What about the I/T angle? How about some photoshop work with funnier tag line?

>/ coat please

Bring back the days of Mitterand and .. oh, wait. Never mind.

the Frence special forces are on their way to teach Ryanair a lesson.

I do hope they don't have an aircraft called Rainbow Warrior

Good idea. I can supply a high res scan, as I got the ad in "Le Parisien" dated yesterday :)

PH as she is the closest thing El Reg has to Carla "The Maneater" Bruni...

"Sarko has not as yet enjoyed even a single night in Paris"

sob!

Of course, 'occasions' in French could be translated as 2nd-hand goods as well...

Well, I suspect they're more annoyed by the fact that according to rumours in recent times, they've missed out on getting RyanAirs cheap flights.

This is seriously wrong. If the two people in the photograph (President of France + fiancee or whoever) did not give permission for this ad, then this is effectively libel. The worst part is the thought bubble issuing from Carla Bruni - portraying her as specifically promoting this product. If this sort of thing is allowed, what's to stop a breakfast cereal company from plastering Angelina Jolie's face all over their product packets, for example? Add to this the fact that if the individual concerned actually does anything legal about it, all it does is draw free publicity to the advert - a fact that these companies egregiously exploit.

What should happen to companies that do this is that all their assets are seized, *including all private assets of the marketing people responsible for the ad*, and the company shut down, no matter how big it is. That's a big stick, but it is warranted by the blatant disregard for a person's right not to be globally associated with a product, which they may never have used, which they might not want to recommend, and which ruins their chances to be recognised for themselves, instead of everyone thinking "Oh that's the guy/girl from the such-and-such ad" every time they see him/her. Such opportunistic exploitation needs to be stopped now by the strongest measures.

"Ryanair, of course, won't give un cuss d'un tinker what Sarkozy thinks of the ad" ?

Is that even english ?

It's not remotely french, at least.

"won't give un cuss d'un tinker" ?

If you like, post the sentence in english and I'll give you that in french for the extra style points.

But this, is beyond my understanding...

@Rob Crawford: What exactly are the French special forces going to do? The only thing I could picture in my mind was them using a modified helicopter to deliver them onto a Ryanair 747. Of course, once onboard the 747 the highly-trained warrior-killers will waste no time in immediately, unconditionally and totally surrendering to Ryanair on behalf of the French Republic.

@ Math Campbell

erm... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_8969

A tad more difficult than an embassy, don't you think? ;-P

Have you guys not heard of "Private Eye"? Every fortnight it's packed full of similar pictures of the in/famous saying or thinking things that they actually *didn't*.

This is called satire.

And whilst this advert might not be to everyone's tastes, it exhibits some of the hallmarks of a topical, vaguely satirical article.

And, I am told, the Froggies love it. Allegedly.

Someone else who obviously hasn't heard of franglais.

Paris - cos even she knows a joke when she sees one ...

"..what the yanks would call a fair use manner... Ethical advertising extends as far as not making a blatantly false claim."

So I take then it you'll have no objection to my stealing your Myspace photo (or that of your girlfriend/SO), and using it to promote our book-sales website? With a speech bubble coming out of your mouth saying "Buy all your books from here - they've got books nobody else has!"? No false claims there, since our site does in fact have exclusive books.