Desperate Housewives, French style

The changing of the guard in Paris this week is offering entertainment worthy of a TV series. The plot involves three couples and the bumpy relationships of at least two of them. Will Cécilia stay with Sarko ? Can Ségo do any more to humiliate her man ? Will the judges call in Jacques before Bernadette has had time to hang the new curtains ?

Today's episode opens to the sound of paper shredding machines working overtime in the Elysée Palace, which Jacques and Bernadette Chirac leave on Wednesday after 12 years of presidency. 

Over on the left bank, Nicolas Sarkozy, his successor, is upsetting his friends and adversaries by trying to poach former Socialist ministers for his rightwing administration (newspaper story here). The latest recruit is said to be Bernard Kouchner, the co-founder of the Médecins sans Frontières relief organisatin and international human rights activist.

More sensationally, it emerged last night that Cécilia Sarkozy, the new Première Dame, did not vote for her husband in the May 6 election. The glamorous Madame Sarkozy [above with the new president], who was invisible for most of the campaign, did not vote for anyone.

Her absence was reported on the internet but le Journal du Dimanche yesterday dropped its version of the story after the editor decided that it should not touch the Sarkozys' "private life". This had nothing to do with the fact that the newspaper's owner is Arnaud Lagardère, the billionaire who is one of Sarko's closest friends, said Jacques Espérandieu, the editor. Le Monde contradicted that today, reporting that the new president's henchmen had indeed applied the screws to the Sunday newspaper.

Lagardère's Paris Match magazine has been used as the main conduit for countering tales of the Sarkozy's marital troubles, with covers and dozens of pages of the happy couple in recent weeks. A commentator on France-Inter radio last week renamed the magazine Paris Pravda. Things have changed since Lagardère fired the editor of Match last year for publishing a front page picture of Cécilia with Richard Attias, the events organiser with whom she spent a few months in 2005.

The old taboo over private life and fear of Sarko have caused most media to avoid the question of Mrs Sarkozy's role, or if she will have any, as Première Dame. Two years ago, she said she could not imagine becoming first lady. "The idea bores me stiff," she said.   As an extra tidbit for aficionados of the Paris soap opera, le Figaro has just put Anne Fulda, a distinguished political reporter, back on the Sarko beat. Fulda was moved to other subjects in 2005 when her relationship with Sarko became public during Cécilia's absence that year.

A few hundred yards away from Sarko's termporary offices in the rue Saint Dominique, Ségolène Royal, the defeated presidential candidate, has stirred up a hornet's next with her Socialist comrades by acting as if she had won and making a bid for leadership of the party and nomination as its candidate in the next election... in 2012.

The main victim of ambition is her long-suffering domestic partner François Hollande who has been the party boss since 1997. Today, their chief rival, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has come out and openly blamed both of them for the mess and the party's third presidential defeat in a row. Ca promet, as they say, for next month's legislative elections. The polls show that voters will return a Sarkozy majority to parliament, which is probably a relief to the Socialists. If by some freak they won power, they would not know what to do with it or who would be their Prime Minister.

When Sarkozy takes up the Elysée throne on Wednesday, Jacques and Bernadette Chirac are moving across the Seine to an apartment lent to them by the Hariri family of Lebanon. Rafic Hariri, the murdered Lebanese building tycoon and former Prime Minister, was a close Chirac friend. It will be the first time that the Chirac's have lived in a private residence since 1977 when he became Mayor of Paris and moved his family into the baronial chambers of the Hôtel de Ville  -- City Hall in American, nothing to do with a hotel.

Staff at the Elysée are getting rid of all but the official documents that are passed on to the incoming president. Unlike practices in more accountable states, the Elysée, with its presidential headquarters and private apartments, is a state secret. The President is not expected to account for any of the estimated 80 million euros a year that go to funding him and his staff. The official budget of the Elysée has multiplied nine-fold to 32 million euros in Chirac's tenure, and a further 52 million a year are hidden from public accounts. These widely quoted figure have been circulated by René Dosière, a Socialist parliamentarian who has made a hobby out of trying to track abuses at the Elysée.

