Scandal opens rift in French government

HALFWAY through France's shared "cohabitation" government, the placid relationship between the Socialist Prime Minister and Gaullist President has been jolted by last week's resignation of the Finance Minister, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, in a welter ofrecrimination.

The sight of the country's two leaders trading insults in the wake of the affair has exposed a strain of political venom normally kept well hidden by the demands of decorum, and revived questions about the long- term viability of France's bizarre bicephalousexecutive.

"The veil has fallen," said an exasperated editorial in Le Monde. "Now we can see the true face of cohabitation, a scrap between two adversaries each abusing the authority of office to get in his punches."

For President Jacques Chirac, nominally head of France's fractious and de-moralised right-wing opposition, the scandal over Socialist party funding which precipitated Mr Strauss-Kahn's downfall came as a godsend. Sensing the chance to maximise the government's embarrassment, the President's camp briefed loyal MPs on how best to needle the Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, during question time at the National Assembly.

Plainly irritated by a question from a representative of Mr Chirac's RPR implying that the Socialist party had regularly received funds from the MNEF - the students' insurance body at the heart of the Strauss-Kahn scandal - Mr Jospin launched an uncharacteristically blunt attack on the Gaullists and, by implication, the President.

"If you are looking for an organisation or a party-based system where management of the structure and personal benefit have been intimately connected for twenty years, ladies and gentlemen - don't look in my direction," Mr Jospin said.

The undisguised reference to the continuing judicial investigation into Gaullist rule at the Paris hotel de ville, where a system of fake jobs and corrupt contracting practices are alleged to have been used for syphoning funds into RPR party coffers, drew a withering response from the President. "The President expresses his surprise at the Prime Minister's remarks," a statement said. "If something needs to be said, let it be said clearly, not insinuated. The conduct of public affairs requires responsible politicians to exercise self-control and maintain their sang-froid."

By yesterday both sides said that they had called a truce, but there is a nasty after-tastewhich suggests that the second half of their cohabitation - a downhill run to presidential and parliamentary elections in 2002 - will not be as easy as the first. Already there was another spectacle as the two leaders ran an unedifying competition to be the first to arrange a visit to the new King of Morocco.

For Le Monde, this cohabitation has shown itself to be "unsupportable. The country can no longer be governed in this state of vague uncertainty."