Quick end to striptease during French political party's evening entertainment

It's clearly not an easy job holding public office and refraining from "putting your foot in it" occasionally with a throwaway comment especially in these days when every remark can be picked up so easily on a mobile 'phone and quickly find its way to a wider audience via the Net.

Surely that's why advisors, spokespeople and spin doctors are on hand to ensure damage limitation when necessary.

And without question, putting politicians in a potentially compromising position is something organisers of any event to which they're invited strive to avoid.

Well you would think so, wouldn't you?

Somehow though that simple reality seemed to have escaped organisers of a soirée for parliamentary members of the ruling centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP) last week.

The party's good and great from both the National Assembly and the Senate were gathered for two days in Le Touquet in northern France to talk about matters political; planned reforms, economic growth and a whole host of other issues.

As is the case with such meetings it wasn't a matter of "all work and no play" with an evening's entertainment in one of the town's hotels being organised to which parliamentarians along with their wives, staff and journalists were invited.

As the weekly satirical newspaper Le Canard enchaîné, reports precautions were taken to ensure that there wasn't a repeat episode of what had happened just a few weeks earlier at the party's summer conference in Seignosse in southwestern France.

That was when the interior minister, Brice Hortefeux, was captured on camera making what many in France considered to be a racist comment.

A lesson learned apparently as those attending the soirée were requested to leave their mobile 'phones in the cloakroom.

A move that was probably just as well given the circumstances because, as the newspaper reports, part of the evening's entertainment included a performance by "two superb creatures very skimpily dressed."

Yes someone had apparently booked a couple of strippers for the audience's enjoyment!

Now what had exactly been running through the minds of those who had arranged for the two young ladies to appear in the first place must of course be open to question.

But the reaction of those present was less than enthusiastic, says the paper with many, such as the party's secretary general Xavier Bertrand and the junior minister for housing, Benoist Apparu, more than "keeping their distance".

After less than 10 minutes though (thankfully) someone had the presence of mind to usher the two women out of the room, and they never returned.

So a potentially embarrassing incident avoided and nothing harmful that could have made its way to the Net, although the two women didn't seem to understand why they hadn't been allowed to continue their performance if what they're quoted by the newspaper as saying is anything to go by.

"We came from Paris and we had been booked for the whole evening," they said.

"And we had brought with us four suitcases packed with different costumes."