French President's fake credentials?

[Virtual Bison]

http://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/...23448.html

Prestigious French newspaper LE MONDE gives press to a hot controversy debating the degrees that President Sarkozy claims he was awarded in his official biography.

Political Science professor Alain Garrigou claims that Sarkozy, while attending IEP Paris, did NOT obtain the degree (equivalent to a M.A ), contrary to the President's official biography. Garrigou disclosed how Sarkozy "barely passed" his bar exam and also dug out formal evidence from the university's archives (shown in the article) to document how Sarkozy did satisfy some but not all requirements to be awarded the degree.

The university officially declares that Sarkozy obtained his degree meeting the requirements in 2 separate years, yet prof. Garrigou maintains that in order for Sarkozy to do that he ought to have obtained a very seldom awarded permission...which -according to the university- is not so rare an occurrence after all.

Whitewashed political crackpot or genuine, harassed student?

I was wondering what was IEP Paris. The article was in French and I am linguistically impaired.

I did find the site here

http://www.sciences-po.fr/portail/fr-fr/.../english2/