LgeParisApt,ImmedAvail

It was the best of apartments; it was the worst of apartments. But the tale of two residences in one city called Paris has halted for now the remarkable political rise of Herve Gaymard, a cobbler’s son who became France’s minister of finance by preaching strict budget discipline, while living somewhat differently on the taxpayer’s euros.

In November, Gaymard, who had served earlier as the agriculture minister, was put in charge of Europe’s third-largest economy, charged with reducing 10% unemployment while finally curbing government spending, which consistently exceeds the European Union’s deficit limit. He talked tough about weaning the French from extravagant public spending with severe restraints. Then he, his wife and their eight children moved into a newly remodeled 6,458-square-foot apartment that cost the government a monthly rent of 14,000 euros -- nearly $19,000.

Free ministerial housing is common in France. Many top government jobs come with palatial digs, including in the Finance Ministry, although Gaymard apparently felt the housing he was entitled to wasn’t in a fashionable enough neighborhood. When news of his costly pad near the Champs Elysees leaked, Gaymard apologized and vowed to move out. But the damage was done, and the ensuing outcry forced him to resign.

Gaymard was, by all accounts, a dedicated and hardworking public official. His behavior was simply emblematic of the arrogance of his class -- the technocratic elite that has been running France for decades. If in the past a French king could say, “L’etat, c’est moi,” the attitude of much of the political leadership in France in recent years has been, “L’etat, c’est pour moi.”

Unlike their counterparts in most other Western democracies, young Frenchmen aspiring to wealth and power have been drawn to public life, which invariably starts with a stint at the prestigious Parisian Institut d’Etudes Politiques or the Ecole Nationale d’Administration.

The idea of an elite deserving the spoils of state has been taken to such an extreme in France that its leaders have traditionally accumulated several offices. So, for instance, Jacques Chirac could serve simultaneously as both prime minister and mayor of Paris in the late 1980s (and he is still haunted by corruption scandals involving city government). His successor as prime minister in the 1990s, Alain Juppe, was also the mayor of Bordeaux.

This corrupt, widespread cumul des mandats -- call it double-dipping -- has since been curtailed somewhat, as the French public has become increasingly tired of its political elite’s regal sense of entitlement. It may not be the storming of the Bastille, but the fact that Gaymard had to step down over this scandal is another welcome sign that the people of France have had enough.