More Adventures in Wonderland

While I know that he didn't, for someone who took his education elsewhere Mr. Hollande, (Moije) President of France, shows all the signs of one whose learning was acquired at the school under the sea, at the knee of the Tortoise.

I support this view by his expertise in the fields of reeling and writhing.

Reeling first.... demonstrated by his pre election promise to renegotiate the European Stability Pact - an austerity measure produced by the Merkozy - which resulted in him reeling from the disapproval of the Mer part of the Kozy (and probably also from the disapproval of the minder from Rothschild's Bank who is at the Elysee to keep an eye on him).

Writhing next.....to ensure that the Socialist Party deputies elected on a programme including that promise wriggle round and vote for the opposite measure.

Further supporting evidence for his alma mater.....fainting in coils.
Ably demonstrated at the recent United Nations annual No One Has Talent show for heads of state.

He, with entourage, was about to enter a corridor when he beheld his ex ladyfriend and mother of four of his children, vice president of the Socialist International and president of the region of Poitou Charentes, giving a press conference on the other side of the glass doors.
Did he enter, salute her courteously in passing and go on his way?
Did he do a right about face and remove himself from the vicinity?

No, he spent some time with his back to the doors  - peek a boo, I can't see you, everything's looking fine - demonstrating to fascinated television crews the art of fainting in coils before shabbing off round the back way.

And he is a sound student of the four branches of arithmetic:

Ambition.....well, he he is at the top of the greasy pole.

Distraction.......that bit of fainting in coils will win him no brownie points with his latest lady friend.

Uglification......not a pretty sight in the baggy bermudas.

and, of course,

Derision.

During the election campaign he had nothing but derision for Sarkozy....referring to him as a 'salopard'.
He treated Sarkozy and his wife with contempt at the handover of power...turning on his heel as they walked to their car.

And now he is treating the ordinary people of France with derision.

A few token swipes at the rich.....but the working population put to contribution to support the bloated ranks of central and local government bureaucrats.

People who want to get ahead, be independent? He'll learn 'em....
The 'auto entrepreneur' scheme set up by Sarkozy, where you paid social security contributions based on what you made, is to have the guts torn out of it.
Bang goes an opportunity to get on your own feet.

At a period when utility bills are soaring, freezing the tax brackets so that more and more will be caught up by them is not a popular move any more than measures to penalise people for running the older cars they cannot afford to replace.

It is not appreciated either that when the state reckons you owe it money it's the bailiffs and the frozen bank accounts.....but when it owes you money, as when the courts order compensation for the state's illegal actions, you can whistle.

I just wonder if the French people will put up with this.....as they seem to put up with everything.....or whether another person from Wonderland will make an appearance......

The Queen of Hearts.

'Off with his head!'









 

I never thought I'd say this, said a friend.....

But I'm almost missing Sarkozy!

We both laughed, as Sarkozy hadn't been high in our popularity stakes though he might have done better if he had succeeded in pushing through his reforms of the French economy in the teeth of opposition from his own party.

Then it came back to me...from when I was first in France, at some point the incoming President would be judged in the light of his predecessor....and found wanting. It was just happening a little sooner than usual for Hollande.

That sinister man Mitterand was President when I moved to France and some of the veils were beginning to shift from his past...his service in the Vichy regime....the protection of top collaborators...the suicide of colleagues.....although the bombshell that he had been keeping a second family at the expense of the taxpayer would not be revealed until much later when both families turned up to his funeral.

Then came Chirac, mired in corruption from his time at the Mairie of Paris....and the faces were long.

What a man to follow Mitterand who, be he what he was, could at least use the French language properly! 

Chirac was a rustic...fit only to stroke rumps at the Paris Agricultural Show!

He could stroke a few other rumps too....his boon companion and chauffeur would collect him in an unofficial car at eight o'clock and they were off on the town.

No one knew where he was - probably least of all himself - so on the night that Princess Diana was killed in Paris his Interior Minister had to wait until the President rolled in from his night on the tiles before making decisions on how to handle the affair.

Mme. Chirac was unforgiving. The chauffeur was 'translated' to the post of inspector in the cemetery service.

And after Chirac, Sarkozy...the outsider. The man who was going to shake up France....once he had solved the problem of acquiring a wife to replace the one who had bolted....once he had finished holidaying on the mega yacht of a mega rich friend....once he had dined with his supporters at Fouquets in the Champs Elysees...

Mitterand had had a sombre dignity, Chirac had had charm.....Sarkozy had temper.

He showed emotion...if he was annoyed, everyone knew about it: no waiting a year to send someone to a cupboard in Limoges 'in the interests of the service' for not ensuring that only short arses surrounded the President on televised appearances - the official concerned would be on his bike in very short order.

His appearance at the Paris Agricultural Show was not the regal procession of Chirac either....

To a man who refused to shake his hand he replied

'Casse toi, alors, pauvre con!' which might be roughly translated as 'Bugger off then, idiot.'

For clarity it couldn't be beaten.....but it was felt to be lacking in class.

And now we have Hollande....the man in the baggy Bermudas. 

The man who announced that change was to happen now. 

Except that now was then, when he was campaigning. 

Returning from his holidays this week he announces that change will happen in the fullness of time........

So, while we wait for the reappearance of les neiges d'antan - the snows of yesteryear - let's take a look at  the irrepressible Chirac doing what he did best....enjoying the company of les girls.

Here he is on holiday at Dinan this summer, posing for photographs....note the left hand.

And here he is accompanying his grim wife Bernadette to one of her fund raising events...

And getting into trouble....as he says to his delightful companion 'You have to watch out for women...'

And for the man sitting on Chirac's right hand....Francois Hollande, the great white hope of France.

Just a little something for the weekend....from Rue 89.

For the French speakers among you....General de Gaulle gives his New Year message...from the Other Side........where not even Sarkozy can have him put in detention for 'outrage' to a serving President.


Source...Rue 89, to whom many thanks and awaiting the royalty bill in the new year.

Good Home Wanted for a Man of Straw

In the run up to the French Presidential elections in 2012 a sad case has come to light...as it comes to light at every election.

                                                     Dominique Paille.

                                                              Who?

No, not Dominique Strauss-Kahn, he can look after himself.......Dominique Paille.

This poor man only wants one thing in life to make him happy.

He wants to be a minister.

No, not a minister of religion...a French government minister.

His hand in your pocket.

He has all the qualifications....

Went to the right schools, made the right friends.....

Learned how to use his post as a hospital director to hoover up campaign funds from pharmaceutical companies when he turned to politics......

And, after a couple of misadventures in court over misunderstandings about the proper use of funds, showed that he was truly qualified to be a person in whom the trust of the people could be vested by escaping scot free from a bigger mess, leaving an unfortunate woman who served only as a channel for the transfer of monies to take the rap.

He was maire of his commune...with an accompanying allowance for expenses that qualified locally as halucinatory in its magnitude...and councillor for the department and region, as well as shoving aside the sleepy incumbent to become a deputy for his department.

He had not only his allowance as maire, but his allowances as councillor and deputy...and in those days there was no ceiling on the amount of expenses allowances one could hold, unlike now when the ceiling obliges those concerned not to give up the dosh  over and above the amount allowed, good gracious me no....but to give it away...usually to their wives and children.

A pretty good CV, one would think.
Ideal for a future minister.

