LE FILS DE LA FRANCE (With Apologies To René Magritte)
Oh Yes, Enjoy the Lemons!*
* During his 1995 presidential campaign Jack used the apple and the apple tree as symbols of a wholesome bountiful France. The satirical television show Les Guignols de l'info (scil., News Puppets) pilloried this seemingly innocuous campaign theme with a Jack puppet blurting, "Compagnons ! Mangez des pommes !!!" ("Friends! Eat some apples!!!"). Alas, Jack, if not France herself, is out of apples.
J'ai décidé de donner une nouvelle impulsion à la politique de la France.DÉCLARATION AUX FRANÇAIS
DE M. JACQUES CHIRAC, PRÉSIDENT DE LA RÉPUBLIQUE,
SUR LE CHANGEMENT DE GOUVERNEMENT
PALAIS DE ÉLYSÉE, Paris le mardi 31 mai 2005
And so Jack announced a fresh start to his failed government. This was to be a "new impulse" government, one that listened to the people, a government of bold initiatives, one with the intrepidity and imagination to carry out much needed reforms. And lastly a government that restored civic confidence in its leaders and pride in France.
But that was all so much fairy dust to sprinkle on the newspapers.
Jack, purportedly a very savvy politician, instead cobbled together a Borgia court with key ministers pitted against each other in the fond hope that internecine politics would improve Jack's chances at a third presidential run.
As we posted earlier, a distant scandal has come back as a current scandal. If Jack's alleged involvement proves out, Jack will have done what neither the Socialists, nor the failed Constitution, nor riots, nor more riots, nor any of the hundred-and-one calamities that beset France could manage -- the undoing of Jack himself.
VILLEPIN JUMPS IN TO DENOUNCE SMEAR CAMPAIGN
PARIS April 27, 2006 (AFP) - In a statement Villepin condemned "the rumours and imputations directed at the state, its institutions and the intelligence services."
CHIRAC DRAWN INTO BOGUS CORRUPTION CHARGES SCAM
PARIS April 27, 2006 (AFP) - President Jacques Chirac was for the first time drawn into an unfolding dirty tricks scandal at the heart of the French government Friday, being forced to deny allegations that he ordered a secret corruption probe into Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy. ... According to Le Monde, Villepin cited Chirac's authority in asking the official to conduct the enquiry.
CLEARSTREAM : COMMUNIQUÉ DE LA PRÉSIDENCE DE LA RÉPUBLIQUE
PALAIS DE ÉLYSÉE, Paris le 28 avril 2006
S'agissant de l'affaire Clearstream, le Président de la République dément catégoriquement avoir demandé la moindre enquête visant des personnalités politiques dont le nom a pu être mentionné.[About the Clearstream affair, the president of the republic categorically denies having ordered the least investigation targeting political personalities whose names may have been mentioned.]
LA QUESTION DE LA DÉMISSION DU PREMIER MINISTRE EST POSÉE [Front page link]
LE MAINTIEN DE M. DE VILLEPIN À MATIGNON EN QUESTION
April 29, 2006
[THE QUESTION OF THE RESIGNATION OF THE PRIME MINISTER IS POSED
THE CONDUCT OF MR. DE VILLEPIN AT MATIGNON** IN QUESTION]
** The Hôtel Matignon in Paris is the official residence of the French Prime Minister.
SMEARS WILL NOT FORCE ME OUT, VOWS SCANDAL-HIT DE VILLEPIN
PARIS May 3, 2006 (Telegraph) - Facing the Assemblée Nationale before an emergency cabinet meeting last night, [Mr de Villepin] said: "I have served my country for 30 years. I have been the victim in recent days of a shameful campaign of slander and lies which has deeply shocked and hurt me."As opposition Socialist MPs chanted "resign", he insisted that he would not be diverted from "my duties as prime minister in the service of the French people ... Enough is enough.".
ROW HITS ANOTHER FRENCH MINISTER
May 5, 2006 (BBC) - Speaking on French television, Ms Michele Alliot-Marie said she was "shocked and angry" to be linked to the so-called Clearstream affair.
VILLEPIN'S CAREER HANGS BY A THREAD AS ALLIES CLAIM HE LIED
PARIS May 5, 2006 (Independent) - Dominique de Villepin has been dumped by important political and media allies, despite renewed denials of his involvement in an alleged plot to smear a colleague and rival. ... Even the centre-right newspaper Le Figaro, normally M. Villepin's ally, suggested, in a convoluted editorial, that the Prime Minister seemed to have "lied several times" about his role in the affair.
Mon Dieu ! The unthinkable!
CHIRAC TURNS TO SARKOZY, NEWSPAPER REPORTS
PARIS May 8, 2006 (IHT) - "Chirac requires Sarkozy to consider Matignon," read Le Monde's principal front-page headline in the Sunday-Monday edition, referring to the office of the prime minister. ... Christian Estrosi, the deputy minister for national planning and development, dismissed the report as false. Nadine Morano, a member of the Union for a Popular Movement, which Sarkozy heads, said, "If Jacques Chirac calls him, I believe profoundly in his capacity to assume that responsibility."
DE VILLEPIN FACES CALL TO PROVE INNOCENCE OR QUIT
May 9, 2006 (MSNBC/FT) - François Fillon, a senator from the ruling UMP party and Sarkozy adviser, said the prime minister could no longer lead the government while doubts remained about his involvement in France's latest political scandal. "Either the prime minister should provide irrefutable proof that he had nothing to do with this affair or the president of the republic should draw the lessons of this situation and change his prime minister," Mr Fillon said in a radio interview. However, Mr de Villepin, who has vehemently protested his innocence, dismissed the tumult over the Clearstream affair as "of not much importance".
