Sarkozy, Obama bemoan Netanyahu on open mic

Journalists covering last week's economic summit overheard French President Nicolas Sarkozy blasting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a "liar" during a talk with U.S. President Barack Obama, according to published reports.

The private conversation was inadvertently carried by open microphones before an Obama-Sarkozy news conference on the sidelines of the Group of 20 economic summit in the French resort of Cannes.

Its contents were first reported by the French website Arret Sur Images, which said reporters heard Sarkozy's comments in French and Obama's reply through a translator.

"I can't stand him. He's a liar," Sarkozy said of Netanyahu, according to the website.

Obama replied, "You're tired of him; what about me? I have to deal with him every day," the site reported.

Arret Sur Images ("Freeze Frame") said journalists had listened in on the conversation but had agreed not to report it. The Reuters and Associated Press news services confirmed that report Tuesday.

"We didn't record it, and to use it would force us to admit that we had cheated," Arret Sur Images quoted one of the reporters who heard the conversation, whom it did not name. "Also, it would have caused great problems for the people responsible for the event's organization."

Dan Israel, the Arret Sur Images writer who broke the story, told CNN that about three minutes of the leaders' private conversation could be heard.

"It was a mistake by the organization for the G-20 summit," Israel said. He said journalists agreed among themselves to consider the remarks off the record because they didn't want to get a summit staffer heard into a "rough patch" after he disclosed that the audio could be heard. But the word spread rapidly among journalists in Paris, prompting Arret Sur Images to start chasing the report, he said.

"Some of them did give me the quotes, and others just confirmed the quotes," Israel said.

The report was met with silence from the Elysee Palace, the French president's office, which did not respond to requests for comment.
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