So what has gone wrong?

He has two fatal defects.

The first is that he has no sense of which way the wind is blowing....he has an unbeaten talent for changing his coat at the wrong moment and deserting a winning camp for that of a loser.

And the second is that he is unlikeable.

I remember him as deputy.
No occasion was free of his presence from horse trials to the award of medals to the mothers of many.....the hair plastered to the skull, the damp palm, the oily repetition of
'Paille, Deputy.'
As he shook your hand....

His arrogance....local councillors declined to attend his election meetings at their peril...their commune would be cut off from the gravy train.
He would visit communes, and instead of asking about local concerns would spend his time shut in the maire's office on the telephone to his election helpers...at the commune's expense.


The joy when he was overturned at the last election was palpable. Not quite fireworks behind the salle de fetes and a vin d'honneur, but not far off.
For once he had been following the right candidate, but his own defeat put him out of the running as a minister.

He was given a compensation prize, as one of the President's counsellors, ....then he was spokesperson for the ruling party....but the compensation was meagre...only 8,000 Euros a month.

He was put up for election as senator representing the French overseas....he failed miserably.

He was made boss of the Office for Immigration and Integration in January 2011....a safe and well paid haven. But he still wanted to be a minister.

So he changed his coat again in favour of another presidential candidate and, surprise, surprise, was sacked as boss of the Office for Immigration and Integration in August.

Times were hard.

He qualified as a lawyer....not by undergoing a course of study but under the provisions by which those 'appropriately qualified' can become  lawyers without having a clue about the law, thus allowing him to accept money for advice openly as opposed to in briefcases under the table or brown envelopes under the blotter.

Still, it was worth it. Sarkozy's star was dipping toward the horizon and he was going to be a minister!

But Sarkozy's star proved to be the Death Star for Paille.

Dominque Strauss Kahn happened...the Socialist Party was in disarray.....the prime minister made a cock up of the elections to the Senate, and thus to his own hopes of seeing off Sarkozy as the candidate of the right and the Centrists...where Paille had thrown his coat in the ring...decided to back out.

Sarkozy has bounced back and Sarkozy has a mafia like memory for deceit and treachery.
Even if he gives a ministerial job to Paille's candidate, Paille will be out in the cold.
For good.

What remains for this man? Which party will give him shelter?
He's tried most of them in his time and stuck with none.

So, if you have any political contacts and think they could offer poor Monsieur Paille a good home....he'll be waiting on the end of the 'phone...
Let some one give him a home for Christmas....

Sarkozy plays the Bongos

Image via Wikipedia

I am selling my house in France. I have it advertised on the internet together with contact details.

Now, I gather from a friend in France that you call this 'having a presence on the internet'...or you do if you are the Performing Elephant and her ilk who make up in self publicity what they lack in knowledge and talent.

So, having a 'presence on the net' I receive a number of communications from people anxious to put vast sums of money at my disposal as they have entire confidence that I will give it back to them, minus a token million euros or so for what they kindly refer to as my 'trouble'.

Nowadays, some of them are claiming to be ex or serving American army personnel who have come upon untold illicit wealth in Iraq or Afghanistan and need my help to get it past whatever controls might be supposed to exist in these shreds of what were once countries, but most of them are African state governors and bankers.

I don't feel inclined to 'trouble'...but I have kept a note of those needing assistance and when I have sold the house I will be circulating the private bank account numbers  - not the client account numbers - of the local crooked notaire to all those who have contacted me...and devil take the hindermost.

People tell me that these are scams and that involvement in them will leave one on the wrong side financially, but I have reason to believe that people are wrong.

Would President Chirac, President Sarkozy et al participate in a scam?
Yes, of course they would.

Would they however, participate in a scam which left them on the wrong side financially?
No, of course not.

This is how it worked......

According to what an official of BEAC  - la Banque de l'Etats d'Afrique Central which is the central reserve for six states of central Africa - Gabonese officials have been siphoning off vast sums from the reserves for years, most of which appeared to fall into the hands of the then President of Gabon Omar Bongo.

While the PC among us may be shuddering in horror, fearing some link is about to be made between President Bongo and Alan Clark's remarks about Bongo-bongo land as a general term for sub-saharan Africa, let me just say that the remark caused no offence to the President himself.
He sent Mr. Clark one of his election posters ....... 'Gagnez avec Bongo'......advice which Presidents Chirac and Sarkozy took heed to follow.

President Bongo's perceived need was to maintain himself and his family in power.
He succeeded in this aim. After his death, he was succeeded by his son Ali-Ben Bongo.
However, he needed assistance in maintaining economic stability....for the Bongo family...and in quelling unrest...among the not-the-Bongo family, and this assistance was forthcoming from Gabon's ex colonial overlord - France.
This is the 'what is in it for the initiator of the scam' bit.

Moving to the 'what is in it for the person contacted by the scammer' bit it is alleged that President Bongo helped various French politicians, of both right and left but quite possibly not Jean-Marie Le Pen with financial contributions to their campaign funds. Particularly Presidents Chirac and Sarkozy.

I expect in so doing he was making no vulgar bribe -as in the case of Giscard d'Estaing and the Bokassa diamonds - but trying to assist them in their quest to learn from their colonial past.....to remodel France on the lines of post colonial Africa.

To install rule from the top in the interests of national security, where the President, fully informed by the state surveillance services, knows the needs of his people and distributes the goodies accordingly.

A process which might best be described by perverting the sense of Matthew chapter thirteen verse 12:

'For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.'

Don't laugh at me, Argentina...but, on the other hand, why not?

Image by BlatantNews.com via Flickr

The rumbling sound you may be hearing  is not an earthquake about to engulf the lowlands of Scotland, but my father revolving in his grave.

The two Dear Leaders of France and the U.K., Sarkozy and Cameron, have signed a military co operation pact, creating a joint task force which is supposed to make economies of scale and improvements in efficiency while at the same time preserving the sovereign interests of each nation.

President Sarkozy, as always, went straight to the point.
"If you, my British friends, have to face a major crisis, could you imagine France simply sitting there, its arms crossed, saying that it's none of our business?"

Damn right I can.

To be fair to Sarkozy, I think he personally would be willing to push France into action...he is, as his party belatedly found out, not your typical French politician.
But can you imagine the reactions of a more typically 'French' French President?

Mitterand?

Chirac?

And, to think the unthinkable....Le Pen?

Since the latter hasn't forgiven the English for burning Joan of Arc, he probably hasn't forgiven the U.K. for Mers el Kebir either, so he wouldn't be authorising the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle to sail for the Falklands any time soon. Not that he could anyway...the thing spends more time undergoing repairs in dry dock than it does in the water.

Father...who went through the entire Second World War.... had an unchanging view of the French military....

'Buggers let us down in 1914...buggers let us down in 1940...'

A view not ameliorated by learning that the rockets doing so much damage to the Falklands expeditionary forces had been sold to Argentina by the French.

Now, all this may be conflicts long ago and far away and brave men on the ground are usually betrayed by the  politicians far from the firing line, but I think father has something about which to rumble.

Both countries' military hardwear is obsolete, broken or not fit for purpose....as are the supply systems which support them.

One look at the U.K. Ministry of Defence's purchasing system would give a respectable Victorian counting house clerk a case of the screaming habdabs...and it ought to give us one too.
Their French equivalents keep their methods quiet...and have every reason to do so given the incestuous link between political party funding and big business in France.

