Paris's former ambassador to the U.N., Jean-Bernard Merimee--who sat on the Security Council in the course of his duties--has been detained by French authorities on suspicion of having received vouchers from Saddam Hussein for 11 million barrels of oil between December 2001 and March 2003.

Paris's former ambassador to the U.N., Jean-Bernard Merimee--who sat on the Security Council in the course of his duties--has been detained by French authorities on suspicion of having received vouchers from Saddam Hussein for 11 million barrels of oil between December 2001 and March 2003. He's just one of at least eleven senior French officials and businessmen being investigated in the fallout from the Oil for Food scandal. Everyone from the U.N. to the French government is remaining tight-lipped on the matter, and it should be said that the 2004 Duelfer Report--which first mentioned his name in connection with the alleged kickback--noted that M. Merimee did not receive his allocation. There is some doubt whether the ambassador knew he was a beneficiary, as he might possibly have been the target of a failed bribery plot. Possibly. In any event, this case is making some strange bedfellows: NATIONAL REVIEW is fully in accord with Le Monde, which said that "these suspicions are heavily denting the image of French diplomacy." Quite so.