September 11, 2014
The new round of news stories prompted by Valerie Trierweiler's book took a surprising turn yesterday: Paris Match, the classy celebrity magazine, has a photo of the ousted Minister for the Economy, Arnaud Montbourg, on its latest cover, arm around Aurelie Filipetti, the former Minister for Ecology, also let go.
It was common knowledge in the Valls cabinet that Montbourg and Filipetti were an item, and in a different France --before Dominique Strauss Kahn's encounter with Nafissatou Diallo in 2011-- the story would not have been covered by the press. The private person was kept strictly separate from the public in France, a legacy of the privilege of kings. That "Berlin Wall" --as a commentator ineptly described it-- has now been breached, hence the retrospective public tittering over Filipetti's resignation, which she said was made so she could "be faithful to her ideals".
President Hollande has tried to put out the flames Trierweiler's sulfurous tome ignited by giving a long interview to Le Nouvel Observateur, the leftish magazine. Now he calls the people on the bottom rung in France les gens de peu (those who have little). The comparison to Woody Allen first made in the context of Hollande's remarkable success as a lady-killer notwithstanding his pedestrian looks, would seem to apply as well to his inability to avoid making a difficult situation worse: in the Nouvel Obs article he actually mentions that the poor usually have poor teeth because they lack the funds to care for them better. --A comment guaranteed to dig yourself deeper into your hole was never uttered.
Last night BFMTV, the 24-hour news channel had as its guest Bernard-Henri Levy, the French public intellectual often profiled in Vanity Fair. BHL as he is known, is married to Arielle Dombasle, the blonde bombshell, although his lover is fashion freak Daphne Guiness. All of which is to say that he is a highly-visible, media-seeking public presence, who inspires both positive and negative press.
BHL, who is now sixty-five, is immediately recognizable. A handsome man, for years he has been wearing his black hair long in a sort of "flip" that would do a Texas dowager proud. My skepticism about his intellectual bona fides notwithstanding, he is a gifted phrase maker, as was demonstrated last night, when he called Valerie Trierweiler une Messaline du prisunic --a-five-and-dime Messallina, a reference to the promiscuous and perfidious wife of the Roman emperor Claudius.
Aside from the witty remarks the Trierweiler affair is generating, French pollsters have been finding new topics to query. Polls show 67% of the French disapprove of the book --even as it tops the sales lists for 2014 so far, with no sign of the public's interest in the book abating. However, polls also show that since Trierweiler's book appeared, the French are inclined to scrap the title and role of the Première Dame de France. An unofficial title with no legal status, nonetheless, the title of première dame has always carried great prestige, requiring of its incumbent great tact and discretion --until while in office, Nicolas Sarkozy divorced his second wife, Cecilia, and married couture model and singer Carla Bruni. After Cecilia left the Elysée and Sarkozy was defeated, she wrote a book about it. François Hollande --who has never --like Arnaud Montbourg-- married any woman he was involved with, knew the abandoned Trierweiler might write a book, and tried to stay "friendly" with her to forestall it, sending her tweets and e-mails. He now tells Le Nouvel Obs that he is "wounded by the lies" in Trierweiler's book. Segolène Royal, Hollande's former partner, and the mother of his children, has risen to his defense, saying that the man Trierweiler describes is not the man she knows.
Royal, whom Hollande cheated on for years, was the Socialist candidate for the Presidency against Sarkozy, and is now the new Minister for Ecology, replacing Aurelie Filipetti.
All of which is proving difficult for the Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, who faces a vote of confidence on his new government, known as Valls II, in the National Assembly next week. To add to Valls' troubles, Thomas Thénevoud, named Minister for Commerce by him in the reshuffle in August, had to resign when it was revealed he had not filed or paid taxes for three years. Valls is trying to regain political credibility after Trierweiler's book saw his poll numbers fall with Hollande's.
Yesterday in the National Assembly, Valls --who cannot oust Thévenoud from his position as deputé in the National Assembly-- perorated for his resignation. The Prime Minister went further, saying that he would not count Thevenoud's vote --even if supportive of Valls' government-- to be part of the needed majority for its continuance. While it is likely that even with the rebels in the party --estimated to be about eighty-two-- voting against Valls, it is likely that Valls will achieve his majority. The opposition on the right fears the collapse of the government and the further empowerment of the Front Nationale, so many will vote with their Socialist Party counterparts. Notwithstanding, Valls' speech was widely praised for its attempt to set a higher tone in French politics, with the speech being compared to that of an earlier Prime Minister --Pierre Mendès France-- in which Mendes France refused the support of the Communist Party on a vote of confidence on his government.
Valls must have appreciated the homage cautiously: the two governments of Mendès France lasted less than eighteen months in all.
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