Plenty of entertainment in the murky world of French politics at the moment, dirty tricks popping up everywhere you look: a former premier ministre facing prosecution, the current president suing a former secret service boss, a left wing politician being spied on by the MD of a weapons company, who in turn is suing the former for defamation, and last but not least, the French president's personal bank account being hacked by a couple of petty thieves, who apparently only took small amounts to try and avoid detection. Personally, I'd have cleaned him out and published the details.
The Clearstream affair rumbles on in the background. Former PM Dominic de Villepin is facing prosecution for turning a blind eye to what he supposedly knew was the falsified list of accounts holding bribe money. De Villepin in turn talks darkly of policital pressure on the judiciary. Meanwhile, his bête noir, Monsieur Le Président himself is suing a former boss of the French Secret services for libel and invasion of privacy after extracts from the latter's personal notebooks were published in a French magazine. Precise details of the dirt he has on Sarko are glossed over in the media...
Sarkozy seems to be developing a taste for using the courts in his private life. A few months ago he became the first sitting President for 30 years to do so when he sued a journalist who published details of an alleged SMS message from Sarkozy to his now ex-wife. He later dropped the case when the journalist backtracked and apologised. And now he's threatening to sue a company which has produced a voodoo doll in his image. About time someone stuck pins in him...
Another, unrelated side show at the moment is the attempt by the boss of the French branch of Taser, the company that produces the 'non-lethal' Taser gun to squash Olivier Besançenot, the leader of one of the numerous left-wing political parties in France. Last week Besançenot reported an attempt to bug his house to the police, and 10 people were subsequently arrested during the investigation, including the head of Taser France, 2 private detectives and several policeman (presumably off-duty at the time). All this preceded the start of a court case in which the Taser France boss (who admits having asked for 'checks' on Besançenot) is suing Besançenot for defamation after he suggested in his blog that Tasers were probably responsible for the deaths of as many as 150 people in the US. Meanwhile the latter is threatening to sue the former following the break-in and bugging of his house. Who said the US was the most litigation-loving country in the world?
