Valerie Trierweiler

Valerie Trierweiler

as those who take an interest in these matters know, Valerie Trierweiler is a journalist (formerly a political journalist) who worked for Paris Match and various television channels in France. She began a liaison with Francois Hollande, some time before he became President of France. He left his partner, fellow politician Segolene Royal, the mother of his four children, for her, and she left her husband, Denis Trierweiler, for him. She was installed as First Lady (kind of), but pretty quickly Hollande fell out of love with her. Or so it seems. He began an affair with actress Julie Gayet, and that affair may be continuing to this day. All this is hardly unusual for French politicians, or indeed for presidents of France. Hollande's paunchy Sunday-Dad looks notwithstanding, he is very successful with women. Apparently he is humorous, charming and excellent company, and has the knack many successful politicians have of making the person he is with feel that they are the most important person in the world. Certainly Valerie Trierweiler fell in love with him.

When Francois Hollande dumped Valerie, very publicly, having the media briefed to "catch him out" visiting Julie Gayet at night by scooter, she went into crisis. Not surprisingly. This was exacerbated by Hollande, disgracefully, using the machinery of state to keep her on such high doses of tranquillisers that she remained in hospital, barely knowing what day it was, for quite a long time. She was then placed under a kind of house arrest in a grace-and-favour house. All this was pretty much guaranteed to bring on some kind of breakdown and collapse in most people. But not in Valerie. Instead she used the time, despite being besieged by the paparazzi, to write an explosive book called "Merci Pour Ce Moment", in which she makes no secret of her love for Hollande, but assassinates his character so totally that he should never recover from it, at least personally. He is portrayed as dishonest, meretricious, unfaithful, cruel and and snobbish. I am sure he is all those things.

I highly recommend the book, which has been translated into English. It's not a ghostwritten celeb memoir, but a real book, with real things to say about celebrity, politics and the media. Valerie comes across as an attractive character: a woman who started out with no advantages in life, unlike Francois Hollande; a woman who knows what it means to be poor, but who has made her way in the world. The French literary and political establishment, of course, castigated her book, and shunned her. But the French public loved it, and her - she had not been popular when First Lady, which she makes no secret of in the book - it became a best-seller, and is, we hear, to be a film.

So, I like Valerie. She and I have never met, but I hope we will one day. I would like to invite her to lunch some time soon, with no media present.

But what's this? Here is a creature called Jeremy Harding, reviewing Merci Pour Ce Moment in the London Review of Books. He doesn't like it, or her. But he doesn't say why, other than to castigate her for repeating in the book things Hollande had said to her in private. Well, why on earth shouldn't she? Hollande should have known that if you dump your partner, especially as cruelly and publicly as he dumped Valerie, she's unlikely to do much to preserve your pride, dignity or credibility. No one in public life should say, or especially write, anything they would mind seeing in the tabloids. Although Hollande was apparently not particularly unkind about his former partner Segolene Royal (Valerie sometimes wished he would be, and did not like them staying in political cahoots after their split), Harding singles out in his review Valerie's resentment of Segolene. Harding uses the phrase "upside-down hanging", and in case we don't get the reference he adds "like Clara Petacci". In the unlikely eventuality that readers do not know who Petacci was, I point out that she was Mussolini's mistress, who was hanged alongside him, upside down, by partisans in 1945. So, what part of a woman do you see most clearly if she is hanging upside down? Quite. This is not accidental misogyny, but very deliberate. When you're having a go at a book a woman you don't like or approve of has written, you don't critique her writing or her ideas. You refer to her ****. I Googled Jeremy Harding, as you do, and the first thing that came up was an adoring interview in (where else?) the Guardian. The interview informed us breathlessly that he lives in "a lovely house near Bordeaux" and that he is "long-limbed and graceful". Puke.

The duplicitous, cruel, snobbish and grasping French political establishment, and a misogynist "journalist" who is the darling of the Guardian, on one side. One strong woman on the other. I know which side I'm on.

