He recently got in trouble for suggesting in campaign leaflets that he could single-handedly remodel one of Rio's largest shanty towns to resemble apicturesque hillside village in Italy.
But nowadays Britons don't have to cross the Channel to enjoy this most Gallic of games, as anyone who happened to be passing through Sherston a tiny, picturesquevillage in north Wiltshire during its 17th annual boules tournament, earlier this month, could tell you.