Worldcat, which offers the most complete coverage of the world's library catalogues, suggests no copies of the book, which was titled Ma Vérité (My Truth), are to be found in any major collection.

The controversy that you are interested in was, however, covered by Bokassa's biographer, Brian Titley of the University of Lethbridge, in his Dark Age: The Political Odyssey of Emperor Bokassa (2002). According to Titley, the controversial passage contained allegations that Giscard d'Estaing had accepted a bribe from Bokassa comprising two valuable diamonds weighing a total of 30 carats, and valued at 1m francs [$250,000], in exchange for French support in establishing himself as ruler of the Central African Republic.

The scandal, which was broken in the French satirical weekly Le Canard Enchâiné in 1979, three years after Bokassa had proclaimed himself emperor and spent about a third of the country's GDP on his coronation ceremony, and around the time Bokassa was accused of acts of cannibalism. Giscard eventually acknowledge that he had accepted a gift from Bokassa but insisted its real value was far less than that cited in the press. Nonetheless, he was compared unfavourably to his predecessor, de Gaulle, who had routinely refused all gifts, from whatever source ,during his presidency. The scandal was a significant contributory factor in the failure of Giscard's 1981 presidential re-election bid.