Bad night with de Niro for Sarko’s news girl

Laurence Ferrari (pictured), the glamorous nightly news anchor for France’s TF1 channel, is having a rough time at work. Only weeks after replacing France’s longest-serving broadcast journalist Patrick Poivre d’Avor - PPDA to his fans - Ferrari has been criticised for delivering her lines ineptly and appearing ill-at-ease on air. It doesn’t help that her detractors allege she only got her prestigious job after cosying up to President Sarkozy - a personal friend of TF1 network owner Martin Bouygues.

Things became worse on Monday night when Ferrari attempted an interview with two of the most celebrated actors in the world - Robert de Niro and Al Pacino. The silver-screen tough guys were in Paris for the premiere of Righteous Kill and were apparently in no mood for any inconvenience.

Ferrari’s live interview began to fall apart when it became clear that the actors were having trouble understanding her questions. Ferrari - from the studio - was speaking through a translator who was at the event, off screen. At one point, in answer to a question that he couldn’t understand, an obviously disgruntled de Niro grimaced and said: “I wasn’t sure what that was”. Al Pacino, looking bored by his side, then muttered at the camera: “Where are you by the way? Are you not here?”

Just as the misfiring interviewing was drawing to a close, who should appear on screen but PPDA. The veteran presenter, who now has his own show on France 2, had been invited to the premiere and sauntered past the camera smiling, lingering for a split second. The question tout Paris is asking now is: Was his surprise visit an accident or was he in fact relishing his usurper’s demise?