Valerie, let's have lunch soon.

the hand-wringing has to stop

says Tony Blair in The Times today (£). He is writing about Syria of course. Although the window of opportunity to achieve peace, stop the killing and prevent the various murderous death-lovers from dividing up the territory has long closed, largely because Barack Obama has been a TOTAL PUSSY, the line-ups of child body bags are embarrassing even him. Barack Obama is the leader of the free world. That phrase is rather unfashionable these days, but it is still true - perhaps more so, as during the Cold War, when half of Europe was under dictatorship, those dictatorships, while they locked up dissidents, told the world they were freedom-loving democrats. The likes of the Muslim Brotherhood, and worse, say no such thing. Osama bin Laden once said "We love death" and he spoke the truth. Tony Blair spoke of hand-wringing, but I haven't seen much of it. Indifference, yes. Hand-wringing is coming from people like me, I suppose, and I am powerless here. I have tried to test this notion on a few occasions recently, by raising the subject of the terrible slaughter in Syria with people who do not identify as political or interested in world affairs, and with whom I do not usually discuss such things. Without exception there has been a brief pause and then a change of subject. Almost pathological. What is going on here? It seems to indicate that a lot of people shut out what they know is happening, because, I suppose, they don't want to think about it, or feel guilty for doing and saying nothing. But they don't appear to articulate that to themselves. People who do articulate such things, often Americans, have been saying things like "This is not our war" - but even they have shut up a bit lately.

The excellent Terry Glavin puts it excellently:

"If NATO had leapt to this tremendous opportunity at the outset, Al Qaida's affiliates in Syria would have been smashed, Hezbollah would have been smashed, Assad would be gone and "the west" would have its best friend in the so-called Arab world, a new and embryonic democracy besides. Instead, more than 100,000 Syrians dead, Assad still in power and gassing his own people, Tehran is laughing at the U.S., Russia is ascendant, America is a laughing stock. A lovely new world, isn't it. "The tide of war is receding," as Obama likes to say."

The leadership of my adopted country of France, while it is f***ing up big time on retirement and the economy (another story) is saying, and in some cases doing, the right things internationally. Big up Francois Hollande. I might even card up for the Parti Socialiste again if this carries on. The UK is making the right noises. Even Angela Merkel has now said she would countenance action. Get in there. Do it now. The slaughter in Syria shames us all.

follow the money

Cahuzac with Swiss emblem and Hollande with first aid box (pic: Le Monde)

Jerome Cahuzac is a former Socialist deputy in the French National Assembly, a former Budget Minister, and mayor of somewhere or other, as they mostly are in France. He spent months denying that he had any secret bank accounts in which money destined for the administration of public services had been squirrelled away. Then the MediaPart website managed to obtain the information (sought by prosecutors since Cahuzac was sacked as budget minister in March) that in fact he did have a bank account in Switzerland, and that it contained some 600,000 euros. It seems that this money may have come from sources identified as public funds, the administration of which was in part Cahuzac's responsibility. Cahuzac fessed up yesterday (just after texting President Hollande to tell him that he was going to) once he knew the jig was up. You can find Cahuzac's statement on his blog here.  He's now been expelled from the party, and told that he is "expected" to resign from elected office. President Hollande is going to make a televised statement this afternoon.

It's all a very bad business. Governments have fallen because of such things. I do not expect this government to fall over this, but it's hardly been helpful. Hollande has had some very poor polling lately, before this latest business, and is going to have to find a way to pull back. The intervention in Mali did him some good (and I congratulate him for it) but not enough it seems.

did he say sorry?

