Rarely can a host have been so happy to see the back of a guest as President Sarkozy will be today when Muammar Gaddafi and his caravan of 400 followers finally leave Paris.

For the French President and many Parisians, the five-day official visit by the Libyan leader has seemed endless.

Playing to his fans like an old rock idol, the recently redeemed colonel has revelled in provocation, insulting his hosts, snarling up traffic and indulging his whims. The last of these was a spot of pheasant shooting at Versailles. “His excellency is a great admirer of King Louis XVI”, the last regal resident of the palace, said an aide. The Supreme Guide of the Revolution, who was initially invited for two days, first asked to go foxhunting at Fontainebleau.

Colonel Gaddafi has also shown off his expertise in modern French history, lecturing his hosts for abusing the human rights of North African immigrants. “They brought us here like cattle to do hard and dirty work, and then they throw us to live on the outskirts of towns, and when we claim our rights, the police beat us,” Mr Gaddafi told an audience of admirers at the headquarters of Unesco. Unlike France, Libya has an impeccable rights record, he added.

The colonel has been holding court in a big Bedouin tent over the wall from the Elysée Palace, erected at his request in the garden of the Marigny guest mansion. Embarrassed French officials banned photographs, so Colonel Gaddafi invited in Paris Match for a glossy spread of himself in prayer and relaxing.

Le Monde, France’s most august newspaper, concluded that the Libyan leader has been behaving just like Abdullah, the insufferable little boy who taunts Captain Haddock in the Tintin tales.

The colonel has become a familiar figure cruising about town in a white, very stretched limousine and a 20-car motorcade. On Thursday traffic was halted as he went shopping, with his posse of formidable female guards in battle dress. Unshaven and in a scruffy anorak and sweatshirt, he then dropped into the Louvre to admire the Venus de Milo while tourists were herded out like a fire emergency.

On Wednesday police chased pedestrians and vehicles off every bridge on the Seine while His Excellency took an unscheduled promenade on a river boat. A furious Bertrand Delanoë, the Mayor of Paris, blamed the Interior Ministry for the unprecedented security measures.

Colonel Gaddafi has also been preaching the rights of women. He wants to ease “the tragic conditions of the European woman, who is forced sometimes into a job that she does not want,” he told a hall full of fans on the Champs Elysées. “I want to save the struggling European woman.”

At another session, at the Ritz Hotel, he told the audience that “the [Christian] cross that you wear has no sense, just like your prayers have no sense.”

Colonel Gaddafi’s Christmas shopping trip has earned France several billion pounds of orders for military and nuclear gear, but Mr Sarkozy is clearly regretting the invitation that he extended to the Libyan leader last July.

“Gaddafi is making fools of us,” screamed the France Soir front page. Le Parisien said: “The Libyan leader’s stay has become a nightmare for Nicolas Sarkozy.”

Times Recommends

• Google to digitise Iraqi artefacts
• Renault angers parents by naming new car Zoé
• Analysis: most lawless part of Philippines