The Telegraph, Henry Samuel, 19/3/2008

Nicolas Sarkozy has recruited a 24-year old "cyber spin doctor" to detect and counter Internet attacks and rumours against the French President.

Mr Sarkozy has been under a constant blitzkrieg of cyber-attacks ever since he began running for President, with countless websites and blogs dedicated to satirising and ridiculing the French leader.

According to the Elysee, the new recruit, Nicolas Princen, a graduate from one of France’s top universities, will act as "a sort of Internet early warning system, surveying everything that is making a buzz regarding the President", in order to alert his advisers and prepare a response before irreversible damage is done.

He will keep his eye on websites, chat groups, blogs and film clips. A handful of these released on video sites like YouTube or Dailymotion have helped to tarnish Mr Sarkozy’s image in recent months.

The first was one of the President seemingly drunk at a press conference at a G8 summit last year. The footage was ignored by France’s traditional television media but has been viewed well over 10 million times on YouTube.

In November, Mr Sarkozy’s heated exchange with a fisherman during protests over rising fuel costs was an online hit.

An amateur film of the President at Paris’ agricultural fair last month, in which he told a man who refused to shake his hand to "get lost, you stupid bastard" has been viewed over 3 million times.

The President proved that he would not tolerate web abuse last month when he took the online version of the Nouvel Observateur magazine to court over a report on a text message he allegedly sent his ex-wife Cecilia (acute e).

Mr Princen had already worked for Mr Sarkozy during his electoral campaign, running an off-beat page on his website NSTV (Nicolas Sarkozy TV).

He has already been nicknamed "The Sheriff" and "The Eye of Nicolas" in anti-Sarkozy blogs