French Prime Minister Mr Lionel Jospin has scrambled to explain his hidden Trotskyite past after conservatives seized on his failed coverup to oppose his expected bid for the presidency next year.
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Mr Jospin, forced to admit yesterdaythat he had belonged to a covert revolutionary group in the 1960s, denied in a rare radio interview that he operated as a Trotskyite mole while rising up the Socialist Party ranks in the following decade.
But the man who flaunts a "Mr Clean" image, in contrast with sleaze charges surrounding President Mr Jacques Chirac, had to admit his denial of a militant past were a lie.
Recalling how former Socialist president Mr Francois Mitterrand had long hidden his wartime role in the pro-Nazi Vichy regime, conservative politicians and commentators cast doubt on Mr Jospin's sincerity and asked what else he might be hiding.
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French Prime Minister
Mr Lionel Jospin |
"It's true, I once let myself go and denied it," Mr Jospin told Europe 1 radio to explain why he had lied about his radical past since the first rumours about it emerged in the early 1980s.
"Maybe it was a psychological reflex - confession is not part of my culture," said Mr Jospin (63) - a protestant in mostly catholic France.
His allies played down his past, noting the conservative Mr Chirac had in the 1950s supported Moscow-backed peace campaigns and sold the Communist daily L'Humaniteon the streets.
Sensing a campaign issue, conservatives homed in on the coverup.
"Jospin today is in the same position as [former US President Bill] Clinton was in the Monica Lewinsky affair," Mr Philippe Seguin of Chirac's RPR party said.
"This is a very late coming out," Patrick Ollier, another RPR deputy, said. "It's not statesmanlike to react only when the pressure gets to be too much."