The outgoing President becomes ordinary Citizen Chirac one month after leaving office. That is when the investigating judges are expected to seek his assistance in their inquiries into some of the financial shenanigans that went on in the Paris City Hall and Gaullist party in the 1980s and 1990s. He was boss of both at the time and a dozen of his subordinates have been convicted of corruption offences but until Chirac has been shielded from inquiries by prsidential immunity. In the political world, it is not widely thought that the former president will be pursued very far. During the campaign, Francois Bayrou, the centrist candidate, told me that he was certain that "they will leave the old boy alone".

Chirac is saying farewell to the nation on television tomorrow night. It really is the passing of a generation and the link with the postwar era of Charles de Gaulle. Chirac, it should be remembered, first served in government as a junior  minister under de Gaulle in 1967.  His tenure has, to put it mildly, been patchy but there is nostalgia in the air as the likable old rogue bows out. I shall try to look at his legacy later.   

Comments

[richard jones]

Goodbye to Jacques Chiraq. Now let's move to the 6th République with a better weighting towards the legislative branch, a few more checks and balances, coupled with a little more accountability, on the executive branch and a much more independent judiciary.
I could never quite take seriously a constitution that permitted the elected (albeit) head of the executive to appoint the head of the legislative branch.

[Debra]

Is there any truth to the rumour that M Hollande's mistress gave birth the week before the elections?

[Terry]

Why would Sarkozy put socialists in powerful positions in his government? I imagine they will be well placed to undermine his administration quite nicely.

A poor first move.

[AG Ghazzal]

How sad for France's image , French politics and in particular for the outgoing French president that he has to move into a "grace & favour" flat offered to him and his wife by the son of an assasinated Lebanese prime minister.

Where is the dignity of the man, of the highest office he held for so long and the prestige of the French nation.

It is disgraceful. One would think Chirac would be honourable enough to have refused such an offer and moved into his own digs.

[john.Reed]

The fact that Cecilia didn't vote on may 6th might be a good news for Sarko, because as far as we know, she just might have voted for Ségo on the first round.... And afeter all, he got 53% and 17 million+ voters, does he really need her vote ?

And a quick answer to Debra, you must be confused, the rumour was that Anne Fulda from Le Figaro (a "publicised" mistress of Sarko, who gave her name in a plane to a happy few journalists, before threatenning them to sue them when they pushed the news along) gave birth to yet-another-Mazarine. But there isn't any evidence of that either...

[Valentin]

"Why would Sarkozy put socialists in powerful positions in his government? I imagine they will be well placed to undermine his administration quite nicely."

He chose those socialists that are known as powerful, independent personalities, leaning rather to the center-left, and having been left aside during the last campaign. Sarkozy proposes them targeted "missions" to help the country in the name of the common good, above party considerations.
They, on the other hand, are not the kind of cunning politicians that would stab him in the back, but rather the kind to feel honoured the President needs them.

[richard jones]

M. Ghazzal,

Jacques Chiraq cannot afford to look to rich at this time as there is a faint chance that the judiciary he once dominated from his presidential summit (throne) my rise up and demands he come to the bar.

[Ros]

There were 179 "réactions" in Le Monde today concerning the Journal de Dimanche's censored article about the non-vote of Cecilia - here's one (I wouldn't dare quote the name of the voter - who knows?) "Elle n'a rien pour ou contre. Si elle n'a pas voté, c'est tout simplement pour pouvoir s'en vanter le lendemain dans son salon de coiffure" - I think our remarks here are a lot more intelligent !

[Little Big Horn]

Cécilia didn't vote?
So she didn't vote for her husband. Interesting. But what does the First lady think about democracy, about politics, about France destiny, about citizenship? Nothing? Was she protesting about something? Is she against the female right to vote? Did she lose a bet? Is she free? The idea of a First Lady who did not vote sounds strange. Will she play this role without complexes? Will she stay aside? To be continued...

What is really interesting is Lagardère's attempt, after Alain Génestar's dismissal, after First Edition director's convocation by N. Sarkozy to cancel a book about Cécilia, after his pressure to forbid "Rupture" (a book about N. Sarkozy's resuts as Ministre de l'Intérieur), to cover up this information. But why? I thought the tycoons bought newspapers because they love to get informations. I'm disappointed.

Hopefully, for truth and for the liberty of the press, the Times does not belong to Sarko's friends.
Does it, Charles?

[Lord Nithorynque]

To Richard Jones :
The spelling of Jacques Chiraq (with a q) says it all... Is it some subconscious urge of getting rid of Iraq ?

