Students poisoned after eating ‘Alsation’…

Date: 21/11/1996

...Or it might be that MEPs are scared of being caught on camera keeling over with food poisoning, a fate which befell a group of Italian students who were taken out to dinner in Strasbourg by their very own Euro MP, Gastone Parigi.

He had invited 55 young scholars from Italy's Veneto region to visit the EU's democratic heartland and then took them out to dinner, courtesy of the Parliament's visitors' programme. Unfortunately, a bug was lurking in either the salmon starter, or the Alsatian choucroute (the pig, not the dog) or the differently-piggy profiteroles which rounded the whole thing off.

Twenty-five of the students went down with food poisoning and five had to spend 24 hours in a Strasbourg hospital.

And what of the MEP himself? No stomach ache for him - Parigi avoided trouble by not eating anything. Apparently he had already been to a reception before dinner and couldn't find space even for a starter. It's a tough life, but somebody's got to do it, and to hell with the paparazzi.