Outgoing French envoy mocks Mugabe

Laurent Delahousse the outgoing French ambassador to Zimbabwe, used his farewell dinner on Wednesday to mock President Robert Mugabe over the Zanu-PF leader's embarrassing "wrong speech" gaffe last year.

Delahousse also revealed that a section of Mugabe's fractious regime had engineered a daredevil break-in at his official residence in Harare declaring a "diplomatic line was crossed".

Mugabe last year read the same speech twice at two different occasions, in an embarrassing gaffe, which saw him ploughing through his State of the Nation Address at the official opening of the National Assembly.

Government was forced to withdraw the speech, but Zanu-PF legislators had actually ululated and "thanked the President for a brilliant speech".  The French National Day falls on July 14.