A swaggering Gallic head of state, cuckolded by his man-eating wife with a brooding singer-songwriter, seeks refuge in the toned and trembling arms of a karate-chopping junior minister.
As tabloid brews go, this one was bubbling over with potential. The Parisian blogosphere was buzzing with gossip. British newspaper editors went wobbly at the knees. It was too good to be true, they cried, as France reportedly "reeled" from the revelation that both Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni, his wife of just over two years, were both veering wildly off script from their fairytale romance.
The problem was, of course, there was nothing to suggest that it was true.
The rumours, which first surfaced last weekend on Twitter as Benjamin Biolay, the ex-husband of actress Chiara Mastroianni, won a gong at a music awards ceremony, were taken up by blogs but were reported nowhere in the mainstream media. Emails began to fly between journalists. A blog item on the Journal du Dimanche's website that predicted the implosion of the presidential marriage was replaced by a legal notice explaining that the allegations were of a "deeply injurious" nature.
The rumours, which were reported extensively last week by several European newspapers but nowhere more so than in Britain, were studiously ignored by the domestic press. It would be easy to condemn the silence as the traditional French reluctance to delve into the private lives of its public figures, especially as Sarkozy, accused of an affair with junior ecology minister Chantal Jouanno, holds a tight grip on the media through an extended network of influence.
But, as the days pass and no new evidence comes to light, the balance is tipping in their favour. Hushing up a president's love child (à la Mitterrand), his "discreet" love affairs (à la Chirac) and his impending divorce (à la Sarko) is one thing; refusing to touch a story based on nothing but unsubstantiated rumours is another entirely.
But Tweets and Retweets and a feverish imagination do not a story make. One French commentator has said he knows the original comment to have been posted by a trainee journalist eager for a wind-up. If this is true, he or she must be feeling very smug indeed.
