Hello and welcome to the witness history podcast from the BBC World Service, with me, Ben Henderson.

Today, I'm taking you back to Paris in the autumn of 1979, when a scandal broke that brought down the French president, Valérie Giscard Distang.

Here's how the BBC reported it at the time.

What connects a cannibalistic tyrant, a lofty president, a tray of diamonds and a libel case?

And the answer, a chained duck.

Well, quite literally, Le Canard, on Cheney, the French satirical magazine, which not for the first time has threatened to trip up the mighty.

Le Canard says that the president Giscard Distang received diamonds from the grizzly and deposed former Emperor Picasso of the Central African Republic.

Jean-Badel Picasso came to power in a military coup in 1966. The BBC covered his coronation as Emperor of his new Central African Empire in 1977.

Sunday celebrations are thought to be costing between 4 and 10 million pounds, including a 12-foot-high throne for the new Emperor in the shape of an eagle weighing two tons.

The coronation itself will be in Picasso's sports palace on Picasso's street near Picasso University.

But things went downhill from there.

Picasso's 13-year reign was notable for acts of outrageous self-indulgence and bestial cruelty, including direct involvement in the massacre of 100 children who had complained about their school uniforms.

Evidence was also produced from a palace cook that he'd once had to prepare a meal of human flesh for the Emperor.

Regardless of those rumors, he could still rely on a strong friendship with France's president, Malérie Giscard Distang, whose reputation wasn't squeaky clean either.

The stories of Giscard's foibles are countless. They range from mysterious disappearances late at night for secret rendezvous to his insistence on being served first at Banquets.

The two leaders were a match made in heaven.

In 1977, I was the deputy editor-in-chief of Fleucanaronschené.

This is Claude Onjele, the man who broke the diamond scandal that would bring down Giscard.

In October 1977, a man called Maurice Espinasse came to meet me and a colleague of mine in Paris.

Espinasse was officially an advisor to the presidency of the Central African Republic.

Bocassar scared him. He revealed to us that Bocassar had given Giscard diamonds.

But he wouldn't give us any proof because he feared it would ruin his career.

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