Tall security agents have been discreetly advised not to apply for a job guarding Nicolas Sarkozy, police sources have claimed. The vertically challenged French president is said to have banned statuesque bodyguards despite their added value of being able to spot potential attackers in a crowd.
A police source said that "there's no point recruiting supermen" as "large-sized" candidates stood little chance of being taken on. The presidential guard, known by its acronym GSPR, has been beefed up from 50 to 80 men since 2002, when a mentally disturbed man managed to take a potshot at Jacques Chirac, Mr Sarkozy's predecessor, with his hunting rifle before being overpowered.
President Sarkozy is notoriously sensitive and secretive about his diminutive height of around 5ft 5 ins – making him shorter than Napoleon. He has gone out of his way not to stand small on the world stage or when next to his 5ft 10 ins former model wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, who mostly wears flat pumps.
Besides wearing specially-designed stacked shoes, Mr Sarkozy has been caught standing on tiptoes in global leader group shots and stood on a box to remain shoulder to shoulder with Barack Obama, the US President, when the pair gave speeches to commemorate the Normandy landings last year.
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