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Four French Presidents Featured In Adultery Website Billboard

LE PARISIEN, LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR, LE FIGARO (France)

PARIS - Parisians strolling along the chic Place de l’Alma and the Bastille are running straight into a huge new billboard (3 by 6-meter, or almost 10 by 20-feet) featuring saucy photos of four presidents of France: François Hollande, the current head of state, and predecessors Nicolas Sarkozy, Jacques Chirac and François Mitterrand. Each of their faces has a large lipstick print.

Underneath, the ad says, “What do they have in common?” and declares that the men would have been better off using Ashley Madison, a Canada-based website for discreet adulterous encounters, for their supposedly famous extramarital affairs.

The ad is “totally illegal,” says a lawyer interviewed by French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur, because in France you are not allowed to use anyone’s image without their agreement, except in the case of the public’s right to information.

The ad, according to Le Parisien daily, was turned down “everywhere.” The company did not receive the requisite permission from the city to put up the ads, either, reports Le Figaro, but Noel Biderman, the founder, simply believes the old advertising adage, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity.”

Le Parisien quoted the company’s local spokesman as saying, “I think it will just make them laugh…There’s a culture of infidelity in France.”

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FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War

That Man In Mariupol: Is Putin Using A Body Double To Avoid Public Appearances?

Putin really is meeting with Xi in Moscow — we know that. But there are credible experts saying that the person who showed up in Mariupol the day before was someone else — the latest report that the Russian president uses a doppelganger for meetings and appearances.

screen grab of Putin in a dark down jacket

During the visit to Mariupol, the Presidential office only released screen grabs of a video

Russian President Press Office/TASS via ZUMA
Anna Akage

Have no doubt, the Vladimir Putin we’re seeing alongside Xi Jinping this week is the real Vladimir Putin. But it’s a question that is being asked after a range of credible experts have accused the Russian president of sending a body double for a high-profile visit this past weekend in the occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

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Reports and conspiracy theories have circulated in the past about the Russian leader using a stand-in because of health or security issues. But the reaction to the Kremlin leader's trip to Mariupol is the first time that multiple credible sources — including those who’ve spent time with him in the past — have cast doubt on the identity of the man who showed up in the southeastern Ukrainian city that Russia took over last spring after a months-long siege.

Russian opposition politician Gennady Gudkov is among those who confidently claim that a Putin look-alike, or rather one of his look-alikes, was in the Ukrainian city.

"Now that there is a war going on, I don't rule out the possibility that someone strongly resembling or disguised as Putin is playing his role," Gudkov said.

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