François Hollande named “Statesman of the year”

Um

Say what?

That’s surely the only way to react to the news that the French president, François Hollande, has been honoured as International Statesman of the Year.

The prize, which is awarded by the New York-based interfaith Appeal of Conscience foundation recognises “individuals who support peace, prosperity, liberty and promote tolerance, human dignity and human rights, both in their own countries and internationally through cooperation with other leaders”.

François Hollande (screenshot from Le Monde/Reuters video of acceptance speech)

Right, that’s the news angle, and maybe the international community knows something the French don’t. But does Hollande really merit the award?

After all poll after (endless) poll in this country only emphasises Hollande’s unpopularity with the electorate at home and the frustration there has been with his seemingly trademark “waffling” approach to governing.

As Hollande’s five years near their end, what have been the highlights of his term in office?

In no particular order:

Julie Gayet and the scooter.
The ceremonious (and acrimonious) dumping of not-quite first lady Valérie Trierweiler
Ace government appointments such as Jérôme Cahuzac (the minister of economy, charged with fighting tax fraud who…well, you can probably guess the rest) and Thomas Thévenoud (the trade minister who “forgot” to pay his tax bill…for three years)
Electorally courting the Greens, including them in government and then seeing the “principled” Cécile Duflot flounce out of office.
Facing the wrath of so-called Frondeurs of his own party, abandoning Socialist party principles but refusing to endorse completely those of Social democracy.
Being (and this takes some doing) abandoned by government ministers on the left of his party - Arnaud Montebourg, Benoît Hamon and Aurélie Filippetti and those on the right - Emmanuel Macron (all right, so Manuel Valls has stuck the course, but most political commentators would argue that he has his own agenda).
Telling the French endlessly that unemployment would drop and staking his future on it.
Making administration easier (huh?), reducing the number of regions (at what price?), shifting a dollop of the state’s tax burden to those very same regions.
Oh yes - same sex marriage.

On the whole, a pretty grim and disappointing track record - domestically speaking.

So, to abroad - foreign policy; an area in which every French president stamps his authority.

Just a sampling.

French intervention in Mali and Syria, the battle against Daesch, the handling of refugees in Europe…the list could go on…have, and let’s be brutally honest about it, hardly been resounding triumphs in French foreign policy and ergo for Hollande.

And that term “Statesmanship”.

Take a look around the Net and you’ll come up with several key elements (and, as in all matters of this nature, there is no one clear definition, so the meaning of the term is open to some degree of interpretation) that are embodied in being a statesman.

“Having a bedrock of principles, a moral compass, a vision. And an ability to build a consensus to achieve that vision.”

Hollande? Really?

Or how about this?

"A person who is skilled in the management of public or national affairs." or, in determining the difference between a politician and a statesman, “A politician works with details. A statesman works with ideas.”

Ditto.

And this?

“A person who is experienced in the art of government or versed in the administration of government affairs” and “A person who exhibits great wisdom and ability in directing the affairs of a government or in dealing with important public issues.”

Double ditto.

Now, while Hollande might score (just) on some of these points, he clearly misses big time on many.

Certainly he has had to deal with the terrorist attacks in France during his time in office. And few could argue that he has led the nation’s mourning with exceptional dignity.

But that in itself cannot warrant the award of International statesman of the year.

And maybe Hollande recognised that fact in his acceptance speech on Monday, realising that the award was not for just one man, but for a nation.

“It honours France,” he said. An inspiring France which defends  liberty, democracy and human rights everywhere.”

And referring to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks,  he continued, “ On that day we were all American. Today we are all French.”

Valérie Trierweiler's "non-interview" interview on France 3 TV

It was surely the most peculiar of interviews; at the same time both surrealist and seemingly beamed in from a parallel universe.

Valérie Trierweiler's first appearance on French TV since her bust-up with the French president, François Hollande, THAT ("political memoire") book and promotional tour abroad and, even more recently, the slap she gave the 33-year-old  centre-right Union pour un mouvement populaire (Union for a popular movement) politician Mohamed Rizki, when he (some might say somewhat insolently) asked her in the street, "How is François?"

