FRENCH GET A POLITICAL MYSTERY
PARIS August 18, 2006 (IHT) - The facts: Ségolène Royal, the front-runner to be the opposition Socialist Party's presidential candidate, says that her apartment in a Paris suburb was rifled while she was away on vacation with her partner, François Hollande, her party's secretary general."This was not a burglary, but an intrusion and a full-scale search of my home in which nothing was stolen," Royal told Agence France-Presse on Friday. "Everything was turned upside down. The cupboards were emptied."
Royal said she would have her telephone lines checked, suggesting she believes someone may have entered to plant listening devices in her home.
She said she reported the break-in to the police but did not make a formal complaint. This should have kept the break-in out of the news media, but the news was leaked to a newspaper, Le Figaro.
"I find it scandalous," she said, "that this information was given out by the interior minister's office even though I asked that this incident remain confidential."
As every French voter knows by now, the interior minister is Nicolas Sarkozy, who also happens to be the leading conservative aspirant for the presidency. ... Sarkozy's office swiftly denied revealing any information of "a confidential nature" about "a possible intrusion" into Royal's home.
"Madame Royal has the sense that it is not really a burglary but rather an act of intimidation," a police official said.
Political intimidation? In France? Ah. [Slight pause.] Well, nothing new there. (And here and here. Oh, and big plays too, here and here.)
PFFT (What is this?): Political season opens 3 | Rayonnement français 0
