Greenpeace behind Paris 'SarkObama' poster mystery

Greenpeace admitted Wednesday it was behind a mystery poster campaign that saw walls across Paris plastered with pictures of President Nicolas Sarkozy modelled on an iconic Barack Obama election image.

The campaign sought to raise awareness of UN climate talks under way in Poland and the imminent adoption by the EU of plans to fight global warming which, "unfortunately, does not interest many people," the environmental group said.

Modelled closely on a pop-art design by the US street artist Shepard Fairey in support of the Democrat's presidential bid, the dozens of posters pasted up in Paris last week show Sarkozy against a red, white and blue backdrop.

Each spells out a policy goal -- "Making polluters pay?", "Producing clean and sustainable energy for Europe?" or "Saving each household 1,000 euros a year?" -- above Obama's slogan "Yes, We can".

Suspecting a pro-Sarkozy publicity stunt, French news website L'Express launched a reader appeal to try to identify the poster gang, who responded with a trail of online clues.

They posted photo galleries of themselves -- faces masked behind the "SarkObama" images -- plastering the posters at emblematic sites across Paris, on the file sharing websites FlickR and Dailymotion.

Greenpeace France head Pascal Husting said Sarkozy, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, was failing to push through an adequate European climate change package.

"He is letting (EU) member states get bogged down in the defence of their short-term national interests instead of emphasising the collective interests and the imperatives in the struggle against climate change," he said in a statement.

Among rich regions, the European Union has set down the most ambitious plan to fight climate change, saying developed economies should cut their emissions by 25-40 percent by 2020 over 1990 levels.

It has already promised to unilaterally reduce its own contribution of greenhouse gases by 20 percent by 2020, but this plan has been weakened by objections within its own ranks, with Poland and Italy fearing it will inflict too high an economic price.