Incomplete dancing faction - "Danse avec les Stars" goes politicial

Hey folks, it's time to dig out your tutu, reach for your ballet slippers or pull on your tights, because the producers of TF1's "Danse avec les Stars", the French equivalent of that oh-so excellent (cough, splutter) British show "Strictly Come Dancing", have apparently finalised the line-up of the jury and competitors for next season's extravaganza.

Shy'm winner of "Danse avec les Stars" season 2 (screenshot from TF1 video)

Yes, the programme which has celebrities twirling and whirling, pirouetting and gyrating, while audiences for some reason trip the light fantastic in their millions from their armchairs will be back shortly for its third season.

And that supposedly serious weekly news magazine Nouvel Observateur has proudly divulged nine of the 10 contestants and they include singers Chimène Badi, Amel Bent, Lorie and Emmanuel Moire.

But hang about. Take a closer look at the source of Nouvel Obs' revelations and it turns out to be none other than the weekly celebrity gossip magazine, Voici.

Could something be awry here in the veracity of the "reporting"?

The truth will out, of course, and after some very basic shoe leather pavement pounding, your intrepid provider of the (sur)real story behind the headlines can disclose what TF1 actually has planned for viewers in a few weeks time.

Yes "Danse avec les stars" will be back on the screens and the format will be similar to that of the previous two seasons with "celebrities" looking to give a boost to their careers with a healthy dose of prime time TV exposure.

But - and here's where it gets interesting the competitors this time around will be different.
And how.

Because TF1 has decided to put politicians past and present (but mainly past) through their steps in a special "Shuffle avec les Stars" edition.

Yes, so now you're probably desperate to know who has already agreed to strut their stuff for our entertainment pleasure.

Ready?

Here goes.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn was apparently the first to agree.

Now Anne Sinclair-less, the former head of the International Monetary Fund has been looking around for some way of breaking the sex scandal cycle of news ever since that infamous Sofitel incident.

Plus apparently he has always had a bit of a thing about lycra tights.

Not surprisingly perhaps, producers have decided to team him up with a professional male partner.

Also appearing will be Ségolène Royal, who of course has absolutely nothing better to do at the moment.  In an interesting twist - yes the production team has really pulled out all the stops - Seggers will be paired, not with a professional dancer but with...Valérie Trierweiler.

It should be intriguing to see who tries to lead as the couple spin each other in all directions around the floor, stiletto (heels) at the ready.

Seggers-Trierweiler aren't the only "couple" appearing on the show though.

The leader of the far right Front National, Marine Le Pen, will be partnered by the man to whom she once not-so-jokingly offered honorary party membership, former interior minister  Claude Guéant.

Indeed, the first indication from the bookmakers is that Le Pen-Guéant could be favourites to win as they're so obviously already in step with one another.

Where you'll find Guéant, you would also expect to spot the man for whom he so eloquently wrote for so many years, Nicolas Sarkozy.

Sure enough, the former president has also agreed to take part, seemingly bored of riding his tricycle around the Cap Nègre estate of his wife's family and desperate to do anything to keep himself occupied during his self-imposed political retirement.

One condition he apparently made before signing on the dotted line was that he would be allowed to wear platform shoes throughout the series.

Although she also announced on her Twitter account that she would be happy to dance, former minister Nadine Morano faces one huge challenge and the programme makers are not quite sure how to handle it. Apparently Morano wants to take part, but nobody is willing to dance with her.

And finally of course former justice minister and current member of the European parliament Rachida Dati has agreed to waft in and out of the show whenever the mood takes her accompanied by Chanel, Gucci, Prada and a whole host of other fashion houses

You'll notice that not all of the 10 slots have been filled, so there are still some surprises to come.

Sadly rumours that François Hollande might be able to find time in between his tanning sessions for fandango or two have been "normally" denied by one of his spokesmen who insisted that the "president had been flattered by the invitation," but also "thought he should look as though he were running the country even if he were not."

With several weeks still to go until the show hits the small screen, stay tuned to this post to discover who else will be hoofing it across the dancefloor.

No fairy tale ending for Valérie Trierweiler and the presdiential children

Our story begins once upon a time in a faraway land where a little girl of the humblest of origins named Enrage Loosely dreamt of power and glory.

