Thierry works nights as a taxi driver in the political heart of Paris and jokes that he has seen it all: briefcases stuffed with cash, politicians and call girls, you name it.

“That’s why the buildings in Paris are scrubbed so clean,” he says. Because behind the façade, there is so much filth.” Thierry’s analysis of French political life is likely to win more followers in coming weeks. The country’s biggest political scandal in decades comes to trial on Monday, pitching no less than the president of the French Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy, against former prime minister and sworn enemy Dominique de Villepin.