UDI leader Jean-Christophe Lagarde proves French politics is still a family affair

Some establishment French politicians just don’t get it do they?

With the new president, Emmanuel Macron freshly installed in the Elysée palace and his party,  La republique en marche promising a new kind of politics as it aims for a presidential majority in the upcoming French legislative elections, “morality” is pretty much top of the agenda.

So with that in mind, what does a leading figure from one of the country’s other parties do?

Here’s a clue. He (the name will be provided in a moment proves that the time-honoured tradition of political nepotism is alive and kicking and will undoubtedly  be a hard nut to crack (heavy on the clichés here) as it’s so ingrained with the political establishment.

No the talk isn’t of the Le Pen dynasty from the far right Front National - they’re well beyond redemption.

Nor is it of the Fillons, François and Penelope (and children), who successfully contrived to lose the rightwing Les Républicains a spot in the second round of the presidential elections with their seemingly never-ending stories of overpaid and underworked “family employment” (inverted commas because the case is now before the courts).

This time around it involves the leader of the centre-right Union des démocrates et indépendants (UDI) Jean-Christophe Lagarde.

Jean-Christophe Lagarde (screenshot BFM TV)

The 49-year-old is running again in June’s parliamentary elections and, as new rules kick in preventing politicians from simultaneously holding office at different levels (one of those other more-than-warped traditions of French political life), Lagarde has quite “magnanimously” offered to step down as mayor of Drancy (a town in the northeastern suburbs of Paris) and hand over power to the sixth in line among his deputies.

Yes, you read correctly, the sixth in line.

An odd choice?

Apparently not, Lagarde assured the popular daily, “Le Parisien”. The recommendation came collectively from his deputies as the “first in line didn’t want to succeed him” and numbers two to five “didn’t have the time”.

So “number six” it is then, Lagarde’s former parliamentary assistant (until 2014) and current regional councillor, Aude…Lagarde…wife of!

Bye bye Bruno - French interior minister quits amid “fake jobs” scandal

Well, well. Who would have believed it?

French politics delivers yet another dose of déjà-vu.

After little more than just over three months since taking office, France’s interior minister, Bruno Le Roux, has resigned.

Bruno Le Roux (screenshot)

And the reason? Employing family members as parliamentary assistants.

And not just any old family members - in fact far from being “old”. Rather his two daughters when they were still teenagers and at school, and later as university students.

“Of course, I employed my daughters during the summer or school holidays,” Le Roux admitted to Yann Barthès’ daily TV satirical programme on TMC “Quotidien” which broke the story on Monday.

“But never permanently.”

It was a defence he repeated when announcing his resignation on Tuesday.

Oh well, that’s all right then. Temporary contracts for a total of around €55,000. Not bad “pocket money”.

Does Le Roux’s story sound familiar?

French politicians taking advantage of a system which allows them to employ family members at the expense of the tax payer.

Um - think François Fillon and “Penelope gate”; the former prime minister and current presidential candidate for the rightwing Les Républicains, who apparently “employed” his wife, Penelope and children over a number of years for the modest sum of €800,000.

The inverted commas are required because Fillon is currently under investigation for “possible abuse of public funds” or in other words “employing his wife (and children) for potentially non-existent work”.

“Conspiracy”, “witch hunt” and “political assassination” are the terms that have been used by Fillon and his supporters over the timing of the revelations and the speed with which prosecutors have proceeded with their investigations.

But no such claims yet from Le Roux - who resigned within a day of the allegations being made public.

There again, he didn’t have much choice. As minister of the interior he would have been in the indefensible position of potentially having access to information relevant to the inquiry.

The problem in both cases is that neither man sees himself as having done anything illegal because employing family members as parliamentary assistants is…well, not illegal.

But what about the morality?

Oh yes...it's politics. How silly to think otherwise.

French journalist Vanessa Burggraf gives Philippe Poutou a lesson on how to humiliate a presidential candidate…without trying too hard

Media bashing has, in the wake of The Donald’s tediously repetitive “fake news” and “alternative facts” diatribe, become something of a recurring theme in the French presidential election.

Some supporters of the centre-right (although there’s not too much “centre” about him) candidate François Fillon, have been only too keen to lay the blame for the so-called Penelopegate affair (charges that Fillon had employed his wife, Penelope,  as a parliamentary assistant for the modest sum of €900,000 for work that was perhaps never done) at the proverbial door of journalists. The controversy has highlighted the shameful (but, it has to be said, not illegal in France) practice of disabusing tax-payers’ money and prompted the judiciary to get involved.

And the far-right’s Marine Le Pen…well, she’s more in the mould of The Donald in launching regular barbs concerning biased reporting or insufficient media coverage for the Front National while at the same time popping up whenever invited on prime time news to polish and preen her electoral image.

Journalists in cahoots with the political classes? Well, it makes for good fodder and it doesn’t matter whether it’s true (or fake or even an alternative fact). Most pundits would agree that the French are generally pretty cheesed off with their elected (national) representatives as a whole (and who can blame them?)

Vanessa Burggraf (screenshot "On n'es pas couché")

And an event on Saturday evening, will surely for many, only “add grist to the mill” (love a good cliché) that journalists and politicians are in their own little Parisian bubble - far away from the concerns of the general electorate.

It happened during a segment of Laurent Ruquier’s weekly talk show on France 2, “On n'est pas couché”.

The invited political guest was one of the so-called “minor candidates” in a field that currently boasts a total of 49  (although not all of them are expected to be able to gather the required signatures to be able to stand) Philippe Poutou from the far-left Nouveau Parti anticapitaliste.

Philippe Poutou (screenshot "On n'est pas couché")

One of Rouquier’s regular interviewers, Vanessa Burggraf, proved her full journalistic credentials in posing a question about the role of company bosses in preventing redundancies but somehow never managed to wrap her lips around what she really wanted to ask, especially after she was interrupted by the show’s host.

There then followed over two minutes of buffoonery from Burggraff, Ruquier and others as Poutou looked on, bemused and evidently uncomfortable. After all, his party - and it doesn’t matter what you think about its policies - is one the declares itself to “look after the little guy”.

Complete humiliation for Poutou, totally shameful on the part of Burgraff and Ruquier and simply unnecessary.

After all, the recorded segment could simply have been edited. But it wasn’t.