So, given the chronic shortage of money...since banks and even butter come before guns....and the refusal to shake up both Defence Ministries...the two bright sparks have conjured up this wizard scheme to pretend to their countries that they are capable of defending national interests by joining forces.

So two broken reeds are suddenly going to form one strong tree?
I don't think so.
Another case of smoke and mirrors to deceive the electorate.

It would better behove Cameron and Sarkozy to declare the exact nature of the national interests to protect which they send their young people into danger.

France still sends troops to shore up the dictatorships of their ex African colonies.....whose value to France is not immediately obvious, but whose value to French politicians is......valuable.

The U.K. sends its troops wherever the U.S. directs....the value to the U.K. of such action is negligible, even counter productive but the value of such policies to U.K. politicians seems to be fat contracts with Carlisle on  retirement and access to the speaking tour circuit.

Were they to consult their people...the ones who have democratic rights for a few minutes in a polling booth every so often....they might find a distinctively different idea of national interests.

A first class education system....
A health service which works.....
Cutting the fat from public systems....all the tiers of management, the consultants, the Quangos....
A police service which serves people not politicians.....
Action, not 'initiatives' on the curse of drug use....
Proper care with dignity for elderly people.....

Supporting African dictators and U.S. politicians would not rank highly, I feel.

November 11th will soon be upon us again, when we remember what are called the 'sacrifices' made by the armed forces in all the declared and undeclared conflicts since 1918.

Perhaps we should be remembering rather that these men and women were 'sacrificed' by the politicians of the time and we should honour their memory, not only by wearing poppies, contributing to charities and attending services but by demanding honesty of current politicians.

After all, we're still waiting for the fulfillment of Lloyd George's  wish that the U.K. should be a country fit for heroes to live in.....only ninety two years on.

Bring back Lord Palmerston

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The media are full of the demonstrations against the proposed pension reforms in France with crowds filling the streets of every major town, but I can't get very worked up about it.

There is nothing very exciting about French mass demonstrations. They are very well organised and each band of marchers carries its identifying poster.....the name of its union and the workplace from which the marchers come. The police march at the head of the columns so that they can't be asked to count how many people have turned up and a good day out is had by all.
The chanting isn't very inspiring, either, so the only element of surprise comes in the unofficial placards carried by the less regimented among the marchers......all sorts of clever stuff about offering retirement to Sarkozy, references to the ballooning Bettencourt scandal which involves the minister currently handling pension reform and the one I liked best, which just about summed up the mood of the nation....

'Merde.'

Demonstrations of this sort do nothing to change things. They just demonstrate that the unions are good at turning out the numbers as part of their bargaining game with government.
It certainly isn't the nation in arms. The nation is at home watching it on the television.
Just about everyone thinks that something has to be done about funding future pensions, but no one agrees on what it is, when it should happen and who should be clobbered.
Everyone agrees, however, that it shouldn't be them.

I strongly suspect that one of the major reasons for not sacking Monsieur Woerth, the minister responsible for pension reform and well filled brown envelopes, intimately acquainted with most of the actors in the Bettencourt saga and up to his neck in showing the rich how to conduct vanishing tricks with their money, is that French pension reform has become the modern equivalent of the Schleswig Holstein question, of which Lord Palmerston is reputed to have said that only three people understood what it was all about...Albert, Queen Victoria's Prince Consort, who was dead.....a German professor who had gone mad...and Palmerston himself, who had forgotten all about it.
In this case, the only person who seems to understand it is Monsieur Woerth and that knowledge is what is keeping him in a job.

What I can get worked up about is the mysterious affair of President Sarkozy's birth certificate.

Someone in the benighted town which is being ruined and despoiled by its council and leading citizens referred to here felt he had had a raw deal at the hands of a couple of powerful civil servants, a councillor, and two lawyers.
Not unusual...this is France where such people make a habit of handing out raw deals to anyone who can't hit back.
To express his displeasure, the person in question sent copies of Sarkozy's birth certificate to the objects of his animosity.
Now, why shouldn't he?
It might sound daft, and I am still puzzled as to why the receipt of Sarkozy's birth certificate should be expected to make someone blench and call for the brandy bottle, but whom does it harm?

It turns out to harm the person who sent them.

One of the lawyers complained to the police with the result that all usual activities....following a woman driver round the town for forty minutes to hand out a fine for not having both brake lights working.....walking very fast the other way when the yahoos with pitbulls emerge from the lovely old houses that have been turned into slums.....avoiding the supermarket car parks when the gyppos are in residence....were cancelled and it was all hands to the pump to unearth the perpetrator of this heinous offence.

For offence it is claimed to be.

The lawyer claims...and the local prosecutor agrees....that the person concerned has usurped the identity of those to whom the certificates were sent by representing himself as being the people to whom the certificates were sent when he applied for them online...if you see what I mean.

That'll learn him to bother his betters.

This is the face of France you don't see referred to by the 'living the dream' wallahs.

The mean minded petty spite exercised by those with power.
The outrage that they feel when their power is challenged.
The lengths the system will go to to punish affronts to their dignity.

But there is something more to this than meets the eye.
I could be wrong as, not being French, I have never had occasion to do  this but I thought that when you apply for a copy of a birth certificate which is not your own, relating to a birth which took place in the last one hundred years, you needed to show some relationship between yourself and the person referred to by the certificate, as the latter is regarded as a confidential document.

Quite why a birth certificate should be regarded as in any way confidential in France where you seem to be required to produce one at the drop of a hat to prove that you exist I cannot imagine, but there it is.

So how did our gallant perpetrator manage to have copies sent to all these prominent notables whose identities he is said to have usurped?
What documents did he produce...online...to convince the appropriate authorities to send out the certificates?

I think we should be told.

But, as this is France,we won't be and the couple of civil servants, the councillor and the two lawyers can settle back in peace to watch the demonstrations on the television, as sure as anyone can be in this life that whatever happens, they won't be affected.

In France, their type never are.

Now I know why he got rid of the dog...

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Some time ago, it was reported...and commented upon....that ex-President Chirac was getting rid of his dog, a bichon given him by his grandson, which had apparently turned vicious when deprived of life in the Presidential palace and confined to a luxury apartment in Paris paid for by M. Chirac's foreign friends.
I wondered at the time whatever was going on in the Chirac household, and now we have the answer.

They could not afford to feed it.
No wonder it was taking a grab at the ex-Presidential stomach...it was hoping for something to eat.

Before Monsieur Chirac became Monsieur le President, he was Monsieur le Maire....Mayor of Paris.
In those palmy days, the municipality of Paris awarded its' maire an allowance of some 3,000 francs - about 375 pounds - a day - to maintain himself and his family above the poverty line.
You can buy quite a bit of dog food with that.

Appreciative of being so well treated, Mr. Chirac spread the goodwill about.
As Mayor, he sought to improve local services by having the council 'employ' some 500 consultants....a number of whom, not unnaturally, belonged to the same political party as the Maire.
Unkind tongues suggested that some of these consultants did very little or nothing for their money.
Which was probably as well since few of them had any qualifications which would fit them for these posts.

