As a post-script to the still running Quebec quote. Leigh Phillips rightly pulled me up for calling Jean Charest Quebec’s prime minister, when in fact he is the province’s premier. However, the rest of France does not know this (and may be taken as yet another example of their almost total ignorance of the province they claim to hold close to their hearts). As the affair has blown up, the French press and radio without exception as far as I can see refer to Jean Charest as “le premier ministre de Québec” (including Le Monde), and Gérald Dahan, the practical joker who rang up Mme Royal claiming to be Jean Charest with a personal message, introduced himself as “le premier ministre de Québec”. Mme Royal probably still has not realised that such a post does not exist, and that anyone calling himself le premier ministre de Québec must be faking it.
Gérald Dahan impersonating Jean Charest took in Mme Royal totally. They had a good conversation in which Dahan/Charest said: “It’s as if we said Corsica must be independant” To which Royal replied: “The French would not be against that either.” She then burst out laughing and said: “But don’t repeat that. It will start another incident. It’s a secret.”

Dahan, if readers don’t know him, is extremely good at his trade: he phoned the trainer of the French soccer team and Zinedine Zidane just before a big international, claiming to be Jacques Chirac. He asked both men that every player should press his hand to his heart as they stood on the turf during the national anthem. Solemnly, they all did.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 27th, 2007 at 4:25 pm and is filed under General France. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.