Vive la France!

In the middle of the summer slump, the Avignon Festival had just ended, "Le Monde" dealt with the poor record of the French Minister of Culture, Aurélie Filippetti. The quality newspaper did it in a rather perfidious way: It described the minister as a political turncoat who had turned from a Green to a Red. She had kept it up with Ségolène Royal and Dominique Strauss-Kahn. And after the latter's arrest in New York, she switched to comrade François Hollande. "To now throw herself into the arms of Arnaud Montebourg." No average reader of the "Monde" could have guessed that this was meant very literally.

A few weeks later, Minister Montebourg resigned from the government, for ideological reasons. Filippetti surprisingly took her hat with him. In the spring, she had fought as tenaciously as successfully for her portfolio during the government reshuffle and defended the austerity policy in culture. Now everything was suddenly very different: Hollande had betrayed his and her ideals, and she wrote this in an open letter in "Le Monde." Only insiders could make sense of her behavior.

We vaguely remembered the insinuation in the serious world newspaper. The truth about the enigmatic resignation was finally announced three weeks later by the magazine "Paris Match": Filippetti and Montebourg are lovers. Montebourg had previously presented the prominent TV journalist Audrey Pulvar to the public as his last partner. And the Minister of Culture, in a fit of abuse of power at the publisher Antoine Gallimard a year ago, tried to ban the key and adulterous novel "Moments d'un couple" by the actress Nelly Alard. Alard wrote from the perspective of the betrayed wife. Gallimard had previously published Filippetti's novel about the same affair - from the lover's point of view.

It was only thanks to the sex affairs of Dominique Strauss- Kahn that François Hollande was able to become president. Everything was supposed to be better and the incest of media women and men in power was supposed to end. With his girlfriend Valérie Trierweiler, Hollande moved into the Elysée. In January, the gossip magazine "Closer" reported Hollande's liaison with actress Julie Gayet. Trierweiler retaliated with a book; it is the bestseller of the year.

France protects privacy like no other country - it hails trials and convictions. This is good and has many negative consequences, the debates about it have been going on since DSK. All journalists were informed about his behavior. Only the common people of the readers were not told anything. The newspapers vowed less restraint since then.

The dialectic of quality press and gossip magazines - as in the Filippetti case - continues to be practiced. But the media are less restrained. The news channel France Info set up a people section and reported - second-hand, of course - on the new woman at Pierre Moscovici's side. She is thirty years younger and was his employee at the ministry. A year ago, Moscovici presented a student as his mistress. In the famous Café de Flors in Paris, he had himself photographed making love. Politicians, too, have the right to a private life - certainly according to their own ideas - and its protection. But the fact that the EU commissioner designated by Hollande and rejected by the Germans because of the French deficit economy failed practically at the same time at the obviously unprepared hearing before the European Parliament is not entirely insignificant in this context. At the very least, it makes a bad impression.

Hollande is also the only one to worry about politically. "Closer" just reported that his affair continues to flourish: practically every evening Julie Gayet comes to the Elysée. Incidentally, the dangerous love affairs of politicians do not only lead to resignations. Sometimes they make possible a surprising comeback. And family reunions.

Trierweiler's expulsion from the Elysée made possible the return to government of Ségolène Royal, the mother of Hollande's four children, who no longer wanted to see him.