PARIS — French President Nicolas Sarkozy is asking a Paris court to stop the sale of a voodoo kit complete with a presidential doll, needles and guidebook after the company refused to withdraw it voluntarily.
K&B Publishers infringed on the president's exclusive right to his image, lawyers for Sarkozy said Friday at a hearing in Paris.
"The unauthorized use of his image on a voodoo doll destined to be pricked with pins cannot be justified," Thierry Herzog, Sarkozy's lawyer, told the court. French law gives each person control of his image "whatever his status or notoriety."
The lawsuit is at least the sixth personal claim filed by Sarkozy this year. The suits include a complaint against Ryanair Holdings Plc for an ad showing his then soon-to-be wife, Carla Bruni, imagining wedding guests taking advantage of discount fares, and another against a magazine for printing Sarkozy's text message to his ex-wife offering to cancel the wedding.
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The lawsuits "banalize the office of the presidency," Laurent Dubois, a political-science professor at Sorbonne University in Paris, said in an interview. "He's reacting not like a president, but like a guy who says he demands respect."
K&B created a "caricature" with Sar-kozy's image and decorated it with "publicly stated phrases from a political figure" like "Casse-toi, pauvre con" (Get away, you stupid jerk), and paired it with a humorous biography, making it "informative," defense lawyer Arnaud Rouillon said.
The Ryanair case, which Sarkozy won, covered use of his image "purely for publicity ends; there was nothing informative about the ads," Rouillon said. "The satirical nature" of K&B's use differentiates the two cases.
The court will issue its decision Wednesday.
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