There's something wrong here....

Above, we have the photograph of the government picked by Mr. Ayrault, the Prime Minister selected by the incoming President of the French Republique, Mr. Hollande.
A government demonstrating parity - seventeen men, seventeen women -  and diversity - non white faces.

Here we have the female members of the government accompanying the President and the Prime Minister.
All seventeen of them.

The parity.

But also the diversity.

Check the top picture.
Take away the women and there are only white faces to be seen.

Of the 'regalian' ministries....Finance, Foreign Affairs, Defence, Interior, Justice...only one, Justice, has gone to a woman - a woman from Guyana, thus neatly copping the two categories in one person.
The rest remain in the hands of the white males.

So, overall there might be parity, but parity without clout, without power.
Diversity has become a sub category of parity, and men are excluded.

It strikes me that this new government shows exactly what is going wrong with the integration of originally immigrant communities in France.
Immigrant women can benefit from the 'empowerment' programmes open to all women in France  - until they hit the glass ceiling - but what happens to the men?

They get sidetracked.
Much depends on who your patron is in France - who will push you - and pushing a woman from an immigrant community gets patrons more brownie points than pushing a man with the same background.

Is it any wonder that the men rely on their own communities for validation of their worth?
Any wonder that they confine their efforts and their talents to their own communities - but, without patrons - unable to empower those communities.

I'm not a fan of Hollande.
I'm not a fan of his party.

But it is a party that claims to offer opportunity to all.
To help the disadvantaged take their place in society.

So where are the non white men in Hollande's government ?
Where are the campaign promises to empower men from immigrant communities?

French society has intertwined two strands.....integration of immigrant communities and female empowerment.
In that immigrant communities are seen as patriarchal the effort goes to empowering women.
Very laudable...but where does that leave the men?

Powerless in the context of general society they reinforce the patriarchal power in their own community.
Cocks of their own dunghill.

Why cannot Hollande's party see this?
Because it is run by the products of the 'tick the box' nature of 'higher' education in France.
Not only is there only one answer...there is only one question.
The products of the Ecole Nationale d'Administration think as one...like a shoal of small fish in the ocean.
It makes for cohesion in administrative practice and for the survival of the mass of the shoal, but not for flexibility of thought, nor for anticipation of problems.

The Sarkozy presidency was a 'blip'...now the enarques are back in control.
They can happily tick the parity and diversity boxes without troubling themselves as to the relation of these boxes to French society.
Their blindness only equaled by their arrogance.

An arrogance shown by that nice guy President, Mr.Hollande.

He arrived at the Elysee Palace for the handover of power with Mr.Sarkozy. The two men met briefly, the nuclear codes were handed over and Mr.Sarkozy prepared to leave with his wife.

Mr.Hollande did not have the courtesy to escort the couple to their car - something the humblest person in France would have done without thinking.

Mr. Hollande could not even wait until the couple had reached their car. He turned on his heel and entered the palace.

I bear no brief for Mr.Sarkozy and less for his wife.
He will inevitably be involved in unpleasant legal enquiries before too long as he is not one of the elite from the ENA -  he is a maverick easily sacrificed on the altar of keeping up the pretense that France is not a banana republic without even the bananas to hide her shame.
Mme. Sarkozy has enriched her friends at public expense.

But for an incoming President to dispense with the normal courtesies of life, not to speak of the magnanimity required by victory, indicates that France is back in the hands of her natural masters......

The masters of smoke and mirrors.