Valérie Trierweiler (screenshot 19-20 France 3 Ile-de-France news)

Yet the presenter of the 19-20 France 3 Ile-de-France news, Jean-Noël Mirande, declined to pose any questions relating to any of those matters during the interviews because...well, journalistically-speaking apparently they weren't interesting enough or relevant as to why she had agreed to be interviewed in the first place.

Say what?

All right so the cause Trierweiler was "promoting" (not her own in this case) was without doubt virtuous - the work of the Secours populaire français, an association "fighting against poverty and exclusion in France and throughout the World".

But this is a woman who has made the headlines over the past year or so for all the wrong (or right - depending on your perspective) reasons.

And yet Mirande declined to ask one single question during the main body of the interview because he didn't want to detract from the serious nature of the Secours populaire's work.

Oh well, maybe he had gone to a different school of journalism to that of his colleagues.

The one which panders to the guest, doesn't ask the "burning questions" no matter how tasteless they might be and decides that news is set, not by events, but by avoiding any mention of them.

And just to ensure that viewers had completely understood why, he handed Trierweiler the most servile of questions at the end, when he broached the slapping incident by asking how she dealt with controversies whenever her name was brought up.

"It's difficult because a non event becomes a headline. And at the same time there are some serious things happening in the world," she replied.

"I just don't understand how such a fuss can be made out of something that is so inconsequential."

To which Mirande responded, in true probing style, "And that's the reason we decided not to talk about those subjects. But I wouldn't have been forgiven if I hadn't tried."



Valérie Trierweiler's truly absurd return to the French media spotlight as France 3 blows its "scoop".

Christine Boutin's political literary flop. Or how not to write a best seller...or a seller

The late Christopher Hitchens once said (among many other things of course) that, "Everyone has a book inside them which is exactly where I think it should, in most cases, remain."

Sadly though, so many fail to heed that maxim and among those who seem to think the rest of us should benefit from their written words (of wisdom?) are French politicians.

A couple of years ago France Inter dedicated its weekly one-hour programme "Le Grand Bain" to the very question as to why so many French politicians felt the need to write and publish.

The conclusion being that while some had written something worthwhile reading and a certain talent in expressing themselves, the vast majority of them were best served leaving literature, in all its forms, to others and concentrating on what they supposedly did best.

Of course an inflated ego (which politicians must have believing, presumably, that they know best how to serve their fellow citizens in office and determine what's in the interests of the country) must play a part.

But the bottom line of (most) publishing (houses) is surely also to make money - which opens up perhaps the equally perplexing question as to how come so many French politicians manage to find an editor... because so many "œuvres" (inverted commas entirely intentional) are far from being profitable.

Quite the contrary.

Take, for example, the most recent offering from Christine Boutin, "Qu'est-ce que le parti chrétien-démocrate ?".

You remember her, surely.

Boutin served as housing minister for a couple of years during Nicolas Sarkozy's presidency before being unceremoniously sacked.

She was also at the forefront of the demonstrations against same-sex marriage in 2013, continuing her long campaign for Christian values (aka "family values" in her parlance) and boring most of us silly with her frequently ignorant and equally ill-judged remarks.

In 2014, for example,  Boutin shared her views on homosexuality with the quarterly political magazine "Charles" describing it as "an abomination".

Ah well. You can read all about that here - old news - but it'll stick around to haunt her (or more likely the rest of us) for quite a while.

Back to that book "Qu'est-ce que le parti chrétien-démocrate ?" ("What is the Christian Democrat party") her 128-page 2010 follow-up to her 2009 book "Chrétiens : de l'audace pour la politique".

Guess how many copies, according to GQ magazine, Boutin has managed to sell.

Christine Boutin's "Qu'est-ce que le Parti chrétien-démocrate ?" (screenshot Amazon.fr)

Pause for thought.

Here goes.

38.

THIRTY-EIGHT?

It pretty much tells the whole story, don't you think.

Of course Boutin isn't alone among politicians who fail to attract readers.

