French President Emmanuel Macron’s dog Nemo has been filmed while urinating on a fireplace at the Elysée palace.
The video shows the black Labrador-Griffon cross relieving himself in the background as President Macron talks with three junior members of his government.
“I wondered what that noise was,” says the junior minister for ecology, Brune Poirson, who had previously been talking, as they all laugh.
Emmanuel Macron then says that Nemo has done something “quite exceptional”.
The incident was captured by French TV station TF1, which was recording the discussion.
Junior minister for planning Julien Denormandie asks if this is something that “happens often”.
Emmanuel Macron responds: “You’ve triggered completely unusual behavior in my dog.”
Nemo appeared in Emmanuel Macron’s entourage in August, continuing a tradition of French presidents having a “first dog”.
Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte reportedly bought him from an animal rescue centre for €250.
It is not the first time a French first dog has caused trouble for its master. According to French investigative website Mediapart, President Nicolas Sarkozy’s dogs damaged valuable furniture in the Elysée palace that cost thousands of euros to restore.
According to the Guardian, Jacques Chirac’s miniature white Maltese, Sumo, became unhappy at having to leave the Elysée with its spacious garden and began attacking the former president.
Five members of French President Francois Hollande’s staff have been reassigned as police investigate photos taken of the president with actress Julie Gayet inside the Elysee Palace.
The photos in Voici magazine show Francois Hollande and Julie Gayet sitting on a terrace in the grounds of the presidential palace.
Their alleged love affair made worldwide headlines in January.
Police believe the photos may have been taken by a member of Francois Hollande’s staff last month on a mobile phone.
Voici magazine described the photos of Francois Hollande and Julie Gayet – published earlier this month – as a “tender moment… behind the walls of the Elysee”, where she spends “several nights a week”.
Newspaper reports say some of the staff who have been transferred as police investigate the security breach were appointed by Francois Hollande’s predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy.
Photos in January of Francois Hollande in a scooter helmet visiting Julie Gayet in a Paris apartment set off a media frenzy as the president was at the time in a relationship with Valerie Trierweiler.
In March, a French court ordered Closer magazine to pay Julie Gayet 15,000 euros ($19,000) over a breach of privacy for revealing the affair.
Valerie Trierweiler, a journalist, published a bestselling memoir soon afterwards detailing their relationship, in which she depicted Francois Hollande as a self-centered champagne socialist with no time for the poor.
French actress Julie Gayet has been pictured entering and leaving the back entrance of the Elysee palace, VSD magazine has reported.
VSD, a weekly gossip magazine, published pictures it said proved that President Francois Hollande spends “almost every night” with Julie Gayet at the French presidential palace.
Julie Gayet, 42, also spent several days this summer with Francois Hollande in La Lanterne – the same Versailles retreat where Valerie Trierweiler, the president’s spurned ex-girlfriend, was sent to recover from a nervous breakdown after revelations over the affair.
President François Hollande, 60, suffered one of the darkest days of his flailing presidency on November 7 after a midterm television bid to persuade the French he can turn the tide was widely panned, and his turbulent private life hit the headlines once again.
Francois Hollande’s affair with Julie Gayet was first revealed in January 2014
Although almost eight million French people tuned into Francois Hollande’s television interview on November 6, precisely halfway through his five-year mandate, the general press consensus was that he had flounced perhaps his “last chance” to win back the French.
Hours after Francois Hollande went onto national television to ask the media to respect his private life following a string of damaging revelations, pictures of a blue Ford Galaxy said to contain Julie Gayet leaving the Elysee hit the news-stands.
In recent months, there have been several reports that Francois Hollande’s relationship with Julie Gayet – a staunch Socialist supporter – was over.
VSD insisted that the relationship was very much back on track and that she sleeps “almost every night at the Elysee”.
“There is no longer any possible doubt: François Hollande and Julie Gayet are still in love,” it wrote.
According to VSD, Julie Gayet arrives almost every evening “around 6.30 PM and leaves the following morning at 8.30 AM”, spending most weekends in the Elysee “making sure she doesn’t stand in front of any windows”.
Francois Hollande’s affair with Julie Gayet was first revealed in January 2014, when Closer magazine published sensational pictures of the president arriving on the back of a moped for secret trysts a stone’s throw from the Elysee, using a helmet as camouflage.
