The media is in an uproar today regarding words Nikolas Sarkozy used to describe his foreign counterparts.  Times Online starts their piece like so:

The US President is weak, the Spanish leader is dim, the German Chancellor is clinging on to France’s coat-tails and the head of the European Commission is irrelevant. [Times Online]

Various media outlets are regurgitating this story with different quotes and different vantage points, but with the same central theme, Nikolas Sarkozy thinks himself better than everyone else.  The only world leader that isn't insulted is Italy's President Berlusconi. 

The media is harshest regarding Sarkozy's comments on Barack Obama.  Sarkozy feels that the US president is weak and inexperienced.  With only 2 months in office before the G20 summit, it is hard to picture any world leader a great deal better.  One of Sarkozy's more clever jokes regarding Obama's messianic status all over the world was, "I am going to ask him to walk on the Channel, and he’ll do it."  While I don't feel that this is a direct attack on Obama's character, the satire is hard to ignore.

While media bias has always been against France, this story will be hard to counter without an official statement by Nicolas Sarkozy.  Currently, the only statement from the French administration I have found is,

“The President is annoyed by what he sees as the naivety and the herd mentality of the media,” wrote Claude Askolovitch, a commentator close to the Élysée Palace. [Times Online]

If this story goes farther, it is likely that the Sarkozy himself will go into damage control.  It isn't in their interest to be portrayed as a pompous nation, an already common prejudice of France.