The President's Addendum.

François Hollande (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

French presidents appear to consider their female helpmeet in the same light as that in which  Aneurin Bevan regarded posession of a British nuclear bomb...without one, they go naked into the conference chamber.

In recent times  it doesn't seem as if it matters that the helpmeet herself has gone naked in any number of chambers....the circulation of photographs of the third Mme. Sarkozy dispensing with garments is here claimed in aid.....just as long as the President of France has something female and preferably human to follow him down the steps of the 'plane when taking his 'mission civilisatrice' abroad.

In the past, Presidents had wives fairly automatically...it was what you did, part of your CV ....and everyone, including the wives, averted their eyes from the presence, the existence even, of mistresses, so the problem of being a President without an addendum did not arise until the election to office of Mr. Sarkozy.

He started out conventionally enough....he had a wife, the second Mrs. Sarkozy, even if she was reluctant to play the addendum role and preferred going shopping to meeting President Bush the second.
Who wouldn't.
Unfortunately, she turned out to be a bolter, and - worse - bolted with an American lover.

Panic in the dovecotes. The President was wearing horns. Something had to be done.

Why?

Because of the macho nature of the French elite where, while women are regarded as nothing more than social currency,  it doesn't do to be bankrupt.

No addendum...and doubt arises as to the rest of your credentials.
Especially if you are the President  - the incarnation of the powerful French male.

The President's friends rallied round and came up with a lady resting between engagements who would resolve the problem.

Carla Bruni.
The self styled man eater, with the scalps to prove it. No man - if he had any money - was safe.

Who better to restore the image of the President!
There could be no doubts as to the credentials of a man with Carla Bruni as his addendum.

And so it proved.
President Sarkozy married Carla Bruni and was able to hold his own, fully clothed,  in the conference chamber.
The lady might have had a somewhat interesting past....but she was Mme. Sarkozy and that was all that mattered.

And now we come to the addendum of the new President of France, Mr. Hollande.
Now you see it, now you don't.

Mr. Hollande is not married. Has never been married.
But he has had two long standing relationships with women.
Which overlapped somewhat.

The current ladyfriend has asserted her right to carry on with her journalistic career.
 She does not wish to be a symbol.
She has a family to feed.
She needs to work.
She can't afford to be just a figurehead for French fashion...indeed, she makes a point of how she buys from (upmarket) high street stores.
A small voice off notes that she is still married to the father of her children, who works for the same gossip rag and that he must surely be paying something toward the maintenance of his offspring, but that might spoil the story.

But what is Mr. Hollande to do?
Clearly not keen on marriage with the first lady of his choice with whom he produced four children he cannot marry the second lady even if he wished to do so...
Presidents of France are immune from prosecution during their term of office, but bigamy is still on the statute books and immunity ends a month after one ceases to be President...as Mr. Sarkozy is discovering.

 Ideas of cake and eating it rise to mind.

But the lady in question is exercising her right to be independent.
She is tweeting against the mother of Mr. Hollande's children who is attempting to  win a seat in the National Assembly.

Wonderful idea ...independence....

But how do you assess it when the independent lady accompanies Mr. Hollande, President of France, to a political pow wow in America  - wearing the French designer clothes she previously scorned?


Is it the journalist or the jealous woman who treats the Sarkozys with scorn and the woman she replaced with hatred?

And how will Mr.Holland  be judged....

Naked or clothed in the conference chamber?