Pave: The Lady Protests Too Much Redux

Le jour 139 de Sarko

Il faut qu'on sorte un peu de la frénésie actuelle. Les Français ne peuvent pas vivre dans un tourbillon permanent.

[One must ease up on the current frenzy. The French cannot live in a permanent whirl.]

Dom,
then-PM, now self-appointed conscience of the Republic,
fainting for France
September 23, 2007 (RFI)

Dom girl-slaps Sarko for, um, well, for attending to the business of France. Dom's girl-slapping is getting to be something of a weekly performance as he struggles to bob above the fold of page 11. Here he is four weeks ago:

VILLEPIN BERATES SARKOZY'S STYLE
September 5, 2007 (BBC)

See our post here.

Here Dom is three weeks ago:

DE VILLEPIN HITS AT SARKOZY OVER SCANDAL

PARIS September 13, 2007 (MSNBC/FT) - Before his appearance in front of the investigating magistrates, Mr de Villepin sent them a 23-page dossier [here reported as 80 pages] detailing his defence and launching a fierce attack on the president.

Mr de Villepin complained he would not get a fair trial because the judicial process had been "privatised" in favour of the president, who was a plaintiff in the case and who also presided over the supreme council of magistrates.

The former premier suggested the affair had been concocted to damage him. "If I had an interest in harming Nicolas Sarkozy, isn't it conceivable that Nicolas Sarkozy had an interest in harming me?"

Conceivable? Oh, perhaps, just as it is possible to entertain the notion of St. Ségo. Probable? Believable? Not on what is in evidence.* If Sarko had contrived Clearstream, how odd that the key players are Dom's political master and bitter foe of Sarko, a friend of Dom's, a crony of Dom's, and a sympathetic associate of Dom's?

Mr Sarkozy's allies say the former premier is simply settling scores. Others suggest his attacks are designed to draw publicity to his recent book on Napoleon [Le soleil noir de la puissance].

Is it conceivable that France's favorite bad author is only manufacturing cheap publicity for another book on its way to the overstock bin?

And below is last week's squawk from which we pulled the lead quote:

VILLEPIN CRITIQUE LA «FRÉNÉSIE» DE SARKOZY
[VILLEPIN CRITICIZES SARKO'S "FRENZY"]
September 23, 2007 (RFI)

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* To follow the Clearstream investigation, see our posts here and here and here and here and here.

PFFT (What is this?): Squawking for attention 3½ | Rayonnement français 0