As if to highlight the dramatis personae that will provide palace intrigue throughout his presidency, he announced almost simultaneously that he has no intent to marry his partner Valérie — deriding marriage, in true socialist fashion, as a ‘bourgeois institution.’
No doubt this will help Ségolène get over the understandable resentment and jealousy that must have stirred in her as she watched the younger woman Hollande dumped her for standing by his side when he became president.
But Valérie must be wondering now about the security of her position in this ongoing ménage a trois. After all, not only could Hollande’s nomination make Ségolène the most powerful woman in France, Valérie is surely mindful that she (i.e., Ségolène) is also the only mother of his four children.
So who’s resentful and jealous now? Karma’s a bitch: meow….
(“New French President Nominates ‘First Partner’ as Speaker,” The iPINIONS Journal, May 18, 2012)
After reading the above, a number of French readers took umbrage at my casting their purportedly sophisticated attitude towards intimate relationships as a provincial American-style soap opera.
Well, based on the latest episode of As the Elysée Turns, it may be that I presumed too much about the sophistication of the characters involved in this political ménage a trois. For the French media were replete with reports last week about the “blind jealousy” that compelled Valérie to take to Twitter – just days before Sunday’s elections for the national assembly – to declare her support not for Ségolène (and Hollande) but for her (i.e., their) opponent.
(Just imagine the national spectacle/embarrassment if President Obama endorsed a candidate for House Speaker and Michelle then took to Twitter to endorse that candidate’s opponent….)
And, just to ensure the soap opera that has become the private and public life of this new president continues, Valérie scored what can only be described as pyrrhic victory when Ségolène was defeated. For while she may be gloating over the role she played in ending Ségolène’s career (because Hollande nominated her as speaker based on the reasonable expectation that she would win her seat in the assembly), she may have reignited the enmity of a woman scorned who is now hell-bent on avenging this (latest) public humiliation by Valérie.
Indeed, Ségolène may have signaled this intent by calling Valérie’s tweet a “political betrayal.” And if Valérie was too consumed with jealousy to appreciate the political and personal consequences of her action, it should prove quite sobering that, according to Le Journal du Dimanche, her tweet so enraged Hollande’s kids (with Segolene) that they are no longer speaking to her.
Yet surely her spiteful betrayal of Ségolène and unwitting alienation of these kids pales in comparison to her betrayal of Hollande. After all, he made quite a public show of endorsing Ségolène. Which means that having Valérie make quite a public show of endorsing Ségolène’s opponent and then having that opponent win amounts to a double emasculation of Hollande – emulating in perfect symmetry her double humiliation of Ségolène.
This is why Hollande needs to move quickly to reclaim his political manhood. Because nobody will have any confidence in or respect for his presidency if he allows himself to be so sensationally betrayed and pussy-whipped by a woman who is not even his wife.
Valérie is clearly a woman who cannot be trusted. He was wise not to marry her, he would be wiser still to get rid of her tout de suite. And, apropos of this relationship playing out like an American soap opera, don’t be surprised if he does and reconciles with Ségolène.
Stay tuned….
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