Hortefeux to take legal action over two Citroën C6 car claim

Yes it's still summer and government ministers here in France are due back at work this week, but that hasn't stopped silly stories making the headlines.

This time around it's the ongoing saga of the interior minister, Brice Hortefeux, and the report by the weekly car magazine, Auto Plus, back in July that when he first took over his new job the month before, one of Hortefeux's first acts was to order two spanking brand new luxury Citroën C6 cars.

You might remember the magazine revealing that cost of the two vehicles was a cool €100,000 (read story here) - hardly the best example of political budgeting in a time of financial restraint.

A spokesman for the ministry issued a formal denial, but the author of the report and the magazine's deputy editor-in-chief (one and the same), Pierre-Olivier Savreux, stuck to his guns issuing a challenge which to all intents and purposes amounted to his saying, "Prove that the story isn't true".

Well, if the reports carried in the French media this week turn out to be true, then Savreux could in a roundabout way have his wish granted.

The national daily Le Figaro is reporting that Hortefeux is prepared to go to court to defend his name. That's right, the interior minister is apparently preparing legal action declaring that the magazine's report "propagated false information".

Now Hortefeux might well be best buddies and a longtime political ally of the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, but does he really need to emulate his boss by resorting to the courts?

Apparently so although it's unlikely that he'll get anywhere near approaching the lengths to which Sarkozy has taken since coming to office.

You might remember that Sarkozy spent quite a chunk of time in court during his first 18 months of office.

All right maybe he didn't actually pitch up himself, he had a lawyer to do that, but all the same he managed to resort to French justice to pursue civil suits more than any other president in the history of this country's Fifth Republic - six in total.

The infamous case of the voodoo doll seemed never-ending while others, for example the alleged text messages to his former wife, were dropped before they reached the courts.

Maybe Hortefeux, who'll surely have better things to do with his time in the upcoming months, has nonetheless decided to take a leaf out of the president's book.

Or perhaps he'll let the matter drop once the only new car ordered (by his predecessor in the job, Michèle Alliot-Marie, according to a ministry spokesman back in July) makes its apparition at the end of the year as scheduled and the other one fails to materialise.

Presumably that'll all the "proof" necessary for Auto Plus to retract its original story and print an apology.

Watch this space.

Economic crisis? What crisis?

It's good to see politicians setting a good example to the rest of us, especially at a time when most countries are grappling with the economic downturn and in France, as elsewhere, the short term forecast at least is far from rosy.

As you might have read there was a government reshuffle here a couple of weeks ago, a chance for the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, to get rid of some ministers who hadn't been performing up to his standards, bring in some new faces and above all reward those close to him.

Among them of course was Brice Hortefeux, Sarkozy's long-time buddy and political ally who, back in June 2007 had been given the newly-created immigration portfolio, switched to employment five months ago and finally got his hands on the office (apart perhaps from that of prime minister) which he had been widely believed to have coveted when he replaced Michèle Alliot-Marie as minister of the interior.

With the change of ministry of course came a change of staff, offices, and cars.

Yes ministers need cars (plural) and chauffeurs to speed them from one appointment to another, departments need pool cars and they (the vehicles) have to be up to the job.

Fair enough, not just a simple perk of the job, but undoubtedly a necessity.

Except in its latest edition, the weekly car magazine Auto Plus, has a few harsh words for the reported decision of the newly-appointed interior minister, to order two new cars unnecessarily.

According to the magazine, Hortefeux, ordered two brand spanking new, top-of-the-range, luxury (enough superlatives?) Citroën C6 cars. Yes "luxury" exists within the French car industry too.

The cost - a cool €100,000.

As is often the case in stories such as these, the version from the ministry tells a different tale with a spokesman, Gérard Gachet, issuing a formal denial saying that Hortefeux hadn't ordered any new vehicle.

Hortefeux hasn't ordered new cars, "He's using the one that was already at the disposal of Michèle Alliot-Marie," he told the Le Parisien.

"The other car is a Citroën C6, ordered before he took over office and part of the regular renewal of vehicles," he continued.

"It'll be delivered at the end of this year and will replace a car that has been in service since 2007."

So a pretty open-and shut case with the denial suggesting that Auto Plus had got its story wrong.

No so, insists the author of the report, the deputy editor-in-chief, Pierre-Olivier Savreux

He's sticking by wrote saying that he has a source from the car manufacturer itself that the order for two (rather than one) cars was placed after Hortefeux took over at the interior ministry.

And Savreux even challenges the ministry to prove otherwise.

"If the ministry actually wants to send us a copy of the order (showing its version as to when it was placed) then I'll be prepared to make a correction in the next issue," he told the website Rue89.

So Auto Plus stands by its story while Hortefeux's ministry maintains its position.

Perhaps when the court of financial auditors makes public the accounts of the various departments for the year ending 2009, just as it did last week for the Elysée palace during 2008, we'll know which version is true.

But by then of course it'll be too late.