KEY FIGURE IN FRENCH PROBE QUITS
PARIS May 11, 2006 (IHT) - Jean-Louis Gergorin, executive vice president of European Aeronautic Defense & Space, a defense group part- owned by the French state, faces growing suspicions of being the mysterious informant in a smear campaign that targeted Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy and mired Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin in accusations of engineering dirty tricks against his rival. Gergorin's resignation came as the opposition Socialist Party requested a vote of no confidence in Villepin; President Jacques Chirac rebuffed such calls in a surprise television address.
CHIRAC REJECTS CALLS FOR DE VILLEPIN'S RESIGNATION
PARIS, May 11, 2006 (Guardian) - In his first statement on the political scandal threatening to engulf his government, the French president, Jacques Chirac, rebuffed calls for his prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, to resign yesterday and denounced what he called a "dictatorship of rumours" and false accusations. ["La République, ce n'est pas la dictature de la rumeur, la dictature de la calomnie. La République, c'est la loi."]
POTENTIAL SMOKING GUN IN CLEARSTREAM AFFAIR UNCOVERED
PARIS May 11, 2006 (AFP) - President Jacques Chirac was further drawn into a dirty tricks scandal rocking the French government Thursday, with the publication of leaked evidence showing he knew of a secret enquiry into his political rival Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy. Le Monde newspaper printed excerpts of hand-written notes kept by spy-master Philippe Rondot, which it said "demolish" denials by Chirac and his ally Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin that they ordered an investigation into Sarkozy's alleged secret bank accounts.
FRENCH JUSTICE MINISTER ORDERS PROBE OF LEAKS IN SCANDAL
PARIS May 12, 2006 (IHT) - The justice minister ordered an inquiry Thursday into leaks that have implicated President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin in a secret investigation at the core of a scandal that has shaken the government.Le Monde has been at the heart of the unfolding scandal. On Thursday, it published the latest in a series of notes it says are from testimony to judges by General Philippe Rondot, who was assigned in January 2004 to conduct the probe. ... Rondot's reported notes repeatedly refer to "PR," or president of the republic, and to "D de V," Dominique de Villepin. "NS," Sarkozy's initials, also appear.
Rondot eventually concluded that the Clearstream lists were bogus, but his notes appear to show that Villepin was not convinced and insisted on pursuing the probe. The notes reveal Rondot's growing concern for the vulnerability of Chirac and Villepin, especially if word of the corruption probe got out.
"I warn against the negative fallout that this could have on the PR," read a July 19, 2004, note carried in Le Monde. On July 21, 2004, Rondot wrote, "The risk for the PR. My wish to see the PR in a tête-à-tête." ... Rondot was a man who clearly liked taking notes and keeping them, and apparently ignored a note to himself on July 21, 2004: "Destruction of memo notes."
Justice Minister Pascal Clement stepped into the fray Thursday, ordering a judicial inquiry into how notes from the investigation were leaking to the press.
FRENCH GENERAL ACCUSES MEDIA OF TWISTING WORDS
PARIS May 14, 2006 (IHT) - General Philippe Rondot, an intelligence official who holds many clues to a scandal that has shaken the French government, is refusing to testify in the complex case, saying he cannot trust investigators because they have already leaked too much to the press."Today, the press is choosing to publish only certain excerpts, with questionable aims, to try to implicate the president, Dominique de Villepin, and Michèle Alliot-Marie," the defense minister, Rondot told Le Journal du Dimanche. "It's unacceptable."
Rondot says the police and judges have humiliated him. "I was called a liar; they threatened me and considered me a crook. ... Today, I no longer believe in the investigation by the judges. ... There have been too many leaks, too much manipulation, too many incomplete citations of my writing or words."
He insists that neither Chirac nor Villepin did anything wrong.
VILLEPIN FACES CENSURE MOTION OVER CLEARSTREAM
PARIS May 14, 2006 (AFP) - On Tuesday the National Assembly will debate the PS's [SCIL., Parti Socialiste] censure motion, whose text begins: "Our country is going through one of the worst crises of the Fifth Republic."
DE VILLEPIN SURVIVES NO-CONFIDENCE VOTE
PARIS May 17, 2006 (Guardian) - A total of 190 members in the national assembly voted in favour [of censure], short of the 289 needed to pass the motion, which was brought by the opposition Socialists and backed by a small group of centrists who are traditionally aligned with the government. Mr de Villepin's supporters hold 364 of the assembly's 577 seats.
However, more than half the deputies in his own party boycotted his speech during censure debate.
SHUT UP ABOUT CLEARSTREAM: CHIRAC TO MINISTERS
PARIS May 17, 2006 (AFP)
"CROW SQUAWKS" IN FRENCH DIRTY TRICKS SCANDAL
PARIS May 18, 2006 (Reuters) - A senior French arms industry executive has admitted writing an anonymous letter at the heart of a dirty tricks scandal shaking the government, but denied it was to help Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin smear a rival. Jean-Louis Gergorin said in an interview published on Thursday that he alerted Villepin to a list of suspicious bank accounts allegedly belonging to politicians and civil servants, but it did not mention Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.
Stay tuned.
The great thing about this impulse government is as often as it fails, as bad as things get, it is always ready for another grab at the headlines.
Enjoy the lemons!
PFFT (What is this?): That sour failed-government aftertaste 5 | Sidelining all of France's problems, as a good thing ¼ | Sidelining all of France's problems, as a bad thing 4 | Rayonnement français 0