Her goal, to rule the country of her parents' birth and to be adored and proclaimed by the citizens of fair France.

Loosely wanted to Do Good.

She worked hard, won scholarships and admission to the toppest of French schools meeting along the way the completely normal man who was to become first her Charming and later the Prince Normal of his own destiny.

The couple would have four children together with Loosely valiantly balancing a rising political career and motherhood, even prepared to go on national TV shyly but proudly presenting her last born who entered the world while her mother was still ministering the environment.

Ségoléne Royal after the birth of her daughter Flora (screenshot France TV news)

Yes, Loosely had her sights set high, and while some might have called her naïve, she was steadfast in her determination with a brilliant mind, retiring and indefatigable in her ambition to Do Good unto France and for the party she had chosen to benefit from her unwavering support.

There came the time when, while remaining as ever her delightfully unassuming self, Loosely took on the mighty Heffalumps and against all expectations other than her own (dis)belief was crowned the chosen one by the party faithful to do battle with Crazily Ass Nook for the Highest of Offices after which they both hankered.

Alas, with knives in her back and tears in her eyes, Loosely was defeated, bravely rallying her supporter and wandering off into the distance for a deserved period of R'n'r and a strong cup of tea.

She returned refreshed and ready to fight to the bitter end with Nearby Atrium to wrest  the reins of power of the party from the Heffalumps and return it to the people.

Once again Loosely's motives were purely for the Common Good and that of the party. But Atrium had friends in very high places and connived her way to the narrowest of victories leaving a desolate Loosely to lick her wounds once more.

Cheated out of her rightful win, Loosely's attention once again turned towards that Highest Office, but yet again there was an insurmountable barrier (well several actually) in the slimmed -down form of her former Charming.

For yes, it was he who was crowned Prince Normal in her place, leaving Loosely with one last hope: that her former Charming turned Prince Normal would assist her in another crusade for the Common Good - to be perched at the head of those the people elected to govern the country.

But as had so often been the case, Loosely was to be outdone - or ouTWITTED  this time around -  by the new love of her former Charming, the stunningly gifted and intelligent Eerier Twirl - a wronger of some renoun (sic) and a woman never to hold a grudge when a stiletto in the right place would do the trick.

Cognisant that her Prince(ly) Normal president had previously had a woman in his life, Eerier Twirl, professed she was ready to "fait avec" and promptly proved as much by supporting Loosely's successful opponent in yet another unwarranted electoral embarrassment thus rendering propulsion to the perch impossible.

Loosely was devastated and Prince Normal weren't none too happy with the outcome neither, but the deed had been done and privately Eerier Twirl (and many other uncharitable folk across the land) was (were) delighted.

But Eerier Twirl hadn't counted on the wrath of the Royal Normalities, those four children, Thomas, Clémence, Julien and the infant TV star Flora, begotten of Prince Normal and Loosely.

They had grown up to be handsome young men and even handsomer young women and as handsome does, they stood by their distraught mother.

They no longer wished to have contact with the woman who had stilettoed Loosely and let it be known through sauces (sic) that they had "Played the game and done their bit during the presidential campaign but had been hurt by the apparent jealousy (of Eerier Twirl) expressed towards their mother."

So there you have it.

Valerie Trierweiler is "persona non grata" as far as the children of the French president, François Hollande and his former partner Ségolène Royal are concerned.

She might very well have had to "fait avec" with the fact that Hollande had another woman in his life before her, as she admitted recently in a behind-the-scenes book on the presidential campaign.

But as the weekly glossy magazine Voici says, the decision of the Hollande-Royal children when it comes to Trierweiler is that they have decided to "faire sans".

And they all lived happily ever after?

Vanity Fair's best-dressed woman - Carla Bruni-Sarkozy

So that arbiter of taste and supplier of news on pop culture, fashion and current affairs, the monthly magazine Vanity Fair, has released its 72nd annual best dressed list.

Carla Bruni-Sarkozy (screenshot from trailer for Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris")

And as far as the women are concerned the winner is...the former top model-cum singer/actress and France's current first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.