M. Hollande, the President of the French Republic, speaking on the 70th anniversary of the round-up of 13,000 Jews from Paris and its suburbs, to die in the camps, that is.  The answer is, no, he did not.  He said this:

 La vérité, c'est que le crime fut commis en France, par la France. " La France, et non pas l'" autorité de fait dite "gouvernement de l'Etat français" ", comme il était de tradition de qualifier le régime de Vichy jusqu'à ce que M. Chirac, le 16 juillet 1995, ne rompe avec la périphrase officielle utilisée depuis la guerre en déclarant que " la France, ce jour-là, accomplissait l'irréparable ",

So, he acknowledged the resonsibility of "France" and not that of the Vichy government, for a part of the Holocaust, and also paid a kind of tribute to Jacques Chirac*, the first to acknowledge the responsibility of "France", on the same anniversary in 1995.  The atrocity is known as "Vel d'Hiv" after its location, the former Velodrome d'Hiver (Winter Velodrome) in Paris - no French person will speak or write a word in full if it can be abbreviated.

Norm has posted on this today, too.

It seems a good and dignified way to acknowledge that historical responsibility.

Not one German soldier was involved in the Vel d'Hiv.

*Hugely admired by local librarian and former politician Dictatorship Dave Sutton

politics in France

Yesterday, 18th May, was the deadline for candidates' names to go forward for the parliamentary elections.  The Left has been trying to form an accord in 55 constituencies where the Front National (which was in third place with 18% of the vote in the presidential election) has a chance of winning, by standing one candidate, from the party of the left with the best chance.  The Front de Gauche, consisting of the Parti de Gauche and the Parti Communiste, has not been able to  reach agreement with the Parti Socialiste.  The Greens, the other party in this "coalition", have less say, because their vote in the presidential was so small at 2.3%.  But the head of their party, Cecile Duflot, has got ministerial post. Anyway, agreement has mostly not been reached.  Pity.  The Front National may well elect one or more deputies next month.  Marine Le Pen is certainly cock-a-hoop, especially at the apparent disunity of the Left.  As well she might be.

In other news, a Francois Hollande election pledge was to return to a five-day week for schools.  At the moment there is no school on Wednesdays or Saturdays.  From now they will have the choice - Wednesday mornings or Saturday mornings.  The teachers are against a return to five days, and the tourism industry is against a return to Saturdays, as it says people won't go away for the weekend so much.  The school day is long, from about 8 a.m. to as late as 6 p.m. in secondary schools, though there is a two-hour lunch break for most.  It is quite hard to get a response from many offices which deal with administration of various kinds on Wednesdays, as they are mostly staffed by women of an age to have children at school, and very many of these women work a four-day week so as to be able to take care of their children on Wednesdays.  Women's participation in the workforce is high, largely because of the amount of state-funded childcare which is available.  There is free full-day care available for children from as young as two, so long as they are toilet trained.

So you see, it's all a bit different on this side of the Channel.  Fabulous health system, lots of tedious bureaucracy, bakeries to die for, everything closed on Sundays.  No car tax.  VAT at 19% on lots of things.  Everyone goes on holiday at the same time.  Concept of customer service non-existent. No school uniforms.

ladies and gentlemen, introducing...

photo Le Monde

the new government of France, under Prime Minister Ayrault (who?), looks like this, well, some of it does.  There are 34 ministers, 17 of them women.  Pretty good going, but Sarko's government looked like this at first, and it didn't last.  But hostilities have already kicked off.  Martine Aubry, who wanted to be prime minister and is not, has declined to be in government.  She remains first secretary of the party, and as such has control over selections and nominations for constituencies.  The parliamentary elections are on 10th and 17th June, so she has moved fast, putting one of her own in the constituency of the Somme and deselecting one of Hollande's most loyal lieutenants - and so it goes.  Constituencies in France do not have names but numbers - we live in Strasbourg constituency no. 1 - which has taken some getting used to.  Another difficulty for the parliamentary elections is that the Parti Socialiste is in partnership with the Greens, and so must deselect some of its candidates and replace them with Greens.  This is not going down well. Also, those appointed to government have been told that if they are candidates for parliament they will lose their ministerial jobs if defeated at the election - and there I was thinking that separation of powers was not properly understood in the UK. Sigh.

But people seem to be prepared to give Hollande a fair go, although without much enthusiasm.  That's pretty much how I feel too.