Can Cecilia Sarkozy, wife of the French President, follow up her spectacular mission to Libya with a trip to Burma to persuade the junta to free the world's most famous political prisoner, Aung San Suu Kyi?
The possibility was raised by a French government minister after Mme Sarkozy returned to Europe from Libya with the 'Benghazi Six' - five Bulgarians and a Palestinian threatened with the death sentence.
The fact that President Sarkozy made good his promise to push for the release of the six nurses (and that his wife evidently used her charms on Colonel Gadaffi when diplomacy stalled) has fired Burma's pro-democracy activists with hope that their beloved 'Lady' may soon be among them again.
French Deputy Minister of Human Rights Rama Yade told France's LCI television that, following the Libya mission, the Elysee would now concentrate on getting Aung San Suu Kyi freed from house detention.
Aung San Suu Kyi, 62, has spent 11 of the last 17 years intermittently either in prison or confined to her lakeside home in Rangoon, held incommunicado by the regime because of her huge popularity and iconic status in military-ruled Burma.
Pro-democracy activists, denigrated by the official media and sometimes beaten and humiliated by pro-government thugs, dismiss as 'men in suits' the parade of Western politicians and diplomats who visit Rangoon, have tea with Aung San Suu Kyi then go off for inconclusive meetings with the generals.
The United Nations envoy gave up his job in sheer frustration. His successor, the Nigerian Ibrahim Gambari, visited Aung San Suu Kyi and the generals earlier this year in a mood of optimism that was rudely shattered days after his return home when the junta extended her house detention order for a further year.
"The generals show disdain for people like Gambari," said Win Aung, a veteran of the brutally-suppressed pro-democracy 1988 uprising that resulted in the current regime taking power. "He's from another world, in this case Africa. They're just not on the same wavelength."
But the prospect of Cecilia Sarkozy helping the campaign to free Aung San Suu Kyi has given a boost to the disheartened activists. As Win Aung put it: "The 'men in suits' don't impress them. But if they were approached by a woman, and a glamorous, influential woman at that, they might just be moved."
The official spokesman for Aung San Suu Kyi's political party, the National League for Democracy, Myint Thein, says a "warm relationship" has developed between Burma's anti-regime activists and the new French government. The French ambassador in Rangoon has attended ceremonies marking Martyr's Day, honouring Aung San Suu Kyi's father and other independence heroes of 1988.
France has economic influence in Burma - the French oil giant Total is the largest corporate investor in Burma and well placed to spearhead pressure for change. But it's under international pressure to pull out of the country, while its executives argue that the company's presence is actually doing as much to improve the lives of the Burmese as would sudden political reconstruction.
So the pro-democracy movement pins its hopes on the Sarkozys. Whether the generals will be quite the pushover Colonel Gadaffi was when Cecilia visited his Bedouin tent is doubtful.
Edward Loxton writes about Thailand, Burma, Laos and Vietnam for a number of regional publications from his base in Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand, and about Burma for Irrawaddy, the Burmese exile magazine that aims to bring about regime change there. His second book, The Orchid Cafe, a humorous look at life in a remote Thai village, is to be published in mid-2007.