Olivier Falorni - well and truly "April Fooled"

Remember Olivier Falorni?

He's the man who, after having received the support of that infamous Tweet from the former first lady Valérie Trierweiler, went on to beat Ségolène Royal, the Socialist party's official candidate for La Rochelle, in the 2012 parliamentary elections.

(screenshot Le Grand Journal, Canal + January 2014)

It was a defeat which stymied Royal's chances of being chosen to be the president of the national assembly and left many wondering whether she would ever make a return to frontline politics.

Meanwhile Falorni took his seat in parliament, joining the group of the Parti Radical de Gauche, (Radical Party of the Left, PRG) rather than that of the ruling Socialist party.

And little or nothing was heard of him in the national media...until last week that is.

Because the 42-year-old was the "victim" of an April Fool: one played on him by the comedian and impersonator, Gérald Dahan.

April 1 was the day the newly-appointed prime minister, Manuel Valls, was busy putting together "his" new government - and an ideal opportunity for Dahan to continue his practice of playing pranks on well-known people (and especially politicians) by ringing them under the guise of being someone else.

He has done it before to the likes of, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, Nicolas Sarkozy and, yes, even Royal.

It might not always be particularly clever or amusing, but it invariably reveals more than the butt of the joke might wish to be made public.

And that's exactly what happened on April 1.

Dahan rang Falorni, pretending to be Valls and wanting to know whether the 42-year-old would be interested in a job in the new government.

During the course of the conversation, Falorni disclosed what he (and many others) thought of Royal: how she was "uncontrollable and unpredictable" and how working with her (or under her as a junior minister) would be unthinkable.

But as you can hear from the clip which Yann Barthés and his team at Le Petit Journal on Canal + (inevitably) played on Friday evening's edition, Falorni eventually agreed to accept a position in the government with Royal as his immediate boss.

There are also some delicious behind-the-scenes disclosures from Falorni as to how many of those public alliances between "leading" members of the Socialist party are...well "surprising" to say the least.

Le Petit Journal du 04/04 - Gérald Dahan imite Manuel Valls et piège Olivier Falorni

Nadine Morano a racist? Of course not - some of her best friends are Arabs

You kind of know that when someone comes out with that sort of statement (or variations on the same theme to deny they're a homophobe or sexist for example) they're leaving the door wide open to accusations of indeed being what they're claiming not to be.

The claim that because some of her friends are Arabs she cannot be described as a racist is just the latest in a very long list of statements Nadine Morano has made over the years which have put her fairly and squarely in the firing line for ridicule.

Nadine Morano (screenshot "C à vous")

Morano,  you might remember, was the woman for whom there was no difference between "Renault" the French car manufacturer, and "Renaud" the singer.

Oh yes, Morano was well known for her blunders during her time as a junior minister and later a full ministerial post under her former boss Nicolas Sarkozy.

She was one of his most fervent - rabidly so, some might say - supporters, not afraid to disengage her tongue from her brain and whenever television, radio or press needed a rent-a-mouth quote, Morano was on hand to oblige.

Her views already appeared at times somewhat extreme in a centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP) party some of whose members often flirted with the ideas of the far-right Front National (FN).
She once described gay pride parades as an "excuse for exhibitionism" and on another occasion she earned the wrath of the French anti-racist non-governmental organisation SOS Racisme when she turned around and said France's young Moslems should, "dress properly, find a job and stop speaking slang".

So perhaps it should come as no surprise that Morano's real colours shone through during the recent parliamentary elections.

First of all Morano gave an interview with the weekly far-right magazine Minute in which she openly called on those who had voted Front National in the first round to help her defeat her Socialist party rival Dominique Potier in the second-round run-off for the Meurthe et Moselle constituency seat she was trying to hold on to.

"We share common values," she said of herself and those FN voters.

And shortly after that interview appeared, Morano found herself "tricked" by radio presenter and comedian Gérald Dahan, who rang her pretending to be Louis Aliot, FN's vice and the partner of the party's leader Marine Le Pen.

Morano told "Aliot" (Dahan) that Le Pen was a woman with "a lot of talent" and the Front National a party which had "a lot of social policies with which I agree."

Fear not though, because Morano is clearly neither a racist nor a xenophobe - in the same way as the FN is simply a party which has built up its support based in its belief in the importance of French values and the threat they are under from immigration.

How do we know?

Because Morano said as much on the early evening magazine "C à vous" on France 5 last week, when she was talking about how difficult the parliamentary campaign had been and how hurtful she had found all those inaccurate accusations of racism.

"Some of my closest friends are Arabs," she said, saving the best to follow.

"And then there's my best friend who is originally from Chad - so she's even blacker than an Arab."

Oh dear.

Out of government and out of parliament (she lost in that run-off against Potier) let's just hope it's a long, long time before we hear from Morano again - if ever.