Yes she of the finely chiselled features, raspy voice and elegantly increasing girth in expectation of a happy event has managed to beat out stiff competition from Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned (the second of the three wives of Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Emir of the State of Qatar) and the recently-wed Duchess of Cambridge, aka to many still as Kate Middleton.

Perhaps not surprisingly the French media was fawningly quick off the mark to revel in the news.

"French chic - you've heard of it?" trumpeted the weekly glossy Voici.

"Well just to make matters easy, it can be defined in three words, 'Carla Bruni-Sarkozy'," it continued (un)imaginatively.

For fellow celebrity gossip magazine Gala it came as little surprise that Bruni-Sarkozy had made it as Vanity Fair's best dressed women as she had been among the "sartorially superior" for the past four years.

And let's face it, she's not exactly a stranger to the world of high fashion and GLAMOUR.

"She's known for having that refined distinction inherited from being from the upper middle class," it wrote.

"And she has been the flawless hostess at the l’Elysée (palace) with assured taste and a figure allowing her to show off to perfection clothes from some of the greatest fashion designers."

The magazine also delighted in the timing, remarking that while the "Mother-to-be might recently have given up on her Dior dresses and Louboutin shoes, she had also managed to dazzle through her natural beauty at the G8 summit in June where she appeared in her her simple Rogier Verdier-designed wardrobe."

And so it continued with the emphasis being put on Bruni-Sarkozy's "simplicity and elegance" (TF1) or "Vanity Fair having succumbed to Bruni-Sarkozy's charm" (Le Parisien)


But as much of the French media was equally at pains to point out, Bruni-Sarkozy was not the only woman on the list to "embody French style".

Because there at number six was the recently-appointed head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde.

You can see the full list - of best-dressed women and men - as well as what Paris Match calls "Vanity Fair's 'ovation' to a certain Kate Middleton'," over on the magazine's site and check out the comments.

They just about say it all.

Cathy Sarraï - the death of the French Super Nanny

Tributes have been rolling in thick and fast after the death was announced on Wednesday of Cathy Sarraï.

Don't worry if you've never heard of her. The name - until this week - probably wasn't familiar to most French.

But her face was known to millions as she was the woman who shot to fame as the country's Super Nanny in the television programme of the same name.

Just hours after the announcement of her death, tributes sprung up all over the Net from those she had helped and others who had simply been moved by the programme in which she had appeared.

A rap group posted a hommage on YouTube and M6, the channel which broadcast the show in which Sarraï appeared, said it would be airing a special programme this coming weekend dedicated to her.



A reality TV programme based on the British equivalent and successfully exported around the world, the French version of Super Nanny began in 2005 and featured "Cathy" as she was better knwn helping parents cope with children who were "out of control".

With her trademark heavy-rimmed rectangular glasses, tailored black uniform and hair severely tied back in a bun, Sarraï could have seemed almost a caricature of the role she filled in first observing and then helping parents put in place a set or rules that would help them handle otherwise seemingly unmanageable children.

But read through many of the comments left on sites after the announcement of her death was made public, and it becomes clear that a lot of viewers, families she had helped and headline writers saw much more in the role she personified than a simple disciplinarian.

"A national icon" is how the weekly news magazine, L'Express, led its story. "Sadness on Twitter," reported the weekly celebrity magazine, Voici and radio broadcaster Jean-Marc Morandini devoted a portion of his morning show taking calls from listeners who wanted to pay tribute to her.

Born Kalthoum Sarraï in Tunis on September 25, 1962, Sarraï was one of seven children.

She was engaged at the age of 14, married at 16 and after arriving in France in 1979 gave birth to three children.

Sarraï did a number of odd jobs before qualifying as a professional child carer and obtaining a diploma and a nursery nurse assistant, which allowed her to become a nanny.

"Mine was something of an unusual path," she wrote in her autobiography, published in 2006.

"While in Tunis I lived in the heart of the family sheltered from everything and then I came to Paris and leapt into the unknown," she continued.

"In France I had to learn everything: the language, customs, my job."

Her big break came in 2005 when she was introduced to millions of television viewers as "Cathy" the nation's Super Nanny, a role she made her own over the next four years.

Cathy Sarraï died on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday aged 47 after a long battle against lung cancer.