the dissident frogman

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French President Nicolas “Tricky Nick” Sarkozy just reshuffled his gang of Socialists-in-suits, and while the Prime Minister François Fillon resigned fully knowing he’d be reappointed straight away¹, there’s been some actual change of windbags at the Defense Ministry (France’s DoD, if you will).

Hervé Morin is out, Alain Juppé—a fixture of contemporary French politics, and one of the heinous Chirac’s most trusted henchmen—is in.

Some would say “again”, and follow that by a resigned yet aggravated sigh.

As I was preparing to go through my files and proceed with the tedious translation to English of Juppé‘s remarkable record (for a given value of “remarkable” and strictly in the context of French government, of course), I found out that the Daily Mail has already done the job.

Life being already too short to waste it on anything French, I hereby declare the Daily Mail a blessing upon us all, and wave you in the general direction of its article on the man who will, from now on, be in charge of French armed forces (don’t laugh).

This may even be a short read indeed, as the Daily Mail masterfully put everything you need to know about that Gallic trash in the title: France appoints its new Defence Secretary – a convicted criminal jailed for misusing public funds and banned from office for ten years

No, really. That’s all you need to know about Alain Juppé.