Vive le sexisme - Cécile Duflot as France's new political fashion icon

A shamefully sexist headline for sure.

But it makes a point; namely women politicians - and not just in France perhaps - are much more likely to be judged on how they look than what they say, believe in or do.

Sure there are the occasional examples of this country's male politicians making the news for their dress sense - or lack thereof: from the crumpled untidiness of former environment miniser Jean-Louis Borloo to the dashing and suave "best dressed politician" in the shape of ex-prime minister Dominique de Villepin.

By and large though, little comment is forthcoming about the grey suitedness of the largely male-dominated national assembly.

For women in French politics however - it's far from being the case.

Take Cécile Duflot.

Cécile Duflot (national assembly screenshot)

Like her or not - she's a young, ambitious and truly talented politician.

At just 37, she has had a fast track trip to power. She rose relatively quickly through the ranks of the green political party, Europe Écologie – Les Verts, becoming its leader in 2006, a post she held until a few months ago.

She was the "chief negotiator" if you will of the party's pact with Socialists for June's parliamentary elections, securing herself a safe seat in the process and - lo and behold - being offered the job of minister of territorial equality and housing in the current government.

Not bad going by anyone's reckoning.

Aside from her comments on the legalisation of cannabis - a personal view it was later stressed, just to ensure that the government appeared to be singing from the same proverbial hymn sheet (namely that of the interior minister Manuel Valls) when it came to official policy - what has Duflot made the headlines for since she took office?

Yep, you've guessed it: the way she looks - or more specifically dresses.

First there was the apparent fashion faux pas when Duflot wore jeans to the new government's inaugural cabinet meeting, with opposition politicians - and most notably former minister Nadine Morano (who else?) - leading the assault and criticising the housing minister for her lack of respect for her new position.

"Personally speaking, I think that when you're a representative of the French people you have to differentiate between what you wear to a cabinet meeting and the sort of dilettante look more appropriate for the weekend," Morano said during an interview on RTL radio.

"I think it's important to to make that distinction."

The appearance of a jean-clad Duflot at that cabinet meeting and on the official government photo' op' afterwards was reported as "causing a sensation".

Go figure.

And this week Duflot has hit the vestimentary headlines once again while answering questions in parliament.

She was wearing - shock horror - a dress (with a blue flowered pattern for those of you who really care about these sorts of things).

Duflot's choice of outfit clearly wasn't to the liking of some opposition centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP) parliamentarians who began jeering even before she had begun to answer questions.

She managed to laugh it off, "Ladies and gentlemen...but above all, clearly, gentlemen", she began.

The speaker of the house, Claude Bartolone, intervened to call the house to order, but the episode of course demonstrates much more about the macho nature of French politics as Béatrice Toulon points out in the columns of le Nouvel Observateur, where suit and ties - and the ideas that seem to go with them - dominate.

It's a world in which women are clearly still outnumbered in France, accounting for just 155 of the 577 members of the national assembly.

So Duflot and the other 18 women in the so-called gender parity government will probably have to face more of the same during their time in office.

That's progress for you.

Morandini Zap: C.Duflot huée à cause de... sa robe! Vidéo jeanmarcmorandini sélectionnée dans Replay TV

Rachida Dati's post election cannabis fashion faux pas

So the first round in the presidential elections is over with French voters unsurprisingly choosing the Socialist Party's François Hollande to go head-to-head with the incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy on May 6

The media is now in post first round overdrive with analysis and interpretation of Sunday's results and speculation over the outcome in a fortnight's time.

As such, one of the invited guests on Monday morning's edition of La Matinale on Canal + was none other than Rachida Dati.

Rachida Dati (screenshot from Canal + La Matinale)

You remember her - the woman brought in to Sarkozy's government as justice minister at a time when diversity - both ethnic and gender - was his buzzword, and then when the honeymoon was long over, dispatched to the country's version of sending someone to Coventry (apologies to that UK city, but it is an expression) and made to stand in the European elections.

Having "served her time" without creating too much of a media stir in France, Dati was brought back into the fold as Sarkozy's official campaigning got underway.

And in spite of herself perhaps she has been something of a non-contraversial star in so far as she didn't draw too much attention to herself for off-the-cuff and misplaced remarks.

Well, let's face it, Sarkozy had Nadine Morano for that.

But the day after the night before - and things look to have gone a little wrong for Dati - at least in the vestimentary department.

On Monday she appeared on La Matinale, the breakfast show on Canal +, to put the inevitable positive spin on Sunday's results.

And as she was talking, answering questions put to her by journalist Caroline Roux, the camera kept showing her from the back.

Why?

Well emblazoned on the back of her top was a pattern which looked for all the world to be that of a giant cannabis plant leaf.

(screenshot from Canal + La Matinale)

La Matinale's presenter, Maïtena Biraben, couldn't resist asking Dati about it at the end of the interview and the least that can be said is that the former justice minister floundered.

"There have been several messages on our Facebook page wondering whether your top is smoking," said Biraben to a non-plussed Dati.

"So what is the design on the back of your top - Cannabis?"

Looking rather uncomfortable and probably realising how this could play out later in the day, Dati denied that it was a cannabis plant leaf.

"Hemp?" suggested Biraben with a smile.

"No, not that either," replied Dati. "It's something else."

"Eucalyptus," said Biraben in a pretend Euruka! moment.

"Exactly," affirmed Dati, followed by some insincere laughter.

"But you can smoke eucalyptus too," chirped Biraben

"Yes...er...no, perhaps but eucalyptus makes you calmer," was Dati's final response...er - this obviously wasn't going the way she had planned.

La Matinale du 23/04 - Partie 1

Neither Biraben nor the viewers were prepared to leave it there though and later in the programme the production team provided a picture of a cannabis plant leaf side by side to one of the pattern on the back of Dati's top.

Rachida Dati (screenshot from Canal + La Matinale)

Draw your own conclusions but as one viewer wrote, "If it's not cannabis, what have I been smoking for the past 20 years?"

French farmer fined for feeding ducks cannabis

You might want to check your diaries because the following tale sure seems as though it's an April Fool.

But even though it's without doubt just a tad ridiculous and certainly offbeat, it is in fact true.

A court the southwestern town of Rochefort has fined a local farmer, Michel Rouyer, and given him a suspended sentence for feeding his ducks cannabis.


Yep, you read correctly. Rouyer, who keeps 150 of the birds and fattens them up in time for the seasonal rush in France on foie gras, had cultivated a dozen or so cannabis plants as well for purely "medical reasons" of course.

Mind you not his own.

According to Rouyer, who lives in the village of La Gripperie-Saint-Symphorien, he used the leaves of the plants to feed to his ducks in the final weeks before they were slaughtered because cannabis acted as an excellent dewormer.

It was a claim he made when he appeared before magistrates insisting that, "A specialist advised me to do it" and maintaining that the plants were grown exclusively for use by his ducks and he didn't trade in the drug at all.

And his lawyer, Jean Piot, in defending his client, told the court that, strange as the explanation might be, "None of the ducks had worms and were all in excellent health."

Perhaps not surprisingly that argument failed to cut much ice and Rouyer received a one-month suspended sentence and a €500 fine.

It seemed to cut little ice with the court though who handed down a €500 fine and delivered Rouyer a one-month suspended sentence.

It is, as the regional daily Sud Ouest remarks in reporting the story, certainly a most timely decision coming in the same week as Unesco recognised French gastronomy as a world treasure.

Quack - man!