In a scene
from second-rate film that was shown on TV last night, a woman chef who has
just been engaged as the personal cook of the French President is being taken
through the daily routine by a protocol officer:
“At 11am
you will know if your proposal for the day’s menu has been approved and how
many guest to prepare it for. You then have two hours to prepare the meal - lunch must be served at 1.15pm sharp”.
“But ever
since I arrived”, she protests, “I’ve only heard about procedures and protocol. Could
I not speak to the President himself to ask him what he likes and what he is
expecting of me?”
“That’s not
the way we do things here” the supercilious protocol officer replies, “If the President wishes to speak to you, he
will let you know.”*
Listening
to this dialogue, my immediate reaction was that it could have taken place over
200 years ago in the Château de Versailles with the word “President” replaced by
the word ”King”. Look no further for a neat illustration of the phrase “the Republican
Monarch” that has often and aptly been used to describe Presidents of
the Fifth Republic.
Does this
Republican Monarch indulge in dirty tricks to disparage and damage his political
opponents? That, after all, is what the right-wing presidential candidate,
François Fillon, accused the current President of, very clearly, in a political
talk show last Thursday evening. He
quoted from an as yet unpublished book (Bienvenue
Place Beauvau) written by three journalists, in which they are reported to
describe how various bits of information gathered from police nosing and eavesdropping
are reported directly to the President. The French police are under the authority of
the Ministry of the Interior which is housed place Beauvau in Paris, just a few
yards from the Elysée Palace. In an interview the next day, one of the authors contradicted
Fillon’s claims that the President had set up a special "dirty tricks office" (un cabinet noir) but
went on to say that although he and his fellow authors had marshalled evidence
for such activities since the beginning of the Fifth Republic in 1958, they
were totally unable to prove anything, however much they would have liked to.
Another journalist, asked what he thought of Fillon’s accusations, avoided answering
the question but considered that Fillon was simply trying to deflect attention
from his own misdeeds. Yet another noted that there was probably no such thing
as a "dirty tricks office" but that the President had people in whom he had full confidence
in strategic posts so that he is always in a position to know the results of
intelligence gathering activities.
* Unless otherwise stated, all translations from French and German in this blog are my own.
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