Ouf!

It might not have seemed possible for a political party to appear more dysfunctional than the PS, but the UMP is giving the Socialists a run for their money. The Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday rejected the bill on proposed institutional reform, prompting Hervé de Charette to denounce the "Brezhnevian" leadership of the UMP (now there's an adjective that hasn't been heard for a while!), while Christian Estrosi said that there was a "real problem of organization." Claude Goasguen was blunter still: he denounced the "connards" who "shoot off their mouths from across the Seine" (Sarko's counselors, in other words).

Charette thinks there should be "courants" inside the party. Yes, of course, they've worked such wonders for the PS. I find the use of the word courant interesting. "Factions" being anathema in Jacobin France, one has courants, which are supposed to flow tranquilly into one great stream. But the metaphor is a tricky one: currents divide as well as unite, and sometimes they cause sparks to fly.