Lagerfeld says French election campaign a 'mud-fight'

PARIS - Agence France-Presse

Karl Lagerfeld. AFP photo

Sharp-tongued German designer Karl Lagerfeld said Tuesday that the French presidential election pitting Nicolas Sarkozy against the Socialist Francois Hollande was no better than a mud-fight.

"It's 'I throw mud at you, you throw mud at me'," he told AFP as he unveiled his latest collection for Chanel during Paris Fashion Week. He said he was "happy" not to be able to vote in the "fist fight" here as he was not a French national.

Lagerfeld, who admitted he had never voted in his own country, denounced the battle to win the two-round vote in April and May as an introverted "Franco-French" affair in which "the rest of the world does not exist".

Last month he offered some fashion advice to German Chancellor Angela Merkel fashion, recommending she wear better-designed legwear -- and unbutton her jacket.