Newspaper falls for April Fool

Mr Yeltsin (right) was purported to have chosen Mr Putin six years ago

The French newspaper Le Monde has admitted it fell for a April Fool's joke by publishing an account that Russia's President-elect, Vladimir Putin, owed his meteoric rise to being a good shot.

The respected French daily on Wednesday carried what the Russian newspaper Moskovskii Komsomolets published on 1 April as early excerpts of former president Yeltsin's memoirs.

Moscow needs such men

Boris Yeltsin's purported statement

The account said Mr Putin caught Mr Yeltsin's eye at a hunting party six years ago.

"Camouflage clothing suited Vladimir Vladimirovitch and he held his rifle firmly, as one holds in one's arms a woman one loves," Le Monde said - quoting the Russian newspaper allegedly quoting Mr Yeltsin.

In that occasion, according to the false account, Mr Putin killed a wild boar with a single shot to the heart.

"Moscow needs such men," Mr Yeltsin was purported to have said.

Apologies

The French newspaper apologised for failing to spot the joke.

It explained that such purported accounts were a "long and occasionally amusing tradition" in the Russian press.

"With our apologies, we promise (readers) to wait with more patience and caution for the real presidential memoirs," Le Monde said.

Le Monde's correspondent in Moscow added that he had waited three days for someone to deny the story, but no one had.

The account in Moskovskii Komsomolets quoted Mr Yeltsin as saying that he was persuaded to resign by his daughter Tatiana Diachenko.

It also said Mr Putin had at first shied away from taking over the interim presidency, and then accepted after a night's reflection.