The current finance minister, Michel Sapin sold 346 copies in three weeks of his diary as employment minister  "L'écume et l'océan , Chronique d'un ministre du travail" (clearly few were interested).

The president of the national assembly, Claude Bartolone, fared no better with his "Je ne me tairai plus" ("I'm not going to remain silent any longer") which was bought by only 268 people in two weeks.

And the former environment minister Delphine Batho only managed to shift 715 copies of her book "L'Insoumise".

At the other end of the scale - and perhaps providing a lesson (if not literary, at least a commercial one) was that political potboiler from France's former first lady Valérie Trierweiler.

Her "Merci pour ce moment" has so far sold more than 600,000 (and counting) copies, proving that...well, a tell-all political tale about her relationship with the French president, François Hollande, really might have been a "triumph of self-obsessed raving" but it certainly earned her a bob or two.

Valerie Trierweiler's tell-all memoir to be made into a film

We've already had the best-selling book - although we didn't really need (or want) it.

So it's perhaps not so much of a surprise that it's about to be followed up by a film...a tee-shirt, a mug and a song.

No. Those last three elements aren't true (yet) but the first part is.

The best-selling tell-all tale "Merci pour ce moment" ("Thank you for this moment") from France's former first lady Valérie Trierweiler is apparently going to hit the big screen after the actress-producer Saïda Jawad revealed that she had secured the films rights.

Valérie Trierweiler (screenshot interview with BBC's "Newsnight" - November 2014)

In an interview with the weekly glossy magazine "Gala", Jawad spoke about her plans to turn the book of her "close friend of three years" into a movie, saying that her production company was, in agreement with Trierweiler, was working on developing the film adaptation.

"In the book, Valérie embodied the struggle of a woman trying to tell the truth," Jawad said.

"The film will be a fictionalised biopic in which I envisage the main character telling her story to a close friend and allowing us to understand better the political world," she continued..

"And I can guarantee you that there'll be a lot of new things to discover."

Wonderful. Bet you can't wait.

As a book, Treirweiler's "tale" served as a (very) lame excuse for a women scorned and determined to give her side of the story after being dumped  by her former partner, the French president François Hollande - or as Hadley Freeman in "The Guardian" wrote when "Thank you for this moment" was released in English, it proved to be "a triumph of self-obsessed raving"

But of course "Merci pour ce moment" (which has sold over 730,000 copies in France and has been translated into 11 languages) is not a book of "revenge" - - even though that's pretty much how it has been interpreted -  but an attempt by Trierweiler to reveal the misogyny that exists in French politics and "to rebuild her life after the painful split."

So the film is surely a logical step in ensuring she'll be able to add an infinity swimming pool, top of the range sauna and other luxury accoutrements should she need additional resources in her rebuilding enterprise.

François Hollande in Canada - making his political mark - really?

All right, so we've established that, in spite of being briefed (presumably) the French president, François Hollande, doesn't exactly come top of the class when it comes to putting faces to names...well at least not in the case of Canada's national hero Kevin Vickers.

But what do you know?

It kind of works both ways.

Few, it appears, in Canada, seem to know who Hollande is.

The French president has just completed an official three-day trip to the country - the first by a French leader since François Mitterrand back in 1987.

François Hollande and Canada's prime minister Stephen Harper in western Canada (screenshot Euronews)

He was, of course trying to drum up business, pointing out that France was only Canada's "eighth-largest trading partner" and that "it could do better".

And he was paving the way for next year's United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 21) to be held in Paris, saying he was, "counting on Canada to be fully committed to the fight against global warming, and do its part."

That wasn't and won't be an easy task as Canada pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol (committing countries to reducing greenhouse gas emissions) in 2011 and reportedly has no plans for reducing emissions from the Alberta oil sands, the country's fastest growing source of carbon emissions.

All well and good on the political front, with a timely "message of support" in the global fight against terrorism, just a week after Michael Zehaf-Bibeau killed a soldier, Nathan Cirillo, guarding the national war memorial in Ottawa before going on a shooting spree in the nearby parliamentary buildings.

