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.

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