Bokassa I

When two newspapers reported he had accepted diamonds from self-proclaimed Central African Emperor Bokassa I, Giscard airily refused comment and stopped reading them.

The paper caused a political scandal by revealing in 1979 that Giscard d’Estaing had been offered two diamonds from controversial African dictator Bokassa I.

This was compounded after independence in 1960 by a history of coups and bloody mutinies, French military meddling, and an interlude of rule by one of the world's most bizarre and extravagant modern-day emperors, Bokassa I. Bozize, who served as general in Bokassa's 1976-79 "Empire" and then seized power in a 2003 coup before winning a 2005 election, opened a so-called Inclusive Political Dialogue with his rebel foes in 2008.

The only time the outside world has paid any official attention to the place was during the brief and vainglorious reign of the thoroughly nutso Emperor Bokassa I, who was deposed in a French-sponsored coup in 1979.

The country’s second president, the megalomaniacal Jean-Bédel Bokassa, declared himself Emperor Bokassa I in 1976, and started calling his domain the “Central African Empire” in the following year.