Photo-op faux pas: French govt gets caught pretending govt-friendly politicos were “regular people”

It’s the nightmare photo-op no government official wants to get caught in the middle of:

PARIS — It was apparently just a little summertime spinning with the aid of a grocery chain, but Luc Chatel, the education minister and government spokesman, found himself in some hot water over a supposedly staged visit to a quiet supermarket on Monday.

Journalists accompanying Mr. Chatel and Hervé Novelli, the secretary of state for commerce, on a trip to an Intermarché supermarket in Villeneuve-le-Roi, southeast of Paris, became suspicious when the aisles were suddenly filled with well-dressed, articulate women eager to praise a government freeze on the price of some school supplies before the new school year began.

One of the women was Virginie Meyniel, a local politician allied with the governing center-right party, who said she just happened to be in the store and also happens to help oversee schools for her town, Vulaines-sur-Seine, 30 miles away.

The radio station France Inter raised questions, and the newspaper Libération had a detailed article on Wednesday headlined, “Supercherie au Supermarché,” or “Hoax at the Supermarket.” It described how some of the women left the store together in a car after the minister left, without buying anything and leaving their school supplies in shopping baskets.

Sound like anyone else you know? Of course, the difference is that the French media hates Sarko and will go out of their way to point out the embarassing aspects of his administration accordingly, unlike our own MSM, who believe the President of the United States walks on water.

And the beat goes on.