It's all in the timing...

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Montreuil - Bellay

It is to be hoped that Frederic Mitterand, Minister of Culture and protector of Polanski, has departed on holiday, leaving behind him the cares of office.....at least, the head of the Direction Regionale des Affaires Culturelles of the Maine et Loire department will be so hoping....

He or she will also be hoping that the Prefect of the Maine et Loire will have enough on his plate, having just been caught passing a traffic light at red while riding his bicycle without a crash hat, without alerting higher authority to what the D.R.A.C. has been up to...

For the D.R.A.C. has been guilty of that greatest of crimes....a lack of tact.

Just as President Sarkozy and his Interior Minister, Brice Hortefeux, are announcing measures to reinforce law and order, including the dismantling of illegal camps used by the 'gens du voyage', or 'travelling people' and the expulsion of foreign gypsies, the D.R.A.C. of the Maine et Loire has seen fit to announce a new entry on the list of 'monuments historiques'.. sites and buildings under the protection of the State.

A wartime gipsy internment camp.