If only Edith Cresson - other side of the political divide from Mr. Chirac - had had the sense just to pay her dentist instead of giving him a consultancy job when she was a European Commissioner.....and then getting the poor man to produce a report on something of which it was evident he knew nothing....she might not have had to resign.
Mr. Chirac was more intelligent. His - sorry, the city of Paris' - consultants stayed mum and Mr. Chirac stayed mayor.

Then Mr. Chirac became Monsieur le President and moved into the Elysee Palace, his official residence.
He and his family continued to be maintained above the poverty line, but this time the whole country paid, not just the Parisians.
He could afford to feed the dog his grandson gave him.

Unfortunately, his successor as Mayor of Paris, while being of the same political persuasion as President Chirac, followed the consultancy practices of Madame Cresson.
He asked his consultants...who included his wife...to produce something with which to justify their fees.
The results were as one might imagine.
People noticed.
Unkind tongues began to wag again, and investigative magistrates started poking their noses where no self respecting person would poke the end of their walking sticks...into the internal affairs of the city of Paris.
They came to the conclusion that not only had the then maire paid people who produced no benefit whatsoever to the city of Paris but that his predecessor, Mr. Chirac had done so too.

Fictitious employment was the term used.

The maire of Paris found himself in legal hot water.
But not Mr. Chirac.
He was by then, after all, President Chirac, and the President of France has immunity from being hauled before French courts.

Time passed...a young politician called Sarkozy started dating the President's daughter before dumping her for being too dumpy.
Relations became strained between Mr. Chirac and Mr. Sarkozy.

President Chirac finally called it a day and gave his backing to his unelected Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, as the candidate to succeed him in preference to Mr. Sarkozy.
Dirty tricks dogged the Sarkozy campaign, but he became the party's candidate and, in his turn, President.

President Sarkozy took great umbrage at the dirty tricks campaign, and was delighted when it was suggested to investigative magistrates  that Mr. de Villepin had been instrumental in organising some of them  as discussed here.
While it was suggested that Mr.Chirac might have information which would assist Mr. de Villepin, he was not called upon to testify, and did not volunteer any information either.
Mr. de Villepin was exonerated and the state is appealing the verdict.

Investigative magistrates have long memories.
Having patiently waited during the years of the immunity from prosecution of President Chirac, once he was again just Mr. Chirac they reopened the dossier and found that, in their view, public money had been improperly used in 21 cases of fictitious employment while Mr. Chirac had been M. le Maire.

Mr. Chirac denies all impropriety, and the state prosecutor appears to side with him, stating that he sees no case to answer, but the city of Paris, under new political management, launched a civil claim for 2.2 million euros which is what it reckons the fictitious employment cost the ratepayers of Paris.

President Sarkozy went to see Mr. Chirac recently, to discuss the problem and it appears that a solution has been found.

Mr. Chirac has announced that, while he did nothing wrong, he is willing to repay the money on condition that the city of Paris drops its' civil claim.
The City of Paris has been happy to do so.
That leaves just the prosecutor...who is convinced of Mr. Chirac's innocence.... to plead the case before the court, so there doesn't appear to be much risk from that quarter.

Questions remain, however.
Why, if innocent, would Mr. Chirac offer to pay up?
And how is Mr. Chirac, whose daily subsistence is no longer being paid by the taxpayer, to find such a huge sum?
He'd have to economise on an awful lot of dog biscuits.

It's not as if he can do much to reduce his expenses.

He is living on the charity of his friends as it is.
His friends pay for the frequent flights in first class to Japan for himself and his family, where he is rumoured to be very interested in the interior decor of a bank.....
They allow him to squat in a luxury apartment in Paris.....
So the only way in which he could possibly economise was to part with the dog.

Not that the dog was capable of eating 2.2 million euros worth of biscuits.
Ridiculous even to think so.
The little bichon could only consume 550,000 Euros' worth...the sum Mr. Chirac is proposing to pay from his own pocket.

The rest of the money?

Well, this is coming from the UMP, the party of both President Sarkozy and ex-President Chirac.
I am not convinced that the party faithful are too chuffed about money on this scale being handed over to the socialists who control Paris at the moment, any more than I am convinced that President Sarkozy would have willingly rescued his predecessor, but this is politics, after all.

Sarkozy is not too popular with his party after the regional election debacle, and needs to sooth the troubled breasts....thus his support for the idea of supporting Chirac, idol of the bottom patting classes.
Cows that is.
At agricultural shows.

What about the party faithful?
Well, they won't want an innocent man to be financially broken by the demands of his political opponents, but it must be a blow to the party finances.
Thanks to the revelations spilling over from internecine strife in the family of the Oreal heiress, it seems that folding money in brown envelopes was used to finance quite a bit of UMP activity.....even though all large donations are supposed to be declared and very large donations are banned, as tending to notions of corruption.
However, there are other ways.
Almost every French politician worth naming has his own political party, apart from the one he supports.
These micro parties campaign for donations, and then, quite legitimately, pass these on to the main party set up...in this case, the UMP.

So the money necessary to rescue Mr. Chirac from the consequences of what he has not done will be forthcoming without too much pain, although the sale of brown envelopes will be on the rise as the well heeled await the visit of their local politician.

This case makes you count your blessings.

When you're sitting at home this winter, in the part of the house you can afford to heat contemplating the electricity bill with the cat on your knee, just imagine what it must be like to be an ex-President, dependent on others for the very roof over your head and forced to part with a beloved pet.

Your heart bleeds, doesn't it?

Normal service will be resumed....

Image by Wisconsin Historical Images via Flickr

Summer is over, and life returns to normal.

Families are storming the aisles of the supermarkets in search of school notebooks with pages divided into little squares...which I feel somehow accounts for the way the French think...firmly within the box with the lid nailed down.

Having returned from their holidays, the railway workers are going on strike shortly, but this might be preferable to what happened recently while they were still at work when some bright spark managed to mix up the front and the back of the train at Lyon station so that those going to Milan ended up in Zurich and those going to Zurich ended up in Milan.
Fans of Fawlty Towers will not be surprised to hear that the train came from Barcelona and that the driver knows nothing.

A person somewhat detached from reality drove into the courtyard of the President's residence, the Elysee Palace, at four in the morning...only it wasn't the usual person somewhat detached from reality who is still on holiday in the south of France taking a break from presidential duties.
Let no one blame the gendarme responsible....considering what he must see passing him on a daily basis - ministers, politicians, foreign dignitaries - a car with a flashing light must have appeared quite innocuous.
Even at four in the morning.

Gypsies of Roumanian origin are being returned to Roumania, whence they will return to France in due course, thanks to the open borders of the European Union and the services of Eurolines.

Gypsies not of Roumanian origin are being moved from noticeable encampments to less noticeable encampments  so that they 'cannot be found' by tax inspectors reluctant to enter into dialogue with the owners of top of the range cars, caravans and chainsaws.
This must be part of the campaign to reduce government spending as I calculate that for every tax inspector entering a 'travelling people's' encampment - here - you would need to add the services of a platoon of riot police; the tear gas and rubber bullets associated with same; the services of ambulance, fire brigade and hospital personnel, the cost to the social security system of the resulting time off work of all those enumerated above and, last of all, the big expense - the fees of the spin doctors who will present the fiasco as a success for the law and order campaign.

