you, or anyone else, have a preferred location for this type of data?

For example reddit is consistently an echo chamber in the reverse direction. Another example is any clips selected by cable news are doubted by republicans for intentional malicious framing. Which is fair enough since I’ve seen plenty of intentionally obtuse takes of things said which are already unacceptable.