[A footnote to this:
[Update 18 January 2014] In the matter of the Président’s
behavior and the dignity of
France, a grotesque point of
etiquette is currently being mooted in the Press: Which of his two chippies shall be considered as “First Lady”.
Pour préciser.
In further defense of the much-maligned Président, who has
presided like a toad squatting on
a stone over the further decline of
France, allow me to object, contra his various detractors, that his sordid
moped-borne nocturnal trysts do
not//NOT constitute actual
“adultery”, since wife has he none.
Rather, they were an infidelity (if you can even call it that, for
someone with no conception of faith) vis-à-vis his current (and easily
disposible) concubine (a different hetaira, whose name is here -- and elsewhere
-- of no consequence).
Hollande himself has always denounced the sacrament of marriage as a
“bourgeois institution”, and can in no way be criticized for demeaning
something of which he has not the slightest understanding: any more than a garden slug, having
(which God forfend) somehow slimed its way up onto the communion table, could
possibly spiritually desecrate the consecrated Host (though it might rather mess with its "accidents").
For indeed, true Sin
has a certain dignity, as only upon a foundation of Morality can it raise its
head. Chimps in their lubricious
oestrus cannot be considered “adulterers”. In this sense, we are not certain that M. Hollande has
actually committed any “sin”.
[Update 19 January 2014] A well-weighed article by Robert Zaretsky in this morning’s New York Times,
characterizes Hollande as a “weightless president” in an office of great
gravity; and says he continues “la
peopolisation” pioneered by
Ségolène Royale (on which see further
Word of the Day: “la pipolade”.)
Is the Fifth Republic Burning?
[Note: The
essay appears in the print edition of the Week in Review section, but is buried
on the Website, and I couldn’t find the link.]
And it reminds us of something I’d forgotten: that the minx
whom he ditched for Julie Gayet, Valérie Trierweiler, had herself been the bit
of jam for whom Hollande (he of the twitchy Y-fronts) ditched his mistress
floozy “partner” of the time -- none other than the ineffable Ségolène Royale
! And this is significant beyond the gossip-columns, for Royale is no
thong-snapping starlet (though she does pose in bathing-suits for the
tabloids), but the woman who came within spitting-distance (I choose my words with care) -- within spiting-distance of being elected
President of France.
[Update] An
excellent radio essay about the matter can be heard here:
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