France’s embattled Prime Minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, faced fresh embarrassment today when his communications director was charged after being caught with a teenage hooker prostitute.
| I hate it when that happens. |
Dominique Ambiel, 49, resigned after his summons to appear in court on June 7 on the twin charges of soliciting sexual relations with a child involved in prostitution and of insulting the police officers who arrested him. M Ambiel has protested his innocence and claimed that the 17 year-old Romanian girl had climbed into his car in the Bois de Boulogne, a park in west Paris, to escape a violent quarrel.
| "I was just giving her a ride, er...." |
But his resignation was a further blow to his political mentor, M Raffarin, who employed M Ambiel in May 2002 in a rÃŽle similar to that of Alastair Campbell in Britain. The affair was especially sensitive as the centre-right Government has made the fight against eastern European prostitution a high priority.
| Guess Dominique was doing a little hands-on research |
M Raffarin has introduced new laws aimed at tackling the gangs who bring young girls into France from countries such as Romania, Ukraine and Albania. Police have also been ordered to round up prostitutes caught soliciting in red light districts, and it was as a result of one of these operations that M Ambiel was arrested.
| We now turn to tonight's episode of "COPS - Paris Vice" |
He was stopped by officers from the Anti Criminality Brigade at 2.30am on Tuesday morning in the Bois de Boulogne, a well-known magnet for prostitutes and their customers. The Romanian teenager was in the passenger seat. In a communiqué, M Ambiel, who is married with one child, said he had left the Prime Minister’s office at 2am, gone home, remembered that he had forgotten an important dossier and was heading back to work. As he was driving through the Bois de Boulogne, two prostitutes began fighting at a bus-stop and one of them ran towards towards his car. He tried to lock the doors but pressed the wrong button and instead unlocked them, his communique said. The girl climbed in and he drove off "to help her".
| Uh huh. Sure. Right. Happens all the time. |
| I suppose the other hooker ripped her pants off, too... |
"I dropped her off less than two minutes later and about 300m away to get her out of danger," said the Catholic-educated spin doctor. At that moment, the Anti Criminality Brigade arrived. According to the officers, M Ambiel insulted them, told them that he worked for the Prime Minister and said he did not need to pay €150 for sex.
| "Don't you know who I am?" |
M Ambiel, who was a successful television producer before taking over as M Raffarin’s communications director, denied this. "If there was indeed a fairly lively exchange on the conditions of this police operation, the rest is lies and slander, even manipulation," he said.
| Lies, slander, manipulation, oh my! |
Later that day, he was summoned to the police station to confront his version of events with that of prostitute.
| Let's see, who to believe? A lying prostitute, or a 17 year old hooker? |
A judicial source said: "In the light of the evidence, it was decided to prosecute M Ambiel."
Under a law introduced in 2002 in an attempt to protect child prostitutes, he faces a maximum sentence of three years in prison and a €45,000 fine. The scandal could hardly come at a worse time for a Prime Minister who has been on the defensive after a severe defeat in regional elections last month. M Ambiel was his closest adviser, with an office at the foot of the central staircase in the Prime Minister’s official residence. Ministers complained that that they could not see M Raffarin without M Ambiel’s approval and dubbed him "le concierge". The two men sat side by side in meetings and were said to be on the "same intellectual plane".
| Both are out to screw the French public. One got caught doing it. |
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