Silvio does it again

My favourite head of government. Whether he did or did not say what is alleged, the reaction to his alleged words is moronic or at least shows no sense of humor. Silvio, by contrast, is a great joker.

"The office of Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, has taken the unusual step of denying reports that he boasted to Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President, that he had "given him his woman".

In a sotto voce aside during a Franco-Italian summit last week, Mr Berlusconi was said to have remarked, in a mixture of French and Italian, "Moi, je t'ai donne la tua donna" ("Me, I gave you your woman"), a reference to the Italian-born French First Lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.

A spokesman said that Mr Berlusconi's actual remark - in French, which Mr Berlusconi speaks fluently - was "Tu sais que j'ai etudie a la Sorbonne" ("You know I studied at the Sorbonne."). Mr Berlusconi claims to have been a student in Paris. Officials at the Sorbonne say they have no record of this, though he may have attended a summer language course.

Two Italian lawmakers had said that they would lodge a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights over Mr Berlusconi's "sexist" remarks. Anna Paola Concia, of the left-wing Democratic Party, and Donata Gottardi, a leftwing Euro MP, said that Mr Berlusconi had breached the European Convention of Human Rights with "his repeated statements that offend female dignity".

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