The French Finance Minister, Michel Sapin, is at the centre of a storm for allegedly twanging a female journalist’s knicker elastic in public – a bit like an over-excited 11 year old schoolboy might do to a female classmate at junior school.

Apparently, the late-middle aged Monsieur Sapin has a bit of a reputation as “un pervert” and the received wisdom among lady journalists is “Don’t dare pick up a pen in front of him”. In this particular instance a female journalist did just that, prompting Old Sappy to say (and this is probably best imagined as spoken in a Peter Sellers’ Inspector Clouseau voice) “Ah, but what have we here?” before he leaned forward and pulled on the exposed under garment.

He initially denied it all, as he would, threatening claims for libel against anybody who dared print the allegations, but then mysteriously changed his tune stating “I made a comment to a female journalist about her clothing while placing my hand on her back”. Ah, right.

He went on to add, “There was no sexist or aggressive intent in my action”, and he was sorry. Really? So if it wasn’t sexist does that mean that he would behave in a similar fashion if a male journalist bent down in front of him exposing the top of his boxer shorts?

What a jerk and what a coward to boot. Like any politician, whether he’s caught with his hand in the till or in somebody’s underwear he is only sorry for the fact that he’s been caught out and nothing else.

If you’re going to behave like a crook or a pervert and you are caught out bang to rights at least have the guts to hold your hands up and admit to it rather than dig yourself an even deeper hole by coming out with an explanation so ridiculous that even the aforementioned 11 year old schoolboy would find laughable.