Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President-elect, was unrepentant yesterday over a billionaire’s gift of a yachting trip which has prompted indignation from opponents and mockery from the media.

“I don’t see the controversy,” Mr Sarkozy said as he jogged on a beach in Malta wearing an NYPD T-shirt. “I have no intention of hiding. I have no intention of lying. I have no intention of apologising.”

Mr Sarkozy’s remarks were his first in public since he promised France on Sunday night that he would be the “President of the suffering, the excluded”.

The right-wing reformer had depicted his departure from Paris, with his wife Cecilia and 11-year-old son, as a monastic retreat to meditate on the awesome responsibility ahead. A storm broke on Tuesday after it emerged that they were off to Malta as guests aboard the Paloma, a 60m (190ft) motor yacht owned by Vincent Bolloré, a billionaire corporate raider and media magnate who is a friend of Mr Sarkozy.

As antiSarkozy protesters burnt a couple of hundred more cars in France, the press had fun recalling the candidate’s vows to restore the value of hard work and his slogan “Work more to earn more”.

Newspapers compared his taste for conspicuous consumption with that of Silvio Berlusconi, the former Italian tycoon-prime minister, and to Tony Blair, whom Mr Sarkozy is to meet in Paris tomorrow.

“The holiday of the new head of state has taken on the air of a billionaire’s escapade,” said le Monde. Nicolas Canteloup, a popular radio comedian, imitated Mr Sarkozy complaining about the champagne and suggested that his Cabinet meetings would be staged in a night-club. Le Monde’sfront-page cartoon showed Mrs Sarkozy in a bikini on deck ordering “the poor” to make less noise.

Mr Berlusconi even joined in from Rome, joking: “Sarkozy has used me as a model.”

The battered Socialist opposition pounced gleefully on Mr Sarkozy. “What causes a problem is the style of the holiday, the fact that he is on the boat of a rich businessman,” said François Hollande, the Socialist leader and partner of Ségolène Royal, the defeated presidential finalist.

Mr Sarkozy’s team dismissed the criticism as sour grapes and the President-elect said that he was unable to see any conflict of interest. “Vincent Bolloré is one of the great French industrialists who has done a great deal for the economy,” he said.

François Fillon, Mr Sarkozy’s designated Prime Minister, dismissed the criticism but MPs in their Union for a Popular Movement were privately aghast over what they saw as a gaffe. They feared that “Sarko’s” embrace of glitz, a week ahead of his installation as head of state, could lose them votes in parliamentary elections next month. One MP said: “He worked throughout the campaign to erase his image as chum of the rich, and now he blows it big time.”

Mr Sarkozy is due to accompany President Chirac today at a ceremony in Paris commemorating the abolition of slavery.

Sarko l’Américain

— Nicolas Sarkozy has been dubbed “Sarko l’Américain” for his admiration of the US

— Yesterday he lived up to the name when he went jogging in an NYPD T-shirt with an entourage reminiscent of American presidents

— In his free time he affects an American look, wearing Ralph Lauren and a near-permanent pair of RayBan sunglasses

— His approach to America landed him in trouble last autumn after he spent a few minutes with President Bush in the White House and spoke of French arrogance in a Washington speech

— His rival Ségolène Royal said that she would “never go down on my knees to George Bush” like Sarkozy, whom she characterised as “an American neo-conservative with a French passport”

— Last month, the pint-sized president-elect drew mirth when he appeared on a small horse dressed as a (French) cowboy. The implicit comparison was with Mr Bush’s cowboy style

— Mr Sarkozy, who does not speak English, raves over the can-do American entrepreneurial spirit and the unabashed US admiration of wealth, which contrasts with France’s traditional distaste for the display of success

— While the rest of the media were mocking Sarko for his yachting holiday yesterday France Soir, which backs the new President, published a front-page headline comparing his style to that of the late John F. Kennedy at Kennebunkport

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