Things a president should never say ...
PRESIDENT François Hollande may not be enjoying high popularity rates, but a book published recently has brought to light his so far little known penchant for making fun of others — people, but much venerated French institutions as well.
Un Président Ne Devrait Pas Dire Ça... (A President Should Never Say This…) that appeared in bookstores a couple of weeks ago is authored by two daily Le Monde reporters, Gérard Davet and Fabrice Lhomme. They reveal in the opening chapter of the 650-page volume, an immediate bestseller by the way, that is the result of nearly 100 hours of exclusive conversations with Hollande during his five years in power.
The controversy that broke out instantaneously concerns the French judges and magistrates who, according to the president’s point of view, “are no better than a gutless lot obstinately sticking to their tenet of cowardice, fainting being virtuous but having no idea of what politics is about”.
Following the uproar in the judicial circles Hollande sent out personal letters to the court authorities, apologising and explaining that his comments were “misinterpreted” by the authors of the book.
Though nobody here believes Hollande will be a candidate in next year’s presidential election, it doesn’t deter him from being derogatory to his rival Nicolas Sarkozy. His own short height notwithstanding, he says: “Sarkozy takes himself to be General de Gaulle. Well, we can call him Petit de Gaulle.”
Hollande’s main slogan in the 2012 election was: “I hate the rich!” and it was later proved beyond doubt that the idea was to attract the jobless, the ill-paid and the immigrant voters. The president’s former girlfriend Valerie Trierweiler who quit the Elysée Palace a year later, writes in her own book that Hollande actually hates the poor whom he calls les sans dents (the toothless).
Asked by the two journalists to comment, Hollande exclaimed: “This is odious! This is treason! The poor maybe toothless, but I love them!”
Further questioned on his now well-known but officially still secret affair with actress Julie Gayet, Hollande said: “She insists on making our relationship formal but I keep telling her that it won’t be possible, even if I am elected president for a second term.”
Shocking as they may appear to most readers, the above comments remain comparatively trivial when you come to his remarks about Marianne.
But first a word about who Marianne really is: she is the most revered symbol of the French Republic who represents the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity. Her portraits appear everywhere holding the French tricolour flag and her sculptured busts are placed in front of the senate and all the other official buildings of the country representing democracy.
Now back to Hollande: “Our future Marianne will be a Muslim woman. Today she wears a veil in order to protect herself, tomorrow she may not need it to assert her presence in the society.”
Another comment by the president that has placed a number of sports folks ill at ease is his opinion of the football players: “These are only uneducated punks who have become wealthy, without really deserving to be stars.”
A revelation by the book, “quite unnecessary and dangerous” in the opinion of Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, a man very close to the president, concerns four terrorist executions for which Hollande personally gave the green light.
While rightist leaders have severely criticised the president’s handling of the military secrets so flippantly, his own party members fear this may attract the attention of International Penal Court.
Asked by a TV host if he regretted saying things that a president should never say, Hollande appeared unrepentant: “I’d like the people to think of me as a man of courage who is not afraid of telling the truth.”
The writer is a journalist based in Paris.
Published in Dawn October 30th, 2016