The “French Watergate”

I really should be writing an item for the magazine's Inbox section right now, but this de Villepin story is just too juicy not to blog. For those who want to get caught up on what they’re unimaginatively calling the "French Watergate" (to the certain dismay of the Académie française), the BBC have a handy ...

I really should be writing an item for the magazine's Inbox section right now, but this de Villepin story is just too juicy not to blog. For those who want to get caught up on what they’re unimaginatively calling the "French Watergate" (to the certain dismay of the Académie française), the BBC have a handy timeline.

I really should be writing an item for the magazine's Inbox section right now, but this de Villepin story is just too juicy not to blog. For those who want to get caught up on what they’re unimaginatively calling the "French Watergate" (to the certain dismay of the Académie française), the BBC have a handy timeline.

De Villepin has come out fighting, denying all the charges and telling the National Assembly: “I've been the victim in recent days of a terrible campaign of slander and lies, a campaign which has profoundly shocked and wounded me.” Meanwhile, Sarkozy has signed onto a law suit by those named in the forged document claiming “slanderous denunciation.”

Ironically, if de Villepin does have to resign, Sarko could be the real loser. As Charles Bremner, The Times (London) correspondent in Paris who has been all over this story, points out, a new PM could steal some of the limelight away from Sarko ahead of the ’07 presidential election. And who knows, maybe even become a viable rival to him which de Villepin, who is edging ever closer to having the lowest approval rating of any prime minister in the history of the fifth republic, is certainly not.

James Forsyth is assistant editor at Foreign Policy.

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