Austerity is the watchword..not that any politician dares use it...but, as usual, it is more do as I say rather than do as I do.
Having announced big cuts in ministerial budgets and arranging to sell off quantities of government property to pre-selected bodies, the President still sees fit to maintain his official residence off the coast of the south of France even though he actually spends his summer hols with the in-laws at Cap Negre nearby.
However, he did use the fort to have a meeting with his Prime Minister and two other colleagues recently....either to justify hanging on to the place or because he was ashamed to have people visit a house with sewage disposal problems.

Out in the sticks, though, local government has been listening.
The big end of summer event locally is a fete with demonstrations of old farming machinery..... real 'Walter-Gabriel-falls-in-the-threshing-machine' stuff....and tractor agility competitions.
It attracts a lot of farmers, and anything that attracts a lot of farmers attracts a lot of local politicians, anxious to court their votes.

Wherever you have politicians you have speeches and this fete is no exception.
First up is the deputy....the member of parliament.
He belongs to the opposition so has no access to the gravy train. Thus his speech is full of promises about what he would do if he could.
Next up is the local member of the Conseil General...the county councillor.
He belongs to the majority political party, but the opposition controls the county council and the regional council, so his access to the gravy train is extremely limited too and his speech is thus a mirror image of that of the deputy.....just reverse everything.
Then we have the leader of the Pays.......a body which claims to represent the local communes. He wants to know what the first two speakers are going to do about all the things that they have carefully not mentioned in their speeches.
Finally we have the maire of the commune which houses the fete and we turn at last to serious matters.

'Who is going to pay for the vin d'honneur?'

Now, in rural France, people are willing to put up with the endless speeches. They are the tax you pay for access to the table full of glasses and the racks of bottles and casks behind......the vin d'honneur.

Normally, for this fete, the Conseil General provide the wherewithal, but, as the maire points out to the audience who are by now in a state between open revolt and cardiac arrest, this year, it has decided it cannot afford to do so.

After a great deal of extempore oratory from the floor the maire calls for order and announces that, exceptionally, the commune will pay.
Clearly he has prepared his coup well in advance as minions promptly appear with tables, paper covers and boxes of glasses while others push in trolleys with the casks and bottles and the usual rush of the gadarene swine begins, to the hum of approval for the maire's respect for rural tradition.

For once, the politicians do not circulate, but make a discreet departure, shaking hands with the beaming maire.

I am not so sure that the inhabitants of his commune will be so happy when they get their local tax demands next year, though.

The funding of local authorities has changed under the Sarkozy regime and the Taxe Professionelle - the tax on businesses - has been abolished. Unfortunately, this was one of the main resources of income for local government, so while business rejoices home owners tremble.
After all, when in search of revenue, the easiest thing is to go for assets which cannot be hidden....like property.....and it has been estimated that the average homeowner will be paying about 200 euros extra on their property tax bill next year to compensate for the loss of the Taxe Professionelle.

Not content with that, the local land registries have been geed up to make a re-evaluation of property values with a view to raising the tax base and, accordingly, I have received a form H1 with an annexe to form H1 which requires me to enumerate the number of shower trays and washbasins I possess and to venture out with a tape measure to confirm the extent of my outbuildings.
Among other things.

I have a source at the local Land Registry.
Deep Thirst.

Deep Thirst tells me that the panic is on. Apparently, there hasn't been a re-evaluation for years with the result that old houses which had been given a minimum of wash basins and shower trays in the 1970s are taxed at a higher rate than houses which acquired their washbasins and shower trays later.
I know this to be true.

Despite reporting that I had converted a two bedroom house to a four bedroom house in the 1990s, I was still paying less property tax than did my neighbour with a two bedroom house which had been assessed in the 1970s. No one in that period was interested in the property tax...they had the Taxe Professionelle.

However, this being rural France, while the panic might be on, the panic is selective.

Deep Thirst informs me that while I have received an H1 and its' annexe, as have the Americans who bought the place at the other end of the commune, the notaire who managed to sell the Americans the house together with two fields which did not, as it happened, belong to it, and who is busy converting the stables and outbuildings of the chateau in the next commune, has not and will not be the happy recipient of an HI and annexe.
Neither will farmers.

Of mattresses and men

Image via Wikipedia

When it comes to eggs and baskets, the French state likes you to leave all the former in an easily accessible model of the latter, so that it can dip in its' hand whenever it is a bit short of ingredients for the omelette.
It knows what you have in your bank account, it knows what property you own and it knows which shares a bank is charging you an arm and a leg to hold on your behalf as you are not permitted to hold such dangerous things as share certificates yourself.

Unless, that is, you happen to be extremely rich and fond of subsidising major political parties by way of the folding stuff handed over in brown manilla envelopes, which, given the amounts concerned, need to be the size of indian restaurant takeaway bags for a party of ten.
If you are in this category, you can own an island in the Seychelles 'unknown' to the authorities, can receive a thirty million euro rebate on your tax and have the wife of the finance minister to manage your money.

Among other advantages.
I am willing to bet that you never thought that investing in race horses could be classed as support to small and medium business enterprises - with the appropriate tax refund.

Now, for all the gory details of the Woerth-Bettancourt affair and what the butler heard you can go to any newspaper for better and more up to date information than you will find here....just remember, Sarkozy's days are numbered and you saw that predicted here first.

Not that the demise of the Sarkozy regime will bring any relief for the two or three taxpayers left in France once you discount those sectors of the population excused boots for being either too rich or too busy producing children.

His party, the UMP, which realised with a shock that he was intent on replacing their traditionally privileged group with his own group - the blingocracy - have abandoned him already.
If they had not, you can be sure that the lapdog French press would not be circulating stories about Sarkozy attending Madame Bettencourt in person to collect his doggy bag.
Once in command again, the UMP will carry on in the best French tradition of obliging the population to carry out the requirements of Major Dennis Bloodnok's government loyalty oath...

'Open your wallet and repeat after me...help yourself.'

Which explains why, traditionally, the French keep their money in mattresses.

The mattress does not impose charges for holding your money.
The mattress does not dish out your money to someone without your permission and shrug its' shoulders when you discover the anomaly.
The mattress is never too busy discussing its' aunt's digestive problems with another mattress to respond to your demand for access to your money.
The mattress does not close down for the week end and the holidays.
The mattress can keep its' mouth shut.

The only way of attacking the mattress is to set fire to the house - in the case of mattresses stuffed with paper money - or change the currency.
I wasn't around when de Gaulle devalued the franc, though the older people even now speak in terms of millions of centimes when discussing property values, but I was around when the euro was introduced.
The world of the mattress was shaken to its' foundations.
What to do with the money?
How to change it for euros without going near a bank?

Well, for the savvy British with francs they did not want to acknowledge, there was an easy answer. Nip over to the U.K. and change it for pounds sterling, wait for E day, nip over again and change it for euros. No passports, no formalities, and back to the warm embrace of the mattress with minimal loss.

This was not an option for the heartland of the mattress, rural France.
It did not know many savvy British and if it had it would have been convinced that putting your francs into the hands of Perfidious Albion was tantamount to lighting the fire with your banknotes, but without the accompanying warmth.

A lot of money went into the purchase of nearly new cars, where the cash transaction reflected the differing positions of buyer and seller as to ownership of mattress money.

Money was distributed around the family to be fed into the banking system, with the consequent feuds when it was returned discounted for any tax liability incurred by the family member, plus a little more for his or her 'trouble'.

