The current situation in France is far from rosy: high taxes and slow recovery mean the French are extremely unsatisfied with their political leader, François Hollande. To top it all off, photographs were obtained last week showing the President paying a nocturnal visit to the actress Julie Gayet.
For now, the President has not denied the affair and has not fully addressed the situation publically, asking for his privacy to be respected. In the meantime, his wife has been hospitalised, allegedly suffering from shock. With France’s morale already suffering, it seems news of an unfaithful leader may serve to tip France’s discontentment over the edge.
But how relevant is Hollande’s private life to France? More generally, should the private lives of politicians be relevant at all? Hollande has argued that although his actions may reflect the kind of man he is, they should not be relevant to his presidency. He may have a point: French dissatisfaction and disenchantment with the current political climate has arguably nothing to do with whether Hollande has no mistress, one mistress or ten; it is to do with his political decisions and general failure to ‘re-enchant the French dream’ as he promised. It seems that France has adopted a more ‘laissez faire’ attitude towards the affair: one of my French friends said she didn’t care what he got up to in his spare time, as long as was ‘running the country properly’. Ironically, although the UK and US media has been buzzing with the news, France seems hardly surprised. Still, a number of French newspapers have contended that the affair means the President has only further been discredited, showing him to be a man more interested in his personal happiness than in France’s happiness.
But should it matter? I believe people’s private lives should indeed be private and people should not judge other people’s relationships or private issues – there could be so much more going on in his life than we will ever know! In France, leaders have always allegedly had mistresses: infidelity was one of Jacques Chirac’s stronger character traits and it may be naïve to expect people in higher positions of authority to be perfect. Still, I would say that politicians are in a particular position: they have power to make major decisions affecting the economy as well as people’s morale and hope in recovery. They have chosen, and been chosen, to be a country’s representative and arguably have responsibility to demonstrate respect and appropriate behaviour. Of course, no one expects Hollande to be completely focused on running the country 24/7 but the current climate means some may feel he is prioritizing the wrong things and failing to lead by example. Although his affair may not technically relate to his presidential powers, maintaining a total separation between the two may be difficult, particularly in the current context. Nevertheless, the French have always respected the privacy of their Presidents – as head of state, Hollande may well come out of this unscathed.
Source Credits: The Economist, The Guardian, The Telegraph.
Image Credits: CBC World News, The Guardian, Le Nouvel Observateur