French Presidential Candidate Sarkozy Insecure about his Height.

I missed a good story on Nicolas Sarkozy (France’s leading presidential cindidate on the right) from last month. We did mention his informal meeting with George Bush on Sept. 12, but to my great shame I failed to see what the French satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné did notice:

The only official picture would seem to indicate that he may have surprinsgly grown in height - literally. On the picture, he looks as tall as president Bush.

The problem is that Bush is about 6 ft (1.83m) tall but Sarkozy is much smaller, and there's proof of it.

As you can see on the following pictures, Sarkozy is about the same height as Chancellor Merkel but Merkel is much smaller than Bush (about 7 inches).

According to Le Canard, when Sarkozy met with Tom Cruise, he was about the same height, and Tom Cruise is 5.51 ft (1.68 m). His staff says he is "officially" 5.57 ft (1.70 m). Still, there is no way he could be as tall as George Bush.

The fact that he is small is irrelevant to me (I am not the tallest guy in the world myself) but the fact that Sarkozy is so insecure about his height that the picture should have been altered is really weird.
[or maybe he had hyge hidden heels, who knows...]

(here are other sources in French in Le Monde or Le Nouvel Obs)