Property purchase at the time was remarkable for sums of 'under the table' money changing hands while the notaire retired to wash his hands.
This again, needed detailed calculation of the relative mattress positions of buyer and seller and took a great deal of hammering out before the actual date of transfer.

Despite their best efforts, though, a lot of mattress money leaked back into the banking basket at the changeover to the euro, and was thus available to the government by way of tax.

A situation that mattressland has been trying to remedy ever since and with increased vigour now that 'austerity'  is upon us thanks to the sublime folly of banks and the governments they control. Mattressland knows that governments, when desperate, take desperate measures, and the less money you have exposed to their thieving claws the better.

I can remember an earlier government initiative to extract money from mattresses which took place when I had not long begun to live in France.
My French was not all that good at that stage, so I might well be mistaken about some of the details, but I do know that a lot of elderly people had been seduced by high interest rates on savings accounts into disembowelling their mattresses and taking the contents thereof to Credit Lyonnais, Credit Agricole and the Post Office.

All went swimmingly for a while until, locally at least, disaster struck.
As I remember it, there was a problem with payments to the MSA - the farmers' insurance firm into which you were obliged to pay if you held any land classed as agricultural in nature. Payments had been withheld and the MSA was showing its' teeth. I could be wrong about this, but that is how I remember it.

Jules, normally a quiet, slow countryman, turned up on my doorstep one morning panting in agitation.
'You've got money in the Credit Lyonnais, haven't you?'
The ability of the French to know all about your private business has never ceased to astonish me, but I answered in the affirmative.
'Then there's no time to lose! The bastards are freezing the accounts! Get your coat and come on!'

I took my coat and cheque book and joined the group packed into Jules' car which groaned and rumbled its' way into town, parking in the main square. Luckily it was not market day,when the square was taken up by stalls, as the place was packed with cars.
'Word's got out! Quick!'
We all spread to our various banks, where the queues were outside and lining the pavements. At intervals, customers emerged with handbags clutched under their armpits or small satchels hugged to the abdomen depending on sex and hurried away with their booty.
I had no idea what was going on, apart from not wanting to risk losing access to my money, so in my turn I went to the desk and drew out all except a few francs to keep the account open.

When I emerged with my handbag clutched under the armpit, I was a bit less flustered and as I looked around for Jules and party, I was able to take in the atmosphere.
For a small, quiet town, it was humming. There were the queues outside the banks and Post Office, but the streets and squares were full of people too, chatting and laughing now the worry was over...they had managed to withdraw their money and the relief was palpable.

There were, of course, those to whom the possession of actual money in the hand and the absence of their wife to control use of same went to the head.
Jean's wife telephoned him from her place of work in the town, from which vantage point she could see Papy making the tour of every bar on the square, to get him to come and collect his revered parent before he could spend the lot.
Alain was discovered by the council street cleaners draped over a bin outside the market building.
Michel came home the day afterwards. No one, including himself, had any clue as to his whereabouts in the missing hours.

It dawned on me that evening that what I had been participating in was a run on the banks....that horror of the nineteenth century when savings would be lost and families ruined as banks went down....but in this case, everyone had got their money back. What had been going on?

The postman had the answer when he called the next afternoon.
The Post Office had got wind of whatever measure was to be taken and had ordered up massive reserves of cash, then, being the fine local organisation that it was, had warned the other banks as well, so that all had managed to fill their strongrooms before the mad rush of the mattressmen began.

I compare that to my last visit to the Post Office when I wanted to withdraw two thousand euros without giving any warning of my intentions. The clerk did not turn a hair, but the new 'financial counsellor' was walking through behind the desk and asked me what I was planning to do with it.
That's something else about the French...very uninhibited in asking about your private affairs in a public place....but I digress.
I replied that I was planning to hire mercenaries to overthrow the French government - well, stupid question, stupid answer - and a voice from the queue said
'I'll do it for nothing.'

Frustrated in France

Don't get all excited, this is not the title of a post in one of the many British immigrant fora in which the disaffected, the disappointed and the downright demented pass their time while living the dream in the depths of rural France.

I drop in on some occasionally - usually by going for the wrong option on the menu of sites presented - and the level of venom on some of them is startling. There are the odd oases of pleasantness, where people are genuinely trying to help others with queries, but the overall tone is one of self satisfied smugness. So my visits are rare.

Neither is it the second of the unfulfilled promises.  I have been alarmed to note that as I mark material for the subject of sex among the snails it seems to be taking on the dimension of the classic three volume Victorian novel......the Trollope of the troglodytes.

No it is the depressing return to the realities of French public life.

Recently, communes have been commemorating the deportation of Jews under the Vichy regime duting the Second World War,  so the maires and councillors lay flowers and make speeches just as in all the other ceremonies over the year.
However, it is customary to ensure the presence of school children for this commemoration and not only their presence but their  participation.

In the next department, one school asked one of the few surviving deportees to describe what had happened to her as their contribution.
The elderly lady did so, producing a simple description of events which served better than any diatribe to illustrate the horror of the process she had undergone, and the contribution was sent off to the mairie.

In her statement, she said that she had been arrested by three gendarmes. Nothing more was said about the involvement of the police and gendarmerie in carrying out the orders of the German occupying power, no perjorative remarks were made about the three officers concerned.

The maire was of the view that no mention should be made of the gendarmerie at all. The occasion was one of reconciliation, not the opportunity to settle old scores and he decided that the statement was not acceptable.

The elderly lady would make no alterations, and the teacher of the schoolchildren concerned made a protest to the maire, who dismissed it as a politically motivated stunt, since the teacher was a member of the Socialist Party while he was a member of the ruling UMP.

Only in 1995 did France, in the person of President Chirac, acknowledge responsibility for the fate of Jews in France under the Vichy regime, but the subject is still one to be treated with kid gloves, and with the UMP regrouping after the disastrous regional election results on a 'law and order' policy, a UMP maire was clearly not going to tolerate any criticism of the gendarmerie, even more than fifty years after the events concerned.

Britain was not occupied in that war. It would be unthinkable for anyone who had not undergone that experience to say how French people should have reacted.
However, the avoidance of the subject by the higher echelons of French society is significant.

A general acknowledgement of error has been made, but, in a hierarchical state like France, the 'hoi oligoi' does not find it wise to let the 'hoi polloi' get it into its' head that criticism of the regime is a possibility. Thus, in my view, the over reaction of the maire.

There is another factor.

Sarkozy came to power offering reform of the creaking, anachronistic French system.
He has been largely undermined and his plans brought to naught by his own folly - the cartoon court of smaller than life characters, the navel gazing, the 'jack the lad' behaviour on public occasions - but his party, the UMP, realised with a shock how much his reforms threatened the comfortable web of control in which they lived and sucked the lifeblood of the nation, and they are fighting hard to reassert control.
Criticism, events which recall the reaction of their predecessors in the period of the Occupation, are unwelcome. They tarnish the myth of 'every Frenchman a Resistant' which was promoted to hide the unpleasant realities of life in France under Vichy. They tarnish the image of the caste which has ruled France ever since.

So, given the political sensibilities, just how is the elderly lady to explain how she was translated from her home to a place of horror and death?

Sarkozy's season of illwill is upon us

The summer switched itself off dramatically into frosts, then rain, and now gales.....and the leaves started to fall. As did the bills.