It emerged yesterday, however, that former President Nicolas Sarkozy, who Francois Hollande succeeded at the Elysee in 2012, was aware of the affair two months before it reached the public – sparking speculation he might have been tipped off by an Elysee mole.
Attilio Maggiulli has driven his car into the rear gate of the Elysee Palace, the Paris residence of French President Francois Hollande.
Attilio Maggiulli, 67, a theatre director of Italian nationality, was arrested as he tried to force his way through the Grille du Coq gate on Thursday.
Police officials said he was protesting against cuts in subsidies to his small theatre in Paris.
Attilio Maggiulli had already been arrested on Wednesday near the Elysee Palace after pulling a Harlequin puppet from his car and setting it alight.
“He then threw around some leaflets denouncing the cuts in subsidies for his theatre,” a police source told Reuters news agency.
Police had arrested Attilio Maggiulli but let him go shortly afterwards.
Theatre director Attilio Maggiulli was arrested as he tried to force his way through Elysee Palace’s Grille du Coq gate
He was slightly injured in the collision and has been taken to a Paris hospital.
Police sources said he runs a 100-seat theatre in the Montparnasse district.
Attilio Maggiulli has been arrested on suspicion of endangering the lives of others.
“If his aim was to be talked about, he has succeeded. But he may have to pay for that,” a source close to the investigation told AFP.
A local shopkeeper told Le Parisien newspaper she had “heard an almighty bang and seen a grey car”.
“The police and Republican Guards came quickly and pulled out an unconscious man from the vehicle,” she said.
The 19th-century gate was reportedly only scratched in the crash, which happened at slow speed.
It is not clear if President Francois Hollande was in the palace at the time of the incident.
Francois Hollande has pushed though cuts to the French cultural budget in an effort to reduce the government’s deficit.
Francois Hollande is set to be sworn in as French president, before travelling to Berlin to discuss the future of the eurozone with Chancellor Angela Merkel.
He will be the first Socialist leader since 1995 to occupy the Elysee Palace.
Francois Hollande will later try to “find a compromise” with Angela Merkel over the German-led focus on austerity as the way out of Europe’s economic crisis.
On Monday, the value of stock markets and the euro fell amid continuing political uncertainty in Greece.
The chairman of the eurozone finance ministers, Jean-Claude Juncker, insisted on Monday night that they would do “everything possible” to keep Greece in the euro.
Jean-Claude Juncker said he looked forward to the swift formation of a new Greek government, nine days after the general election.
But he also warned that Greece had to continue the “significant efforts” already made to restructure its economy despite these policies having been rejected by a majority of voters.
Francois Hollande is expected to be sworn in shortly after meeting outgoing President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysee Palace in central Paris at around 10:00.
The new leader has asked that the inauguration ceremony be kept as low-key as possible, and has invited just three dozen or so personal guests to join the 350 officials attending. Neither Francois Hollande’s children nor those of his partner, Valerie Trierweiler, will be there.
The ceremony will be followed by the traditional procession in an open-topped car along the Avenue des Champs-Elysees and the laying of the wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier underneath the Arc de Triomphe.
Francois Hollande will then pay tribute to the 19th-Century educational reformer Jules Ferry and the Nobel Prize-winning chemist Marie Curie.
Francois Hollande is set to be sworn in as French president, before travelling to Berlin to discuss the future of the eurozone with Chancellor Angela Merkel
His first lunch as president will be with the former Socialist prime ministers Pierre Mauroy, Laurent Fabius, Michel Rocard, Edith Cresson and Lionel Jospin.
Francois Hollande, 57, has spent the past week preparing to take up the presidency, and now the work begins in earnest.
His first job is to name a new prime minister, who our correspondent says will most likely be Jean-Marc Ayrault, leader of the Socialist group in parliament, a German speaker and a close ally.
Michel Sapin, a key economic adviser to Francois Hollande, is tipped to be finance minister.
On Tuesday afternoon, Francois Hollande will fly to Germany for dinner with Chancellor Angela Merkel, who says she will welcome the new leader “with open arms”.
But her embrace will hide some embarrassment after Angel Merkel openly supported Nicolas Sarkozy in the election battle.
“We don’t think the same on everything,” Francois Hollande acknowledged on French television on Monday.
“We’ll tell each other that so that together we can reach good compromises.”
