Politicians - The Eternal Liars...

1959. On October 16, François Mitterrand announced that, during the night, he had been the target of a submachine-gun attack while driving home. He claimed to have escaped only by fleeing desperately and leaping over the gate of the Observatoire gardens. A week later, Robert Pesquet—a former Gaullist and later Poujadist deputy—revealed that he and the future President of the Republic had orchestrated this publicity-seeking shooting. The senator from the Nièvre department denied the claim, though he was later forced to admit that he had indeed met with Pesquet. Charged with showing contempt for a magistrate, he had to wait until August 1966 for the case to be dismissed.
The incident brought him a great deal of publicity, initially boosting his political ambitions.