FRANCE: A mysterious candidate has joined the already overcrowded race to become the next president of France in 2007. The would-be leader published a manifesto yesterday entitled I'm Coming, It's Later Than You Think, criticising the government and the opposition and calling for more "participatory democracy".
The presidential hopeful gave a question-and-answer interview to Le Parisien newspaper. But, bizarrely, Monsieur X, as the candidate has been nicknamed, has refused to be identified. According to Le Parisien, the French intelligence services discovered two weeks ago that an anonymous candidate was planning to stand. The author of the manifesto goes by the name of Catherine Medicis, and the secret operation to launch the election campaign was codenamed One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. A baroque marketing ploy, asks Le Parisien, or a bad joke?
Yves Michalon, the the manifesto publisher, said he was putting his reputation on the line. "I simply dread that the idea will be corrupted by those who, locked in their own views, have little interest in hearing and taking into account the ideas, criticisms and suggestions of the citizens," he said.