SMEAR PLOT CLAIMS DAMAGE VILLEPIN
PARIS December 21, 2006 (Telegraph)

DE VILLEPIN LOSES CREDIBILITY
AND SLEEP IN MIDNIGHT INTERROGATION

PARIS December 22, 2006 (Times Online) - The cheer was not quite festive when the French Cabinet gathered for its Christmas breakfast today: the Prime Minister had just been released after 17 hours of overnight questioning in a criminal case.

In a novelty for French politics, two examining judges kept Dominique de Villepin awake until after three o'clock this morning as they plied him relentlessly with questions about his role in the so-called Clearstream scandal.

... Mr de Villepin had kept up his energy by doing push-ups in an empty office during a 10-minute evening break in his interrogation.

... While the Prime Minister was being grilled, Mr Sarkozy was in Bordeaux enjoying his effective coronation as presidential candidate for the governing Union for a Popular Majority in next April’s election.

... "On the same day that Nicolas Sarkozy was lifted up on high by the governing majority, Villepin was reduced to doing push-ups in the court’s antechamber," noted Le Progrès de Lyon newspaper.

In Bordeaux, two of Mr Chirac’s former Prime Ministers and allies — Alain Juppé and Jean-Pierre Raffarin — declared their support for Mr Sarkozy. The President is expected soon to follow suit now that his protégé-Prime Minister has been all but eliminated from the political scene.

We're not so sure about that. One of Jack's strengths is pettiness. AgoraVox recounts Jack's inglorious history as a party spoiler:

• in 1974, already a member of government, he had helped future president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing against his Gaullist comrade Jacques Chaban-Delmas

• in 1981, he did everything he could to derail Giscard’s campaign, paving the way for socialist François Mitterrand’s election

• in 1988, he fought another conservative candidate, former prime minister Raymond Barre, while Mitterrand was easily re-elected

• in 1995, he campaigned against the prime minister he had himself chosen, Édouard Balladur, to win on the second ballot.

Now, Sarkozy is experiencing why Chirac, despite being considered by many as the worst president of the fifth republic, is notoriously regarded as a ruthless killer during election times.

REPORTS: FRANCE'S PREMIER
SAYS HE WAS 'NOT AN ACTOR'
IN SMEAR CAMPAIGN AGAINST SARKOZY
PARIS December 23, 2006 (IHT/AP)

Dom has yet to be charged with wrong-doing.

PFFT (What is this?): Cloak and Domino/ique 2 | Circulez, il n'y a rien à voir 4 | Rayonnement français 0

Bonjour,

Plutôt que de s'exciter sur Villepin , Pave devrait s'occuper des caniches Brits.
Des sondages alarmants [pour Pave] montrent que les Brits en ont plus qu' assez de la "relation spéciale" et du "grand large" et veulent se rapprocher sérieusement du Continent ...
[Effet "irakien" ??? ]
Cela commencerait par une émancipation de la ""protection"" nucléaire US ...

A tout pécheur miséricorde ....

Damian,

I believe AntiYanks' wisdom has again been proven right...

For a start, he observed, Britain would have to choose between Europe and America.

Oh really? And just how, I wonder, would that choice be forced upon us? Will the French navy blockade Dover, Portsmouth and Felixstowe until either we divorce Uncle Sam or agree to complete immersion into the institutions of the Euopean Union – constitution, single currency and all? Quite. Let us dismiss such twerpishness (or, as the French put it, connerie) as merely one functionary's exuberance in the afterglow of triumph, and remind ourselves what the realities of life after a Royal victory would be. The fact is that with France in the mess it is, the last thing she – or any other new president – would have time to worry about would be foreign policy.