And you would at least expect politicians to know who Hollande was and what he stood for.

But not so, apparently for the rest of the country where he was apparently "relatively unknown".

"If you were to ask anyone on the street who François Hollande was, I bet they wouldn't know,"  Canadian journalist Vincent Brousseau-Poulliot for La Presse said on Europe 1 the day Hollande arrived in the country.

"Hollande's not exactly flamboyant,  and although he may well be likeable, he's not perceived to be as tough or as well known as for example Nicolas Sarkozy."

Bet that went down well at the Élysée Palace.

And there's more (or worse, if you like).

For the man, who during the final televised debate during the 2012 French presidential campaign delivered that now famous 15-point "Moi président de la République" speech insisting that he would ensure his behavior was exemplary at every moment ("Moi président de la République, je ferai en sorte que mon comportement soit en chaque instant exemplaire) guess what he is probably best known for in Canada.

François Hollande, "Moi président de la République" (screenshot Le Monde TV 2012)

His private life, according to Sébastien Tanguay, a journalist for the Canadian francophone newspaper Métro.

"We've all heard and read about his affair with Julie Gayet and the break up of his relationship with Valérie Trierweiler," he said.

"But very little his known about his politics and policies."

Join the queue Monsieur Tanguay.

So there you have it.

Hollande might not know what Canada's national hero Kevin Vickers (the the sergeant-at-arms at the House of Commons of Canada in Ottawa who put an end to gunman Michael Zehaf-Bibeauman's shooting spree in the parliamentary building on October 22).

But in return, Canadians apparently know little or nothing about the French president.

Valérie Trierweiler's travails - and the price of fame

She might have written a best-selling warts and all score-settling book, "Merci pour ce moment", published at the beginning of September 2014 and politely described as a "political memoir" but that doesn't seem to have endeared France's former first lady, Valérie Trierweiler, to the nation as a whole.

Valérie Trierweiler  (screenshot BFM TV report on release of "Merci pour ce moment")

Indeed, given a recent poll, she's giving her former partner, the French president, François Hollande, a run for his money in the unpopularity ratings

Yes another poll.

Clearly someone at le Parisien/Aujourd'hui en France thought it would be interesting to discover what the French felt about their former first lady...and then tell them what they probably already knew.

Namely that 69 per cent of those questioned (a representative sample of the population as a whole of course) had a "bad opinion" of Trierweiler and 59 per cent thought she had been wrong to write her book.

(screenshot "Merci pour ce moment" front cover)

On the other hand, while some might not agree with what she wrote and others might not like her (if the survey is to believed) Trierweiler still elicits a great deal of interest.

Or is it simple curiosity?

Because on Saturday (the day before the poll was published) the Paris Match journalist (yes she still works for the magazine) had to beat a hasty retreat while out and about.

Trierweiler was in the Barbès area of northern Paris - shopping (for cassava and plantain, as she would later reveal) with a friend -  and being the celebrity that she has become was quickly recognised by people eager to have their photo' taken with her.

But it all threatened to escalate out of control and a plainclothes policeman (who just happened to be around) apparently directed her into one of the shops while he waited for reinforcements to allow her to drive away from the adoring throng.

Making light of the "incident" Trierweiler later took to her preferred method of communicating with fans and followers - on Twitter, of course.

"Thank you for the welcome very very warm welcome in Barbès . Neither panic nor the need to go to the police station. But cassava and plantains. And a lot of selfies."

Ah. The price of fame.

Happy birthday M. President

So the French president, François Hollande, turns 60 on August 12.

No big bash planned, which is a bit of a shame really as the nation could do with a little glamour and glitz at the moment (especially as the weather ain't doin' what it's supposed to be).

All right, so all those economic indicators are far from being fine and dandy. But hasn't a party always proven a good way of, at least for just a moment, lifting the spirits and enabling people to focus on something other than their own plight.

Or is that war?

Although Hollande is indeed thinking about military involvement (for purely humanitarian reasons, you understand) in Iraq, or at least supporting US air strikes, he's much more reticent and indeed "pudique" when it comes to personal matters.

