VILLEPIN, IN ASSEMBLY, HURLS CHARGE OF 'COWARDICE'

PARIS June 21, 2006 (IHT) - Even by the unruly standards of France's National Assembly, Tuesday's session was exceptional.

When François Hollande, the Socialist Party leader, berated the French government for its handling of the crisis at Europe's leading aerospace company, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin lost control. In an outburst that was both highly personal and filled with rage, Villepin accused Hollande of cowardice.

"I denounce, Mr. Hollande, your easiness, and I would even say, looking at you, cowardice! Cowardice!" Villepin shouted, "There is in your attitude, I say it again, cowardice!" [Le Monde: "Je dénonce la facilité, et je dirai même en vous regardant, la lâcheté, la lâcheté qu'il y a dans votre attitude. Je le redis, la lâcheté." Dom went on to say in his highly personal poetically opaque way: "On ne peut pas mélanger les carottes et les choux-fleurs, on ne peut pas mélanger l'exigence de vérité et l'exigence de bonne gestion." ("You can't mix carrots and cauliflowers, you can't mix the demand for truth and the demand for good management".) Noted. The things we learn in the course of our duties.]

Socialist members of Parliament tried to drown him out with cries of "Resign! Resign!" Some deputies moved forward toward the prime minister before storming out of the chamber. Henri Emmanuelli, a Socialist deputy and a former president of the National Assembly, shouted, "He's mad!"

The session - the regularly scheduled Tuesday hearing with Villepin and other ministers - came to an abrupt end.

Insults and pranks and pillow-throws at twenty paces. The French government going about the people's business.

After Tuesday's parliamentary session was cut short, Hollande demanded a formal apology from Villepin. "It is he who must bring serenity back to the chamber," Hollande said. "The mistake that he made, he must make up for it." He added that Villepin "has lost his head."

Hollande [had] asked whether the French government, a major stakeholder of EADS, continued to support the executive, Noël Forgeard. Hollande also charged that Villepin lacked the trust of the French people and would not regain it by filing suit against three journalists.

On Monday, Villepin took the unusual step of suing for libel the authors of two books* on a complicated scandal known as the Clearstream affair, in which well-known French figures were falsely accused of running secret offshore bank accounts. Villepin has been accused - he insists wrongly - of ordering an undercover investigation in 2004 of Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, his political rival, to tarnish his reputation because of the Clearstream affair.

At this remove we cannot tell if Dom is punching or slapping. La lâcheté is pretty weak tea as political insults go. But the Socialists seem to think it something beyond endurance. By design or simple incontinence, Dom can be credited with changing the subject from the failings of his government to the delicate feelings of M. Hollande. And considering the government's failings, Dom has pulled a neat trick.

Calls for Villepin's resignation - even within the governing UMP party - have increased in recent months... An IFOP opinion poll in Le Journal du Dimanche last weekend indicated that Villepin's approval rating stands at 23 percent, compared with 28 percent a month ago.

An editorial in Monday's Le Monde titled "End of a Reign" referred to the "angry powerlessness of the prime minister," adding that President Jacques Chirac had a clear choice: "Change the prime minister or step down himself to allow the French to speak on the future of the country. One doubts that he's ready to do that. Unfortunately."

* Clearstream, l'enquête [Clearstream, The Inquiry] by Denis Robert and Réglement de comptes pour l'Elysée : La manipulation Clearstream dévoilée [Settling of Accounts for the Elysée: The Manipulation of Clearstream Revealed] by Gilles Gaetner and Jean-Marie Pontaut.

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