As the center-left daily Liberation commented in a lead editorial two weeks ago, France 'no longer has a government, it has a raft. A raft that has been floating for weeks toward dark shores where discredit reigns.' (Sorry for the mixed metaphor, but this is French journalism). 'And that drags with it a whole country, mocked abroad, staggering under the moral decomposition of an executive that, in response, has hinted at the worst skullduggery.'..., French Scandal Fricasee, Kenneth R. Timmeramn FrontPageMag.com
Ou va la France?
French scandals are about money, not about sex, as Timmerman notes. And lots of money has flowed under the Chirac bridge to the new French order, which is, of course, the old French order. French scandals are often very funny also. To wit...
In the late 1950s, during the Algerian crisis, Francois Mitterand was a fading star. A very ambitious government official from before World War II, through Vichy (occupied France), where he was an official, then the Fourth Republic, where he a leader in the Socialist Party of France, Mitterand was a minister at a young age, but then fell out of favor. Anxious to re-light his star, he hired four Algerians living in France to stage an assassination attempt on him. The day arrived. Mitterand, proceeding in a Citroen with his later-to-be-famous expressionless grandeur, was ambushed by the four Algerians, who panicked after the first blank shot was fired. Mitterand, fleeing from his car while the Algerians surrendered to the police, found himself in the middle of a high society lawn party. He shouted of his plight to all the wrong people, for the Algerians confessed at almost the same time in a local police station. It was news all over France within hours. Mitterand was utterly disgraced and vanished from public life. Not surprisingly, by 1980 he became the President of France. C'est la vie politique en France! (Story derived from from Mitterand et Les Quarante Voleurs, by Albin Michel, 1994.
I'm not sure what will save Chirac this time. After the riots of last Fall, and now the revelations that he was involved in a conspiracy to fake evidence of corruption by his leading competitor for the Presidency (Nikolas Sarkozy), it doesn't look good for the Le President. Timmerman isn't so sure.
In the end, Sarkozy will come up smelling like roses. But that doesn’t mean he will win next year’s elections...Watch out for the return of neo-fascist Jean-Marie LePen. When corruption strikes, his popularity soars....(French Scandale Fricasee, Timmerman, continued.)
Luther
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