Francois Hollande has demanded that a European fiscal pact that cracked down on overspending be renegotiated to include a greater emphasis on measures to stimulate growth, while Germany insists the treaty must be respected.
Whatever their differences, the crisis in the eurozone will put them under huge pressure to compromise, our correspondent says.
As the eurozone’s two biggest economies – and biggest contributors to its bailout funds – Germany and France are key decision-makers over the strategy supposed to pull Europe out of crisis.
According to official figures released on Tuesday morning, the French economy showed no growth in the first quarter of 2012. Growth in the final quarter of 2011 was also revised down to 0.1% from 0.2%.
However, Germany’s economy grew by a stronger than expected 0.5% in the first three months of the year.
Following his German trip, Francois Hollande will hold his first cabinet meeting on Thursday followed by a visit to Washington to meet US President Barack Obama on Friday.
• 08:00-08:30 Francois Hollande arrives at the Elysee Palace and meets Nicolas Sarkozy
• 08:30-09:30 Inauguration ceremony followed by procession up the Champs-Elysees
• 09:45 Francois Hollande lays a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, under the Arc de Triomphe
• 11:45 Francois Hollande pays tribute to Jules Ferry in the Jardin des Tuileries
• 12:30 Francois Hollande honours Marie Curie at the Curie Institute
• 13:00 Ceremony at the Hotel de Ville with Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoe
Louis Sarkozy, the youngest son of French president Nicolas Sarkozy, threw a tomato and other objects at a police woman standing outside Elysee Palace, France’s presidential residence.
Louis Sarkozy, 15, and two friends launched the attack on the female officer from the courtyard of the Elysee Palace in Paris – also hitting the officer in the cheek with a marble.
The female officer filed an official criminal report, but the case was dropped after the hugely embarrassed Nicolas Sarkozy apologized to her in person.
There were accusations that aides close to President Nicolas Sarkozy tried to “hush up” the scandal because he is currently standing for re-election.
Reports of delinquent behavior by Nicolas Sarkozy’s own son could certainly not have come at a worse time for the conservative head of state, who prides himself on his tough law-and-order policies.
It also raised serious questions about the discipline of the presidential children, who are largely kept out of the public eye by Nicolas Sarkozy and his third wife, Carla Bruni.
The tomato was among a volley of marbles and rolled up pieces of paper which went flying over the palace gates on Thursday, hitting the woman as she walked up and down the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore outside.
Louis Sarkozy, the youngest son of French president Nicolas Sarkozy, threw a tomato and other objects at a police woman standing outside Elysee Palace
The woman filed an official report, which led to a high-level enquiry, including a meeting between Paris police chiefs and officers of the Republican Guard, who are directly responsible for the safety of the presidential family.
The director of the Paris prefecture is also said to have become involved, with a Paris police source saying: “A criminal complaint was considered, but the police woman was finally persuaded to drop it.
“In the end she made do with an apology from the President, after being told that Louis and his friends frequently played in the courtyard of the Elysee.
“However, the fact that there is an election campaign in progress clearly played a significant role in the complaint not proceeding.
“It may well have been hushed up to save Mr. Sarkozy embarrassment. These were not childish pranks – Louis is 15-years-old.”
Louis is the son of Nicolas Sarkozy’s second wife, Cecilia Attias, whom he famously divorced within a few months of becoming president in 2007.
Cecilia Attias now lives full time in New York, having remarried, but Louis Sarkozy frequently travels to Paris to see his father.
Nicolas Sarkozy has two older sons, Pierre and Jean, who are frequently involved in scandals linked to their father.
Last month Nicolas Sarkozy spent $47,000 of French taxpayers’ money repatriating Pierre, a 26-year-old DJ, from Ukraine after he fell ill after complaining of “food poisoning” before a nightclub performance.
Five years ago Nicolas Sarkozy was accused of using the police force to help his son Jean, now 27, after he was accused of committing a hit-and-run crime on his scooter.
A motorist claimed that Jean Sarkozy ran into the back of his car in the Place de la Concorde, made an obscene hand gesture and then rode away. Jean Sarkozy was eventually cleared of all charges.
Nicolas Sarkozy has also a baby girl, Giulia, with Carla Bruni. However, France’s First Lady refuses to allow the child to be seen in public, and tends to keep her at a town house well away from the Elysee.
Carla Bruni also has a son, Aurelien, 11, from a previous relationship, and he too is kept well away from the public eye.
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