This is the time of year when I keep a bottle of whisky and a comfortable chair by the back door, for emergency aid when opening the daily post, which seems to to consist solely of demands for money which I would rather spend on other things...like whisky and comfortable chairs.

I have recovered from the income tax bill....I will never recover from the bill for paying off the various deficits undertaken by successive French governments - the CSG - which just about doubles the income tax bill....the taxe professionelle taxes me considerably in every sense of the word, but, at least, they all come in the good weather. The taxe fonciere, the taxe d'habitation, the water bill, the electricity bill and the house insurance renewal all arrive in the dead season of the year, when the days grow rapidly shorter.....as does, I feel, my life expectancy. I suppose that in summer I am busy, warm and relatively optimistic, while at this time of year the bills are just one other indication that life feels nasty, brutish and short.

Still, worse is about to befall me. President Sarkozy has decided to alter the way in which local government is funded. At the moment, the greater part of local government revenue comes from the tax on business, the taxe professionelle, and, as part of his reform package, he wishes to lighten the burden on the productive part of the French economy by reducing the taxes to which it is subject. Wonderful, one might think, but there is a downside. How is local government to react?

Faced with the loss of revenue on one hand, and growing responsibilities on the other, local government is looking about itself to find another source of revenue to replace the business tax and has, as always, lighted upon the obvious source of revenue, one which cannot, by its' very nature, be hidden. Property.

It is proposed to undertake a re-evaluation of property with a view to increasing the revenue from the taxe fonciere, the property tax, which already reaches obscene proportions. Last undertaken in the 1970s, I believe, this re-evaluation exercise will no doubt be an opportunity for dubious gradings and inefficient adjudication, which will further depress the property market just as it starts to pick up again.

To sweeten the pill, the tax hike will not be visited upon current proprietors, but will come into force when a property changes hands, so that prospective purchasers, already burdened by the exorbitant costs involved in buying a property, will find themselves facing a potential property tax well above the amount paid by the vendors.

All this begs the question of what local government is to do to fill the 'hungry gap' between the demise of the business tax and the realisation of the new property tax. No one seems to know.

The proposal has further divided the ruling right wing party, the UMP. Sarkozy, for all he is a product of the Paris microcosm, needed the support of the rural right wing vote to be elected, and the rural right wing deputies and senators are deeply opposed to proposals which weaken their power base in local government. Further, these representatives are of the Chiracian persuasion - cattle shows and wine fairs rather than the culture of the capital - and Sarkozy, with his recent history of blunders in respect of the Clearstream case, his culture minister's proclivities and his son's abortive ascent to power, is seen as vulnerable to pressure from the old guard of the UMP.

General Cambronne, when called upon to save the lives of his soldiers of Napoleon's Old Guard after Waterloo, announced - it is said -
'The Guard dies, it does not surrender.'
What he actually said is more in tune with the view currently taken by the old guard of the UMP.
'Merde.'

Oysters and 'r's.

Here somes summer, and the oysters of Arcachon are off the menu again. I forget why...it will either be poisonous algae or poisonous effluent, but at least down there it won't be radioactivity.

Still, there are plenty of other alternatives, as long as you keep an eye on your map of leaky coastal nuclear power stations while you are making your choice. Pretty safe with Cancale and Belen, nice round traditional oysters from Brittany, and anything down the Vendee coast., though these are the craggy Portugese oyster......just keep clear of Normandy's offerings with the Cap la Hogue power station dribbling goodness knows what into the waters. I wonder if President Sarkozy will be offering President Obama Normandy oysters when they meet for the D Day commemoration, or whether the U.S. secret service will veto the suspect offerings?


I used to enjoy oysters when in the U.K., though the price of Colchester natives even then would make your hair curl if you bought them in Wheelers. I used to buy them from the oyster stall on Mersea Island in those far off days when a cheesecloth blouse on a young woman in summer would bring about a fit of absentmindedness on the part of the chap selling his wares when it came to counting the oysters he was handing over. These days I expect you could strip down to your Agent Provocateur knickers without any effect on the price or weight.


Initially, France put me off the oyster. It was the fault of the fruit de mer, that stomach turning plateau of cooked shellfish of uncertain age and origin combined with living things in shells awaiting their fate at the hat pin provided for each customer. Having noted that the incidence of food poisoning went up when the local supermarket reduced its intake of shellfish from twice to once a week, I went off shellfish in a big way.


My repugnance was not overcome by the French New Year thrash....the Sylvester. Oysters are obligatory at these events which are great in every other way and French hospitals cancel all staff leave in order to be ready for the rush of the 'oyster knife through the palm of the hand' injuries , resulting from opening oysters at speed while having drink taken. I wondered whether it was because the craggy Portugese oyster was more difficult to open than the horseshoe type, but I have come to the conclusion that is probably the amount of 'drink taken' that is the deciding factor.



Then the family came down for the summer and went to the seaside for the day, to a resort they used to go to when the children were young, returning with a basket of craggy oysters. We sat outside at the wooden table perched precariously on the slope under the trees and ate them with relish...they were plump, juicy and a far cry from the miserable specimens of the winter months. I was reconverted to oysters!

It made me think...at New Year the shops and stalls are awash with panniers of oysters, collected especially for the winter festivities...it is the major selling point of the year. How long have these oysters been sitting about in the viviers, or holding tanks, let alone in transport and stacked up in the loading bays of the supermarket delivery systems? An ex neighbour of mine, a retired Paris bus driver of a careful turn of mind, told me that when he buys oysters for the New Year he insists that the panniers are opened in front of him and that he tries the contents. He had been disappointed too often before starting this practice.

'They don't like it, but, damn it, it's my money I'm spending!'

I wonder, too, if, as well as the freshness factor, the feeding is better in the summer months. A friend goes down to the islands off the Atlantic coast in the summer and comes back laden with buckets of wild oysters which he distributes lavishly...they are a real treat, but even the shop bought oyster is now firmly back on my summer menu, whether it is clear, milky, or, in the case of the oysters from Marennes, green! And I don't have to wonder if there is an 'r' in the month. It doesn't matter!

Sarkozy's aeroplane

The President of the French Republic is buying a 'plane. He would like to have bought a new one, but, given the current atmosphere in France, even he does not dare to make such a gesture of conspicuous consumption, so he's getting a second hand one from Air Carraibes. It will, of course, be getting a makeover including a bath for Carla Bruni.

Aparently he feels humiliated by the size, age and performance of his existing equipment when compared with that of other world leaders, who may be more stupid than him...step forward the Prime Minister of Spain.....or who need more guidance than him....step forward the German Chancellor...but who manage to arrive at gatherings well briefed and relaxed thanks to having modern planes in which to travel.

Personally, I don't think the President should make the old plane in which he is forced to bum around the world the excuse for his infelicities of language.

Did he fly from the Elysee Palace to the Paris Agricultural Show on the other side of town where he met the man who refused to shake his hand, resulting in the lapid pronouncement

'Sauve -toi, pauvre con!' ?

A reasonable translation of which might be

'Go away, oh illegitimate one.'

Perhaps his car needs a makeover as well. And a bath for Carla Bruni.

Which brings me to another point. The President can address his fellow citizens in this fashion, but woe betide them if they attempt to use the same liberty of address with him. Presidents are protected from insult.....like prefects and gendarmes and goodness only knows how many other state apparatchiks.

