The News You've All Been Waiting For

DSK (allgedly) has a new girlfriend:

Plusieurs photos dans VSD montrent l'ex-patron du FMI enlaçant une femme qui se prénomme Myriam, "pétillante quadragénaire", "célibataire", "occupant un poste à responsabilités dans une grande chaîne de télévision", selon le magazine.

DSK & Wife Split

Didn't I read just this morning that DSK and Anne Sinclair were suing Closer for reporting that they had split? Why yes, I did. But now ... I guess private is private, until it isn't.

The La Rochelle Drama

The French press has been distracted by the Trierweiler-Royal saga from the real story in the 1st District of Charente-Maritime, which is why a second banana like Olivier Falorni is in a position to eliminate one of the Socialist Party's elephants next Sunday. Some polls have Falorni winning with 58% of the vote, which is extraordinary. Royal is not une parachutée in the region. She has been its governor for years. To be sure, her candidacy was imposed by the national party on the local federation, but it is a district that has been reserved for a woman, so Falorni's challenge was a break with party discipline. Why are the rank-and-file voters supporting him? Is it Royal they resent? Is it the presumptuousness of the national party? Are there local issues that are driving this contest? The press has been remarkably uninformative about all this, preferring to concentrate on what the media clearly hope will be a mud-wrestling, hair-pulling contest between the "president's two women," as Hollande puts it. All this is diverting enough on a human level, but it leaves out the politics of the situation.

As for some of the overheated reaction in the comments section of a previous post, I can only say I am flabbergasted by the blindness that partisanship can induce. Hollande's connubial arrangements may be unconventional, but his predecessor's marriage to a gauchiste songstress who warbled about her "trente amants," who had affairs with a father and son, who slept with rock stars and prime ministers, and whose nude pictures can be found all over the Internet hardly fit the traditional mold either and certainly alienated more right-wing voters than Trierweiler's tweet is likely to alienate left-wing voters. As one commenter said to another, "Get a grip!"

Normal Presidency Ends, Cat Fight Begins

Just when you thought things couldn't get any more normal, Valérie Trierweiler (allegedly) tweets support to Olivier Falorni, the dissident Socialist who may defeat Ségolène Royal in Poitou-Charente.

I think the press was getting a bit bored with normality and endless Socialist victories. So now we have something to replace Mélenchon vs. Le Pen.

Mais, mon dieu, ça manque de classe. Hitherto sans faute, the Hollande presidency is now in danger of becoming a laughingstock.

The PS and Karachigate

Mediapart has another revelation: the Socialists knew about financial irregularities in the sale of submarines to Pakistan, and they knew that the kickbacks had been used to finance the Balladur campaign. But they chose to sit on that knowledge rather than blow up the political system by transmitting the information to an investigating magistrate. It will be interesting to hear their reasons. To be sure, they were cohabiting at the time with Jacques Chirac, Balladur had used the money to try to defeat Chirac, and Jospin no doubt thought it might ease his relations with the president to transmit this bombshell information to him and let him decide how to use it. Assuming he didn't already know. Fascinating story.

No État de Grâce, Part Two

As for le président sortant, the news greeting his departure is almost as bleak as the storm that soaked Hollande at the Arc de Triomphe. His former collaborator Thierry Gaubert has been mis en examen. No sooner has Sarkozy returned to normal citizenship status and equality before the law than he must feel the judicial noose tightening around his neck:

Affaire de Karachi : Thierry Gaubert annonce sa mise en examen

L'ancien collaborateur de Nicolas Sarkozy a été mis en examen pour blanchiment aggravé dans le volet financier de l'affaire, a-t-il annoncé mardi. Interrogé à la sortie du bureau du juge par l'AFP et iTélé, il a qualifié cette décision d'"absurde". (AFP)

Dommage, M. l'ex-président. It seems that no one will have an état de grâce in 2012.

First Anniversary

It's the first anniversary of DSK's arrest. And tomorrow François Hollande will be inaugurated as president, a possibility I never would have imagined on May 13, 2011.

Did Sarkozy Take Money from Qaddafi?

So, Mediapart, which has been after Sarkozy on the Libyan connection for months, finally claims to have a smoking gun. Sarkozy's camp in turn calls Mediapart une officine de gauche. It is the last week of the campaign, when low blows are historically a commonplace. On the other hand, this particular case has been smoldering for some time, occasionally flaring, then subsiding again. Take the news for what it's worth. As for me, Anne Lauvergeon's comments on Sarkozy's relations with Qaddafi are damning enough, with or without a $50 million bribe. Still, that's a lot of fric.