Sexe, love and passion à la française

When former President François Mitterrand’s funeral was held, his wife and two sons attended the burial as you would expect. However, his mistress and his daughter (born out of wedlock), also attended. This young woman is now part of the Parisian intelligentsia and she’s a writer (what else in France?).

The picture of the funeral is regularly presented in the American media as evidence that the French are different, verging on immorality, which makes them probably somewhat unreliable. And one must concede they’re on to something here. Isn’t adultery basically a breach of confidence? 

Nothing new here, mind you. Just consider the case of another French President, Félix Faure, who died in the arms of his mistress in 1899 at the Elysée Palace.

Want some more? Take, for instance, Jacques Chirac, our former president whose love conquests are too numerous to be numbered, yet his wife, Bernadette, is perfectly well aware of this state of affairs.

The same goes for former President Valery Giscard d’Estaing, who was caught by the police one very early morning on the streets of Paris in 1976 because he was involved in a car crash. He was on his way back to the Elysée Palace from a nightly visit to a “friend”. Giscard went so far as to publicly confess that he often thought, during the Council of Ministers, how Mme. X, then Minister for Higher Education, looked like when…err...while...

You might think, only presidents? Wrong you are.

It doesn’t stop there. The current French Minister of Justice, Mme. Alliot-Marie, who is divorced, has been engaged for nearly 20 years in a relationship with a French deputy. They still aren’t married.

Of the two contenders for the second round of the presidential election three years ago both had an unusual marital status. On the left, Segolene Royal had been living unmarried with the father of her 4 children for over 20 years. On the right side, Nicolas Sarkozy’s second marriage nearly went on the rocks after his wife left him for 6 months (no, not to live in seclusion in some kind of monastery…). While separated from his wife, Mr. Sarkozy took a mistress...

And now, the President of France has married a third time, is a divorced man with children from 2 beds, whose former spouse is also a divorcee from a (prior) TV entertainer. He won the presidential race over an unmarried woman who has been living in sin for over 20 years.

And you know what? The French simply don’t care. They don’t care to a point that probably can hardly be imagined by our American friends.

Do you think someone could ever be elected President of the US in the forthcoming years under the same sinful circumstances? Bill and Monica anyone? Gary Hart? And in the end, does it really matter what politicians do with their private lives?

(It is said American President F.D. Roosevelt died with his mistress on his side.)

As everyone knows, things have dramatically changed since the presidential election : Segolène Royal has split from her former partner because he had a mistress!

Nicolas Sarkozy, the now president of France, has divorced from his second wife (see Lesly Stahl) but has engaged within three months with a former top-model who he eventually married.

Some things never change on the other hand: The French don't care about all these personnal affairs but we're really, really tired to be informed about what we don't want to know.

And I was wondering how our American friends could not believe there must be some truth in the cliché of the French as serial womanizers and their general liberal attitude regarding all things related to sex...