Another article

Ok guys! Troisième article publié dans The Scottish Independent, au sujet des histoires de Q des politiques français, et surtout du fait que ça ne choque quasiment personne. Hope you enjoy your reading!

French politicians’ love life

Politician do have a private life. Except it’s not so private sometimes, especially in France. Because they also have love affairs. And usually those clever gentlemen are nothing close to Nobel Prizes when it comes to this matter. It even seems that power emphasizes their natural ability to think with something else than their brain.

The US have had their share of scandals. You must be thinking of Bill Clinton. Oh please, Billy was just helping a trainee who’d lost her pencil under his desk! No, more seriously, back in the 60’s, John Kennedy opened the way for you guys: not only did he have tons of mistresses, but he managed not to get officially caught once. Ha!

Anyway our true subject here is French politicians. And not actual raw sex, but, as said above, love affairs. So let’s get rid of Dominique Strauss-Kahn right now, because behaving like a pervert is not fun, and we want to have a little fun, don’t we?

So maybe we could study, through three quite recent examples, the way the French absolutely don’t give a damn about their leaders’ love lives. It’s amazing I must say, even for a French like me.

Let’s begin with François Mitterrand. When he became president in 1981 he was married to Danielle, the mother of their sons. He was known to be a womanizer but nothing could be proved until 1994 when journalists found out about the double life he was leading. During his fourteen years at the head of France, Mitterrand spent his holidays and all his evenings with Anne Pingeot and their secret daughter, Mazarine, born in 1974. Maybe people were surprised, but not shocked, for sure. At his funeral in 1998, Mazarine was all naturally in the front row, along with the “official” family. Fair enough.

Nicolas Sarkozy was elected in 2007. He was married to Cecilia, but she’d had an affair with a certain Monsieur Attias. Everybody knew it and nobody cared. Nico and Ceci had separated two years before and then got back together, but it was pretty obvious that their couple wasn’t the happiest in the world. For instance, Cecilia remained invisible during her husband’s campaign and is even said not to have voted at the second round of the election. A bit weird, yes. On the night Sarkozy won (against the socialist Ségolène Royal, we’ll see later why it’s important) she was nowhere to be seen. The new prez had to celebrate his victory with some buddies in a bar like a single loser. Ok, they were famous buddies and the bar was The Fouquet’s, but quand meme. Cecilia finally showed up late that night, but the party was morose.

When Nicolas was officially inaugurated, she wore a nice dress, shed a tear (of despair, most likely) and managed to have their son Louis say something super cheesy like “I love you my little daddy” (oh no).

A few months later, the presidential couple decided to divorce. Cecilia went back to her lover (to whom she’s married at present day), and Nico had to face the burden of trying to govern France as a bachelor.

No more First Lady for us.

But not for long. Sarkozy was soon spotted in Disneyland Paris with the ex-supermodel now singer Carla Bruni, well-known until then for being a convinced left-wing. And, ahem, not a shy girl. She had the reputation of being a man eater, and the list of her lovers is long and eclectic. Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, Donald Trump, Arno Klarsfeld and many french actors and singers. Rather unusual for a soon-to-be First Lady, but who cared?

Nicolas made things clear quickly, because “on va pas s’ mentir” (“I’m not going to lie to you”), like he used to say, shrugging one shoulder. Carlita and him were in love, they were getting married, period. And so they did. Carla went on with her singing and even gave concerts while her husband was on duty. Thus she was constantly exposed to criticism (about her lack of talent) and jokes (about her couple). Nicolas even dared to attend a few of her gigs “incognito”. How cool is that, huh? Their marriage is still going well, crowned by the birth of a little Giulia in 2011.

2012. Bye bye Nicolas, hello François Hollande. The guy had been living in sin (bad, naughty) for 29 years with Ségolène Royal (read above) the mother of their four children. In 2007, Ségolène began to talk wedding. Surprise, instead of proposing, François decided to put an end to their romance. Hollande really seems to be allergic to marriage, as we’ll see further on.

The thing is he was actually secretly dating Valérie Trierweiler, a journalist, since 2005. Their relationship became official in 2010, and François got a bit carried away, claiming he had met the woman of his life (but not all his life, it seems).

Good for him. The French couldn’t care less.

So when he was elected in 2012, Val was more or less France’s First Lady. Everything went normal for two years, the French president having a roommate at the Elysée. But in January 2014, bombshell: a tabloïd published photos of François bringing fresh croissants to Julie Gayet, an actress, riding his Vespa like any Tom Dick or Harry. The president was cheating on Valérie. He was having an affair. Guess what? The French weren’t at all shocked by this aspect. No, the trouble was he was there on his Vespa smiling like an idiot teen in love, all by himself without any guard or protection. Frankly, François, you could have been killed. You romantic fool.

The photos spoke for themselves and Valérie was very very upset. François once again quietly made a statement to end their relationship. Something sober and classy, like ‘”you’re banned, Val”.

Val didn’t take it too well and her retaliation was quick. She wrote a book ironically titled “Thank You For This Moment” in which she revealed some interesting things about her ex, like, for instance, the way he totally despised poor people and called them “les sans-dents” (no-teeth). Rather embarrassing for a socialist.

So let’s sum-up the situation: exit Trierweiler, Hollande was officially single.

Once again, no First Lady for us. Not very good for the image of the Land of the (so-called) French Lover.

But: single president, yes. Single man, no. Newspapers are spreading the word that Julie Gayet spends a lot of time at the Elysée, and when she invites some friends there she casually says “why don’t we go to my fiancé’s?” Isn’t that lovely? In the records of the same newspapers, back in 2011, photos already showed Julie sitting right behind François and Valérie at a political meeting. So how long has this been going, for Christ’s sake? Anyway, no wedding planned, not even a statement to make the relationship official.

The guards at the Elysée just let Julie in and that’s it.

Lately, François and Trierweiler met again, and he is still very close to Royal, now a member of his government (she’s the minister of ecology).

So what’s next?

Wait and see.

But what strikes me is that honestly, the three men listed above are not precisely Princes Charming. So how come they managed to unleash so many passions? Especially considering that the women involved were rather good-looking.

Could it be possible that power also emphasizes the ability of those ladies to think with something else than their brain?

A bientôt mes droughies émoustillés!