All part of his oxymoronic "President Normal" concept perhaps, whereby as a head of state he tries to appear to be like any other "regular" citizen both in terms of behaviour and image...except, well he clearly isn't because he's...er...head of state.

Anyway, apparently Hollande will be blowing out the candles  on Tuesday at an "undisclosed location" somewhere in the southeast of France - and not even one of the official presidential residences such as the much-disliked (by him) Fort de Brégançon in the département of Var (which instead is open to the public throughout the whole of the summer)

He'll reportedly be surrounded by Thomas, Clémence, Julien and Flora, his four children from his 30 plus year partnership (remember the president who reluctantly saw through legislation for "Mariage pour tous" has never actually tied the knot himself) to Ségolène Royal.

That's all.

Not even his closest political allies and long-time friends Michel Sapin (the current finance minister who was also a classmate during Hollande's - and Royal's - days at École nationale d'administration) or Stéphane Le Foll (the minister of agriculture and government spokesperson) have been asked along.

Now, you can bet your bottom centime that had You Know Who been re-elected back in 2012, there would have been a suitably Bling Bling affair in January next year when the nation could have joined in the festivities - or not, as it saw fit.

Ah well. Tant pis.

As the French haven't been able to offer up their esteemed current leader a collective birthday wish and as nobody in the media seems about to come forward and do the necessary tra-la-la.

And because neither Seggers, Valérie nor Julie have uttered a public "joyeux anniversaire" for their (respectively) former, former, future (???) other half,  here's a borrowed present from the past to wish Hollande all the very best.

It's how a certain Hollywood icon interpreted the song "Happy birthday" for "her" president back in 1962, when he turned 45.



Come to think of it, maybe Hollande's oldest son, Thomas, will drag his girlfriend along, French singer Joyce Jonathan, for a bit of celebratory warbling.

Jonathan might not be nearly as sultry as Marylin, but she sure has a pretty enough voice.

Now, how do you do those irritating smiley-face emoticons?

Olivier Falorni - well and truly "April Fooled"

Remember Olivier Falorni?

He's the man who, after having received the support of that infamous Tweet from the former first lady Valérie Trierweiler, went on to beat Ségolène Royal, the Socialist party's official candidate for La Rochelle, in the 2012 parliamentary elections.

(screenshot Le Grand Journal, Canal + January 2014)

It was a defeat which stymied Royal's chances of being chosen to be the president of the national assembly and left many wondering whether she would ever make a return to frontline politics.

Meanwhile Falorni took his seat in parliament, joining the group of the Parti Radical de Gauche, (Radical Party of the Left, PRG) rather than that of the ruling Socialist party.

And little or nothing was heard of him in the national media...until last week that is.

Because the 42-year-old was the "victim" of an April Fool: one played on him by the comedian and impersonator, Gérald Dahan.

April 1 was the day the newly-appointed prime minister, Manuel Valls, was busy putting together "his" new government - and an ideal opportunity for Dahan to continue his practice of playing pranks on well-known people (and especially politicians) by ringing them under the guise of being someone else.

He has done it before to the likes of, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, Nicolas Sarkozy and, yes, even Royal.

It might not always be particularly clever or amusing, but it invariably reveals more than the butt of the joke might wish to be made public.

And that's exactly what happened on April 1.

Dahan rang Falorni, pretending to be Valls and wanting to know whether the 42-year-old would be interested in a job in the new government.

During the course of the conversation, Falorni disclosed what he (and many others) thought of Royal: how she was "uncontrollable and unpredictable" and how working with her (or under her as a junior minister) would be unthinkable.

But as you can hear from the clip which Yann Barthés and his team at Le Petit Journal on Canal + (inevitably) played on Friday evening's edition, Falorni eventually agreed to accept a position in the government with Royal as his immediate boss.

There are also some delicious behind-the-scenes disclosures from Falorni as to how many of those public alliances between "leading" members of the Socialist party are...well "surprising" to say the least.

