The main French opposition party, the Socialists - delighted to have an issue to distract from their own internal back-stabbing - have accused the President of "scandalous collusion" with parts of the media.

The Elysée Palace, dismissing calls for a parliamentary inquiry, has rejected the cries of scandal as far-fetched. "We order opinion polls. If newspapers buy the same ones, what can we do?" said M. Sarkozy's chief aide and secretary general, Claude Guéant.

The revelations, made by the official financial watchdog, the Court of Auditors, are nonetheless deeply embarrassing. In the past two years, M. Sarkozy's office has paid €1.5m for private opinion polls, almost half of which were indistinguishable from those which were published elsewhere.

At best, the Elysée was wasting public money by paying for surveys which were already available for free on media websites. At worst, it was paying to influence the questions asked in the fortnightly Politiscope polls, which were presented as independent by the centre-right newspaper Le Figaro and the 24-hour news channel, LCI.

The Elysée also paid for 14 other polls which appeared in other parts of the print media.

Elysée Palace denies it financed surveys which the media ran as independent

meanwhile .....

PARIS (Reuters Life!) - French tourists are the worst in the world, coming across as bad at foreign languages, tight-fisted and arrogant, according to a survey of 4,500 hotel owners across the world.

meanwhile .....

NEW YORK (Reuters) - French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy sang at a concert in New York to commemorate Nelson Mandela's 91st birthday -- the first time she has sung in public since marrying French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Dressed in black trouser suit, Bruni-Sarkozy strummed guitar alongside former Eurythmics musician Dave Stewart as they performed a duet on Saturday night, singing a slower version of Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" while the French president smiled and clapped sitting in the audience.

meanwhile .....

PARIS (Reuters Life!) - French tourists are the worst in the world, coming across as bad at foreign languages, tight-fisted and arrogant, according to a survey of 4,500 hotel owners across the world.

meanwhile .....

NEW YORK (Reuters) - French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy sang at a concert in New York to commemorate Nelson Mandela's 91st birthday -- the first time she has sung in public since marrying French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Dressed in black trouser suit, Bruni-Sarkozy strummed guitar alongside former Eurythmics musician Dave Stewart as they performed a duet on Saturday night, singing a slower version of Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" while the French president smiled and clapped sitting in the audience.