It has been a year of bad omens for French President Francois Hollande. On the day he was inaugurated, lightning struck his plane. He has suffered a collapse in his approval rating that is the worst since 1958. And now, somebody has eaten his camel.
The New York Times reports that the nation of Mali -- which is receiving military assistance from France for its ongoing conflict with Islamists -- greeted the French president with a noble gift: a baby camel. The camel, however, perhaps sensing the French public's zeitgeist, did not take kindly to Mr. Hollande. Besides, where exactly does one keep a camel in the Elysee? So, Mr. Hollande gave it to a family in Timbuktu to take care of.
And take care of it, they did. The camel featured prominently in the family's tagine, a type of stew. (Here's a recipe for Moroccan tagine; presumably the chicken is replaced with camel.)
The Malian government was horrified. The Times writes:
"As soon as we heard of this, we quickly replaced it with a bigger and better-looking camel," an official in Timbuktu told the Reuters news agency. "We are ashamed of what happened to the camel," said the official, who asked Reuters not to identify him because he was not authorized to speak to the news media. "The new camel will be sent to Paris. It was a present that did not deserve this fate."
Hopefully the new camel won't be turned into bourguignon.
[via New York Times]
(Image: Camel by John O'Neill via Wikimedia Commons)
