PARIS (AP) — French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he should not have lost his cool and berated a man who insulted him — an exchange that was caught on camera and became an Internet sensation.
"It would have been better if I didn't respond to him," the newspaper Le Parisien's Tuesday edition quoted Sarkozy as saying during a panel interview with its readers.
Sarkozy had been shaking hands at an agriculture fair Saturday when a man in the crowd asked Sarkozy not to touch him because it would get him "dirty."
Video of the episode showed Sarkozy telling the man to: "Casse-toi alors, pauvre con, va."
The mildest possible translation for the phrase is: "So get out of here, you poor jerk, go."
The video has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times on the Internet.
Rival politicians have criticized Sarkozy's outburst as not befitting a president.
Le Parisien quoted Sarkozy as telling its reader panel: "It is difficult even when you're the president not to respond to an insult ... Just because you're president, that does not mean people can use you as a doormat."
The newspaper said the presidential office had "amended and corrected" the interview before its publication — a common practice in France.
Presidential adviser Franck Louvrier said what was published "was similar to what was said ... in the same spirit."
The president's popularity has fallen dramatically in recent months. Some voters have disapproved of Sarkozy's flaunting his romance with former model Carla Bruni, whom he married on Feb. 2, at a time when many are more worried about economic issues.
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