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One of the most intriguing questions about the rumors is who started them. Orchestration of what may well be a politically motivated smear campaign has been variously attributed to leftists embittered by their defeat in last spring's election, Israeli embassy officials angered by France's pro-Arab tilt, secret-service men disturbed by Giscard's cavalier disregard of their efforts to protect him, Sygma photographers miffed by presidential patronage of a rival Gamma photographer, and old-guard civil servants appalled by Discard's relatively breezy approach to running the government. The explanation that has gained greatest currency is that hard-line Gaullists, who resent Giscard for having abandoned certain of the general's dogmas, are attempting to undermine his popular support.
Despite the salaciousness of the rumors, diplomatic sources maintain that they are unlikely to hurt Giscard's reputation much. France has a long tradition of shrugging off sexual improprieties with an attitude of amused tolerance. Former President Georges Pompidou managed to survive gossip that his high-spirited wife took more than a cultural interest in the fun-loving young artists of the Saint-Tropez jet set. Third Republic President Félix Fauré achieved a kind of instant canonization in 1899, when it was learned that he died performing his amorous arts in a ground-floor room at the Elysée. The liaison amoureuse, in fact, is as venerable and popular an institution in Paris as the Comédie Française—the government-subsidized theater that has traditionally provided sinecures for aspiring young actresses willing to serve overtime as political mistresses.