Say it ain't so, Dominique

Just when you thought French politics were back to flat-lining after the presidential election, this news in from Paris: the former French prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, may soon be investigated for trying to frame his onetime rival and current French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, in the so-called Clearstream affair.

I wrote about Clearstream in Reason more than a year ago. This comes amid reports that Sarkozy may appoint one of two Socialist Party bigwigs to replace Rodrigo Rato at the International Monetary Fund (link in French). With Villepin already a political corpse on the right and a powerful Socialist perhaps on his way to Washington, Sarkozy will have fewer headaches in Paris.

 No wonder the French take six weeks of vacation a year.