Le Petit Journal du 04/04 - Gérald Dahan imite Manuel Valls et piège Olivier Falorni

France's all-star international "Premier Drame"

It is, of course, currently France's Premier Drame: A soap opera or farce, if you like, of the very first order as far as the international media is concerned.

Francois Hollande's still (at the time of writing, he has yet to confirm or deny officially) "alleged" night time trysts with French actress Julie Gayet.

A story brought to you by that bastion of "investigative journalism", Closer magazine.

Remember, it's the weekly rag which also gave us the double page spreads of the Duchess of Cambridge's wobbly bits a couple of years ago.

The world's media awaits with the proverbial bated breath for Tuesday's annual news conference when Hollande is supposed to outline to some 500 or so accredited Elysée journalists, his plans for the economy, how to stimulate growth and tackle unemployment

Standing room only though and an atmosphere as "electric" as the conference in 2008  at which his predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, answered questions, in his own manner, about his relationship with Carla Bruni.

Whatever Hollande says will likely be similarly under-reported internationally as the issue everyone it seems (outside of France) really wants him to address is the alleged affair with an actress very few had even heard of before last week.

Fantastic.

Julie Gayet (screenshot from interview in 2012)

Who will ask THE question?

How will Hollande respond?

Seemingly endless column inches and broadcast time have been devoted to such burning issues as the perceived damage to the international image of Hollande - and by association, France - and the hospitalisation of his partner, Valérie Trierweiler.

Heck, France 2 television even asked Hollande's former partner (and mother of their four children) Ségolène Royal on its lunchtime news on Sunday for her opinions.

Seggers refused to respond.

If it had happened to someone holding high office in the United States or the United Kingdom, we are told, he (or she) would have been forced to explain (!!!), apologise and/or even resign.

But thankfully France is neither as priggish as the US nor as obsessed as the UK about its politicians' so-called sex scandals.

Yes, Hollande's opponents are having a field day. He's easy pickings and it's trash journalism at its very best or worst, depending on how you view these things.

President "Normal" is just a little too so for some tastes. For others he's just as hypocritical as many of his predecessors in office in invoking the "privacy principal".

But, let's face it, the allegations are hardly new news, now are they?

They're just in the public domain for the first time.

The rumour had been circulating for the best part of last year.

But Closer, with its trademark long lens approach to capturing photos that'll really tell the story, broke the news that, when picked up by the more respectable media took on a life of its own.

And the race to discover and cover absolutely every angle even led Le Monde to suggest that Closer had been tipped off by some of Sarkozy's cronies about Hollande's movements.

Hooray. Closer and Le Monde in the same sentence with the former helping out the latter to pull in a few extra punters.

Visions of "That'll learn you for criticising my Bling Bling celebrity approach to being president and insisting you would do things differently," perhaps from Sarkozy as he prepares his comeback.

Whatever.

Frankly Hollande's love life wasn't particularly interesting - and it still isn't.

France has seen its leading politicians survive far worse "scandals" of course.

Most recently there was Dominique Strauss-Kahn Sofitel suite 2806 affair (soon to be brought to us as a film starring Gérard Depardieu) a real story of misconduct by a French political heavyweight because it involved alleged rape.

But Jacques Chirac's "There have been women I have loved a lot," admission that he was something of a philanderer?

Or François Mitterrand's recognition of the existence of his daughter Mazarine, by his long-time mistress Anne Pingeot?

They were stories that came and went but hardly "rocked the office of president" (well maybe they created a few waves at the time) and didn't define Chirac and Mitterrand's time in office.

Certainly Hollande seems to have been less than prudent in his behaviour. And one could question his morals and more perhaps.

There are serious questions of safety at the idea of the head of state "scootering" around the streets of Paris in the middle of the night with only the bare minumum of security.

But heck. It's just an alleged affair, exposed by a celebrity magazine.

Here's hoping that the headlines after Tuesday's news conference concentrate on the things that really matter such as how Hollande proposes to relaunch the French economy and live up to his election campaign of cutting unemployment.

Fat chance!