Nicolas Sarkozy's tippy-toes Napoleon complex ignites online chuckles *

An image showing height-challenged French President Nicolas Sarkozy standing on his tippy toes is the latest joke that's getting passed around social media websites.

In the photo, Sarkozy stands with his wife, former supermodel Carla Bruni, President Obama and Michelle Obama.

The clearly vertically-challenged Sarkozy attempts to make up for his shortcoming by stretching up on tip-toes for the camera. Unfortunately for him, the lens caught his trick.

The snarky caption on the "de-motivational poster" reads, "Insecurity: Dude, you're president of France and your wife's smokin' hot. Really. It's OK."

The European media has highlighted the comical height difference -- in addition to their 13-year age difference -- between Sarkozy and his wife. Bruni, who stands at 5-foot-11, has....

...switched from heels to flat-bottom shoes to make up for the shorty, who is 5-foot-5, the British Telegraph newspaper reports.

Sarkozy was in especially tall company in that photo. Barack Obama is 6-foot-1 and his wife is 5-foot-11. 

This wasn't the first time Sarkozy was the butt of an Internet joke. More than 2 million people have watched a video of Sarkozy drunkenly stumbling over a speech at the G-8 summit in 2007.

Not to mention Sarkozy's affectionate public butt pat of his wife as shown here in The Ticket  the other day.

Sure, he's the target of plenty of wisecracks. But the lesson is simple: He's the leader of the French nation, and he's married to a glamorous, multitalented supermodel -- she was also a musician. Lucky guy. Even on his toes.

-- Mark Milian

And check out the Ticket by clicking here to register for each new Ticket item. Or follow us  @latimestot

Photo: Eric Feterberg / AFP / Getty Images  (Same photo with feet obscured).

* An earlier version of this post misspelled the French president's name as "Nikolas."

Comments

[Pom Pom Girl]

This Is News? What About Obamas G-20 Successes?
Obama went to the G-20 summit as well as several foreign nations recently to set the tone on US foreign relations and push for the rest of the G-20 to adopt a US Style stimulus plan.
He was unable to achieve his stimulus goal but did "achieve" several things.
1) He apologized and appeased Muslims at every stop.
2) He ticked off France and Germany when he stated that Turkey, with its Muslim population, should be allowed into the EU.
3) He agreed to assist with giving $1 Trillion dollars to the IMF to help poor countries by contributing U.S. Tax Dollars. Since the IMF is primarily funded by EU banks, and these poor nations will use the money for debt forgiveness he basically gave the EU a bank bailout since those banks are heavily overextended in the third world.
4) He agreed to give the Asian nations trade credits to help them to maintain export based economies instead of encouraging consumer economies. This will enable those countries to continue to export to the U.S. further eroding our manufacturing base, dooming the auto industry and worsening our balance of trade deficit.

[steve rodriguez]

Sarkozy, "Obama is weak and inexperienced!"

He is a prophet!!!!