Pacy politician hits motorway speed of 171 km/h
A prominent Socialist politician notched up a speed of 171 kilometres per hour (106 miles per hour) close to the northern town of Evreux on the A13 motorway on Sunday afternoon.
TV channel TF1 reported that Jean-Paul Huchon, the Socialist president of the Ile-de-France regional council, was caught by a speed camera at around 4pm.
Ile-de-France is the wealthiest and most populated of France's 22 administrative regions and contains the Paris metropolitan area. It has 11.7 million inhabitants.
Huchon, who has been president of the regional council since 1998, was reportedly driving a car owned by the regional council.
The police officers who stopped him immediately withdrew his driving licence.
In France, the top speed on motorways is 130 kilometres/hour.
Speeding politicians are not new in France. During the 2007 presidential election campaign the car magazine Auto Hebdo followed a number of the candidates as they travelled around the country.
The magazine reported that Nicolas Sarkozy reached a speed of 190 kilometres/hour on one trip and far-right Front National leader Jean-Marie Le Pen managed 185 kilometres/hour.
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