Recently, a French citizen hoisted a placard as Sarkozy's motorcade passed him. It read

'Sauve-toi, pauvre con'.

The said citizen has just been awarded a fine of 1,000 Euros for 'outrage'.

The President has been under attack for his general sloppiness of language and for his scornful disdain for a classic of french literature, 'La Princesse de Cleves', a seventeenth century romance written in the high style, which seemed to be necessary reading for those studying to become apparatchiks. His predecessor, Jaques Chirac, was never held in his time to be a master of the language...a touch bucolic, ideal for patting cows' bottoms at the Agricultural Show or elsewhere, and certainly not up to the standards of the Academie Francaise, whose ex president, the novelist Maurice Druon, has just died, more noted for his attempts to prevent lady ministers from being called Madame la Ministre than for his lurid accounts of the lives of the medieval French kings. President Mitterand, nomatter how unlovely his history and activities, could express himself perfectly in classic French, but things have gone decidely downhill since his time.

Still, citizens can take heart. The President's wife is not protected by the idea of 'outrage', so I can say that Carla Bruni needs a bath without fear of the gendarmes beating down my door at three o'clock in the morning. That is not to say that I don't have to fear a bailiff arriving at 10 o'clock with a civil writ for defamation, but that's another matter.

Sarkozy's revolution

Finally, my car will have an identity for life.....well, it will if I buy a new one.


In the run up to the last presidential elections, the Socialist Party candidate, Segolene Royal, promised more jobs for beaurocrats and the more right wing candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy, promised law and order and economic and educational reform. Monsieur Sarkozy won and all France has been waiting with bated breath to see what would result. A couple of years down the line he has turned round the ship of state and produced.....national numberplates for cars.

Let joy be unconfined.

I don't care for M. Sarkozy. I don't care for Mme. Royal either. I would not trust either of them as far as I could kick them with the future welfare either of myself or France, however, it must be admitted that I do like the new numberplate proposals as a step in the right direction of simplifying life in difficult times.

French local government has several levels. Before President Mitterand, it just had communes and departments, but he thought that this was frustrating for the budding politicians and beaurocrats seeking a chance to get their noses into the trough and invented regions, between departments and the state. Later reforms introduced things called 'pays' between communes and departments, as opportunities were seen to be still unfairly limited.

Harking back to before the French Revolution, the country was composed of provinces, like Poitou, Anjou, Berry, Provence, all annexed to the French crown at different times and conserving different traditions, laws and, of course, taxes. While the French crown did its' best to create uniformity, differences persisted, as in the tax on salt, the 'gabelle'. Regions were either subject to the little gabelle or the big gabelle and salt smuggling was big business between the salt pans on the Brittany coast and the regions on the other side of the river Loire. Thus, the government, or, more exactly, the tax 'farmers' who paid the government for the right to collect taxes, set up tax collection points at the boundaries between regions. There is a very nice tax office at Chinon, beside the river Vienne, for example, and there must be plenty of others if you want to do some research...the tax was known as 'octroi'.

The Revolution abolished the provinces and set up the departments in their place, named after the rivers that ran through their territory. Octroi was abolished likewise, but its ghosts still clanked their chains when it came to registering your car.

All was well if you bought a car in your own department.....you obtained a certificate that nothing was owing on the vehicle and that was that. However, if you were so disloyal as to buy a car in another department, then you had to get the first department to certify that it was free of outstanding claims and then pay to register it in your own department, and get another number plate! All time and money which will be saved under the new provisions.

Saving time and money? How unFrench! What a revolution!

Sarkozy's scooter

Monsieur M'Hamed Bellouti must be relieved. Over three years after the original incident, a French court has overturned the decision of a lower court that he acted maliciously in alleging that a scooter owned by one of Sarkozy's sons damaged his car. He doesn't have to pay Sarkozy's son 2000 Euros, either.

In the autumn of 2005, Monsieur Bellouti was driving his father's BMW in Paris traffic when a scooter barged into his rear bumper in heavy traffic. Not pausing to exchange insurance details, the rider drove off, making a rude gesture. Monsieur Bellouti's passenger had taken the number of the scooter, so there should have been no problem in bringing its' owner to book.

M. Bellouti's insurance company could get no response, however, and eventually told him to contact the police, as it is an offence not to fill out insurance forms in case of traffic accidents. It was at this point that he discovered that the registered owner was one Jean Sarkozy, son of the then Interior Minister, now President of the French Republic. He accordingly made a complaint, but, months later, when he asked what had happened to it, he was told that there was no trace of a complaint ever having been made! He had had enough...the damage was not severe, and he was sick and tired of following it up, so he let the matter drop.

In January 2006, he changed his mind. Jean Sarkozy's scooter had been stolen, and the Paris police were on full alert...no effort was spared to recover the vehicle....and recovered it duly was within days. DNA samples were taken from helmets, mobile telephone calls located..and the Interior Minister proclaimed himself very pleased indeed with the efforts of his men. M. Bellouti compared that with the history of the 'lost without trace complaint' and decided to take up his claim for damage once more. This was when his life changed.

After informal efforts to resolve the case failed, he sought a lawyer...only to find lawyers sadly lacking...at least three refused to take the case, citing fears for their careers, before he found one to take him on. The lawyer tried to settle things out of court, but, finding this imposssible, served papers on Jean Sarkozy. Well, he tried to. He had to try several bailiffs before finding one bold enough to tap on the door of the Sarkozy residence.

Finally there was action from the Sarkozy camp. An offer was made to settle the affair, but, as the date of the hearing approached, no further advances were made. In court, instead of one judge, as would be usual for such a trivial affair, there was a college of three, who passed the buck by demanding a judicial evaluation of the damage before coming to any decisions. The 'expert' announced that it was impossible to make any evaluation, given the time elapsed since the original incident, and the case came back to court for judgement.

In the meantime, M. Bellouti was receiving threatening 'phone calls, advising him to drop the case, and drop it he did, only to pick it up again when he discovered that Jean Sarkozy's lawyer had contacted M. Bellouti's insurance company, posing as M. Bellouti's lawyer, to extract information.

The case came back to court. The expert now produced a report....impossible though he had thought it to do so originally...stating that a scooter could not have damaged the bumper of the BMW, based on a letter he had sent to the new owner of the car asking for photographs!
Jean Sarkozy said he wasn't on the scooter at the time, but in classes at the University. He didn't have any witnesses, but, hey, this is a Sarkozy we're talking about here! He also said he never lent out his scooter.

The court decided that Jean Sarkozy had no responsibility whatsoever, and, further, that M. Bellouti was guilty of bringing a malicious prosecution in that he must have acted in bad faith! Oh, and he had to pay Sarkozy 2000 Euros in compensation.

Outraged, M. Bellouti appealed.
Outraged, Sarkozy appealed...for more compensation.

The prosecuting authorities having decided that no further proceedings could be brought against Jean Sarkozy, the question before the court was that of the malicious prosecution, and, happily for M. Bellouti, it quashed the verdict of the lower court.

What is the moral of this story? Next time you drive into someone's car and they get out waving their insurance claim form, tell them calmly and clearly that you are the son, daughter, uncle, aunt, pet dog of..........name your own minister of the French Republic......and advise them in their own interest to pay you 2000 Euros to go away.