The French government's million-billion loan muddle

It's an easy enough mistake perhaps getting a few zeros confused especially when the amounts involved are to most of us pretty mind boggling.

But it's not really the sort of error you would expect from a government purportedly more adept at matters financial and charged with balancing the nation's books.

That however, is exactly what the French government has been up to recently, proudly outlining on its official site how the planned €35 billion loan, announced by the president, Nicolas Sarkozy, earlier in the month "to boost the country's competitiveness and fund the best universities in the world" would be spent.

On Christmas Eve it went online with a breakdown of how the money would be apportioned to each of the main sectors such as universities, small businesses, sustainable development and the digital economy that would spearhead Sarkozy's plan to ensure that France could "fully benefit from the recovery, so that it would be stronger, more competitive, and create more jobs."

Except someone clearly got in rather a muddle as to the number of zeros involved, or simply repeatedly hit the wrong letter on the keyboard (after all it can easily happen to those unfamiliar with the French AZERTY layout) because the 35 billion suddenly became a rather more modest 35 million.

And there the blunder remained for all to see until the afternoon of December 29 when the figures were corrected.




For those who might have missed what was - as the government's press service assured - "a mistake" - the national daily Le Figaro helpfully published a screen shot of the "million-billion" mix-up.

Perhaps it was the timing of the release that left the rather embarrassing miscalculation in the public domain for four days.

After all who in their right mind would take a break from the Christmas festivities to take a glance at what was on the government's website?

But of course it's not the first time the French government has had problems with the flow of information making it on to its own site.

Back in August it published the names of Frédéric Lefebvre, Axel Poniatowski and Paul Giaccobi as three new junior minister appointed to the government, before quickly taking them down again the same afternoon in what initially described as a "technical problem" and was later explained as "human error".

Sarkozy appoints new ministers - oops, no he doesn't

It was a rumour that had been doing the rounds of the Net for some time and certainly ever since the reshuffle at the end of June: the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, was about to appoint three new ministers to a seemingly ever-increasing government.

And briefly on Friday the speculation seemed to be confirmed when the official website of office the prime minister, François Fillon, "appeared" to have made the announcement.

The names of Frédéric Lefebvre, Axel Poniatowski and Paul Giaccobi popped up as new junior ministers on Friday afternoon, visible to anyone who logged on to the site, curious to have a look around at the composition of the French government.

Some might have thought it odd that there hadn't actually been any official announcement of the appointment, but surely not as strange as what happened a couple of hours later.

Their names and profiles disappeared from the site. In other words the three "newbies" had barely been ministers for three hours before they were to all intents and purposes de-ministered.

Initially the explanation from the prime minister's office was that there had been a "technical problem", presumably a way of saying a "bug in the system".

But the blunder - because that's what it was - was later attributed (of course) to perhaps the much more credible "human error".

Apparently one of the webmasters had entered information she was filing into the wrong place, and rather than it being hidden, it was published "live".

Oops.

So no new job for the moment for any of the three men and Lefebvre is reportedly less than happy over the incident.

The spokesman for the ruling centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP) had been hoping and expecting to be named to the government back in June.

But if media speculation is to be believed, he and the others - plus the rest of the country - will have to hang on until next March to discover whether there'll be another government reshuffle.

That's because Sarkozy is now thought to prefer to wait until after the regional elections before making any more new appointments.

Ah the wonders of the Internet. Great when everything runs smoothly and just as it should. A bit of an embarrassment when there's a glitch or someone presses the wrong button.