ONLY two hours before a terrorist rammed his heavy truck into a festive crowd at the beach in Nice on July 14, the French National Day, killing 84 people including many children, President François Hollande was answering questions during a live TV news broadcast.
One of the journalists asked him whether the revelation made that very morning by the weekly Canard Enchainé was true that he had appointed a personal hairdresser at a monthly salary of 10,000 euros. The response was vague, but typically ‘hollandish’: “I brought down the budget of the Elysée Palace from 109 million to 100 million euros. I also reduced the staff by 10 per cent.”
According to the press reports, Hollande’s hairdresser starts work early morning. It is a round-the-clock job that includes travelling with the president on his foreign trips.
A woman reporter was audacious enough to go to Berlin to dig up Angela Merkel’s hairdresser. She writes: “His name is Udo Walz and the German Chancellor has to be present at his salon once a month following an appointment. She pays him 65 euros per session.”
The Hollande hair controversy would have taken immediate, unprecedented proportions had the Nice tragedy not occurred. Now, ten days later, the ‘Coiffeurgate’ scandal as it has been baptised by the media here, is slowly raising its unkempt head once again.
The president’s former girlfriend Valerie Trierweiler who had stayed with him at the Elysée Palace for about a year after his election in 2012 was held responsible by the satirical weekly for the hiring of the hairdresser Olivier Benhamou. But she quickly denied this: “I had no power to appoint the staff. Even if I had chosen Benhamou, he would have been fired a long time ago after my exit from the presidential palace.”
Asked to comment, former president Nicolas Sarkozy who has a rich head of hair compared with a balding Hollande, broke into laughter during the signing ceremony of his book: “All I can say is the president’s hairdresser must be more than a talented man, maybe a genius.”
The National Front vice president Florian Philippot on his part promised a reporter who had asked for his reaction: “You can be sure of one thing. If I am elected president of France, I’ll insist they use solid gold scissors to cut my hair.”
Reminding the readers that France has come a long, long way from the days when President Charles de Gaulle used to pay the Elysée electricity bill from his own pocket, daily Le Figaro got into a bit of mathematical calculation:
“A decent enough hairdresser in Paris who makes an average salary of some 1,500 euros per month, would charge about 30 euros for a single session. Even if you go for a haircut every day, the bill amounts to no more than 900 euros per month. Had the president tried a hair implant operation instead, it would have cost the nation a great deal less.”
Though the Nice horror still has media’s full attention, the presidential barber’s salary is also regularly discussed. When the pressure grew too strong, the Elysée Palace spokesman Stephane Le Foll finally appeared on TV and fully confirmed the details as reported by Canard Enchainé. He added however: “I perfectly understand the interrogations, but the president has a right to have his hair done. And the French president is not just anyone!”
The statement brought a smile to many a lip as it is enough to have a look at the spokesman’s wildly abundant hair. During her TV show the host Melanie Candor solemnly went through a number of his photographs from different angles, commenting: “We’re lucky it is not Stephane Le Foll who is the president of France. His hairdressing would have cost the taxpayer a fortune!”
The writer is a journalist based in Paris.
Published in Dawn, July 24th, 2016
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