[Ros]

Mr Bremner, you say, concerning the Socialists "If by some freak they won power,", I don't see what you mean. Obviously, they can't win enough "power" to take over from Sarkozy:their motivation in the legislatives (as you know better than me) is to increase the number of Socialists in parliament and maybe they will do that - there's nothing wrong in having a good opposition!

[John Gregory Flinn]

Desperate housewives indeed!

France 2 reported that 7 or 8 of Sarkozy's ministers are slated to be females - half his government!
A fly on the wall at Matignon might have some some interesting tales to tell....(sic) maybe a TV series.

[Susannah]

"...or we may witness shameless intrusion on the privacy of well-known people under the slogan: 'everyone is entitled to know everything.' But this is a false slogan, characteristic of a false era: people also have the right not to know, and it is a much more valuable one. The right not to have their divine souls stuffed with gossip, nonsense, vain talk."

-- Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Just throwing it out there...

[Valentin]

"The right not to have their divine souls stuffed with gossip, nonsense, vain talk.

-- Alexander Solzhenitsyn"

Nice one.

In the same line, I would have done the same as Sarkozy if someone tried to intrude in my private life like Paris Match did in his. People that sue these magazines mostly do it for the money. He took it personally and did everything to reach his goal: no more private life on display.

[richard jones]

No my Lord,

I always spell it that way as an indictment of a man who did the right thing but could not resist doing it with undue arrogant spitefulness and some little concern about France's economic relations with that region.

[richard jones]

What is all the fuss about? Who cares about this? As long as extra-marital affairs are not a security risk, who cares???

[anne-sophie]

pourriez vous traduire cet article en francais s'il vous plait merci

[christopher muir]

The Bernard Kouchner appointment, if it comes off, sounds like a really progressive idea. No doubt Le Figaro's circulation won't be harmed as Anne Fulda returns to her previous rounds.
It looks like a plot for five years of excellent French political theatre is being drawn up.

[Dominique]

Christophe,

"The Bernard Kouchner appointment, if it comes off, sounds like a really progressive idea"

Really? do i need to remind you that dear old Bernard was a staunch supporter of the Irak war?

[Pierre Bernardi]

"I could never quite take seriously a constitution that permitted the (...) head of the executive to appoint the head of the legislative branch."

So presumably Mr Jones is uncomfortable with the British version, where the head of the executive and the head of the legislative branch are one and the same. Or is that alright in a monarchy? Shall we ask Mr Brown? Or Mr Salmond?

This makes me think: the West Lothian question is a drop in the ocean compared to the greater mismanagement of the UK's politics. Vive la République!

[Valentin]

Anne-Sophie,

N'étant pas sûr si vous vous adressez à M. Bremner ou à nous, je vous indique l'adresse suivante, ou vous pourrez obtenir une traduction (certes imperfecte) de l'article :

http://trans.voila.fr/voila

[christopher muir]

Dominique,

Thanks. No, I didn't know that Kouchner had supported the Iraq invasion. Perhaps he now recognises it was a mistake and has learnt from it A question to be asked by journalists.

[Maggie G]

Dominique and Christipher,

I don't think Kouchner supported the Iraq invasion. He spoke out against the manner in which the French were conducting their campaign against the Americans. I remember him saying, "We must remember, the Americans are our ALLIES." But I don't remember him being in favour of the invasion.

I could be wrong, though.

[Ros]

I can also add that Bernard Kouchner was the first, very very first doctor to imagine and set-up "Médecins sans Frontières", known worldwide as "the French Doctors" - this was around 1966, I think. Maybe he would have been better to stay in that capacity only but that is for others to judge?

[Anoirel]

Cecilia doesn't support Sarkozy regarding his political statements.She knows better the man behind the personality than no one else.She tried desperately to warn the French people.

Cecilia didn't vote for Sarko as she doesn't want to be responsible of a falling france destiny under her husband's presidency.

This is a strong political sign for France, People need to know what's going on, this is a serious national concern. This is not a private life matter.

[Ros]

oh no, Anoirel, you are quite wrong there. Pezrsonally, I think it was really a "private life matter".

[Tane]

Bernard Kouchner has long forgotten how to practice medicine, but he definitely knows how to practice dirty international politics that even the phariseeo-philistinian clones could be envious of him.