France - death threats and a fake bomb

Here in France there has been quite a buzz over the past couple of weeks over two rather similar but unrelated events.

The first concerns the death threats received by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and a number of top ranking political figures.

They were each sent a letter warning them their lives and those of their families were potentially at risk, along with a 38 caliber bullet.

The first letters were sent to Sarkozy and Raymond Couderc, a senator and the mayor of southwestern town of B'ziers, at the beginning of February.

And towards the end of February a second wave of letters was sent to, amongst others, the justice minister - Rachida Dati, the interior minister - Mich'le Alliot-Marie and the culture minister - Christine Albanel.

The media was rife with speculation as to whether the anonymous letters were the work of a group or "cell" or perhaps the ramblings of one slightly unbalanced individual or as Alliot-Marie said at one point "someone who was a little deranged".

On Wednesday the mystery seemed to have been solved when a 47-year-old military reservist was arrested at his home in Montpellier and taken into police custody.

He had reportedly been "denounced" by his former girlfriend and although he is currently only "helping police with their investigations", if charged and found guilty he could face a maximum sentence of three years imprisonment and a fine of up to 45,000 Euros.

While that has been making the headlines, another somewhat similar case also made the news this past week.

Similar in the sense that it seems at face value to be a threat from an anonymous source - this time though aimed at a supermarket chain and the general public.

It involves a man in the town of Vannes in the west of France, who last weekend went along to a local supermarket to do his weekly shop.

Doing as so many of us have been advised to do at a time when belt-tightening and counting the centimes is paramount, he added a family-sized (850 grammes) jar of Nutella - a kind of chocolate and nut spread often eaten on toast at breakfast time - to his trolley and continued with his shopping before heading to the check-out, paying and going home.

A couple of days later, according to a report in Wednesday's edition of the national daily, Le Parisien and reported throughout the media, he opened the jar and discovered not the famous spread he had been looking forward to, but.........in its place something that resembled a bomb.

Not surprisingly he contacted the authorities immediately and a bomb disposals expert was dispatched to his home. Although it turned out to be merely a harmless copy, the regional police have opened an enquiry to discover how a "fake bomb" came to be inside a jar of Nutella in the first place.

The manufacturer of the product here in France, Ferrero, released a statement to the media on Wednesday in which it said that the first it had heard of the "bomb" was from the reports in the newspapers.

"It's highly unlikely that the production facilities were involved in any way," the statement read, which of course rather leaves everyone wondering how it got there and why?

Strange perhaps, and maybe not to be taken as light-heartedly if, as Le Parisien reports, the accompanying note found with the "bomb" is to be believed.

In a hand- written message the police were advised to treat the affair seriously and do their utmost to find the culprit as soon as possible.