President Nicolas Sarkozy has sent poll dancers to Kabul in an effort to ease pre-poll tension. (Afghanistan is to hold presidential elections this coming week.)
The French head-of-state telephoned US President Obama and UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown to discuss the latest suicide bomb attack outside NATO's military headquarters in Kabul, which killed seven and wounded 91.
In the satellite link-up Sarkozy, on hearing Obama and Brown speak of 'poll violence', incorrectly understood that the two were discussing the alarming state of the polls which Kabul's women are using when entertaining their men folk with poll dancing. He immediately suggested sending not only polls but also 50 of Paris's poll dancers to Kabul.
Although both leaders instantly realized that the French president had misunderstood what they were talking about, agreed that it might not be a bad idea to distract Taliban suicide bombers with gyrating women wearing nothing but the tiniest of "thong" bikinis.
On Sunday morning the poll dancers set off from a military base outside the French capital and President Sarkozy cut short his summer vacation to be present on the tarmac to wish them happy dancing.
The 50 girls, all busty blondes, will be gyrating to Michael Jackson's "Don't Stop Til You get Enough" outside Kabul's most vulnerable spots - government offices, NATO barracks and of course polling booths.
Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai, on hearing of President Sarkozy's initiative, told journalists that if the Poll dancers were successful in stopping pre-poll violence, he will nominate President Sarkozy as this year's Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
