Minister talks of ‘genital prints database’

INTERIOR Minister Brice Hortefeux has become the latest senior French official caught out by an embarrassing slip of the tongue, after he spoke on television of his “database of genital prints”.

Hortefeux was attempting to distinguish between police files of suspects’ fingerprints (“empreintes digitales”) and their DNA records (“empreintes genetiques”) mixing the two to form: “empreints genitales”.

His appearance on a political show has since become an internet hit, spreading almost as quickly as a similar slip made last month by former justice minister Rachida Dati.