'Air Sarko' instant target for vitriol

You are a President who is the butt of jokes over your diminutive height and love of flash and who has made himself very unpopular by telling the country to tighten its belt and work longer.

So what can be the most ill-timed decision you can make?

How about going for a maiden flight on your €176 million ($316 million) airliner and blasting over to the other side of the planet, at a cost to the taxpayer of €20,000 an hour, to glad-hand other world leaders?

"Air Sarko One," as the press has dubbed President Nicolas Sarkozy's Airbus A330-200, has become an instant focus of discontent against a head of state whose 29 per cent approval rating is already the lowest in more than half a century of French politics.

For critics, the white-and-tricolore giant symbolises a grotesquely inflated ego. For the Government, it is merely a work tool that comes at a reasonable price.

The plane is a 12-year-old former passenger jet capable of flying 14 hours, or 12,500km, on one tank of gas, meaning that Sarkozy can zip from from Paris to Tokyo or to Los Angeles without the need for refuelling. It replaces two ageing A319s with a range of 8000km.

The 59m-long jet was bought second hand with 45,000 hours on the clock with Swissair and a Caribbean airline, Air Caraibes. What is raising eyebrows, though, is the cost of the refit - a reported €91.5 million of the total - to convert a 324-seat workhorse of the skies into a state-of-the-art transport for Sarkozy and his 60-person entourage and travelling press.

As the head of state of any top-ranking power would expect, it has ultra-secure encrypted communications with which to order a nuclear strike, flares to deter any heat-seeking missiles and an 11-seat conference room.

There is a private bedroom for Sarkozy and wife Carla with double bed and shower, as well as a medical room, including a small operating theatre.

But the Elysee presidential palace has also had to fight off persistent rumours about the high life aboard Sarkozy's "private plane", in the words of opposition Socialist leader Segolene Royal.

In one sketch (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fk2vaZ76-68), the Guignols satirical TV show had Sarkozy bragging to President Barack Obama about his huge toy on the way to last week's G20 summit in Seoul. Sarkozy, wearing tacky aviator sunglasses, has had the plane tricked out with go-faster stripes on the outside and decorated inside with flock wallpaper and a disco mirror ball.

The weekly Le Canard Enchaine roused the Elysee's anger by reporting the President had wanted the plane fitted with a bathtub with a high rim, so that he could have a soak without any water overspilling in turbulence.

Other reports said the jet had a €25,000 espresso machine, a champagne bar and pizza oven (wrong, says the Elysee: just a standard Airbus galley) and a special air-conditioned room where Sarkozy can puff on a cigar (no - all smoking is forbidden, according to his spokesman).

"It's tailor-made, but nothing's gold, luxurious or showy," says an exasperated official at the Defence Ministry. "The interior is practical and modern and made from lasting materials, which is essential given that the A330 is designed to fly for another 30 years or so."

The jet is so big that it cannot be deployed with the Falcon business jets at Villacoublay Air Force Base, west of Paris, where the presidential air fleet of six Falcon business jets is based. Instead, it has to be deployed at the commercial airport of Orly.

The Elsyee argues that the jet gives better value for money than before, given that it previously took two 40-seat Airbuses to ferry the President's entourage and travelling media.

After Seoul, the plane will be used extensively after France takes over the year-long leadership of the Group of 20, followed by the presidency of the Group of Eight industrialised nations next January.