François Hollande: Politics takes a back seat to personal troubles

By Hugh Carnegy in Paris

The French leader is eager to put his love life aside and extend his political life, says Hugh Carnegy

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Scarcely can François Hollande have imagined that a short ride on the back of one of his beloved three-wheeled scooters would get him into so much trouble. Pictures apparently of his portly figure, topped by a full-face black helmet, arriving on the back of his favoured mode of transport allegedly for a tryst with his film star lover seem destined to become an indelible mark of his presidency.

Bad enough that news of the affair – which he has not denied – should explode across the world’s media, drawing undignified attention to the quasi-monarchial office of the French head of state.

But the whole embarrassing business, complete with a bodyguard delivering the breakfast croissants, erupted just as Mr Hollande was poised to make a landmark policy announcement intended to convince an increasingly anxious electorate that he was finally getting to grips with the misfiring economy.

It was entirely fitting that this was the week of publication of a book on the first 20 months of Mr Hollande’s presidency, entitled Jusqu’ici Tout Va Mal – or “so far, so bad”.

The Socialist president forged ahead with a near three-hour press conference on Tuesday that verged on the surreal. Under the chandeliers of the Salle des Fêtes(Hall of Festivals) in the Elysée Palace, he batted aside a few lame questions on the affair and spent most of the time talking earnestly about supply-side economics rather than who was now his premiere dame.

It left hanging two juxtaposed questions: what is happening in his tumultuous private life; and has he now embarked on a truly reformist path that can reboot Europe’s second-largest economy? The first will determine much about Mr Hollande’s image but the second will determine the fate of his presidency.

Closer magazine, which first splashed the news of the affair, alleged on Friday that Mr Hollande’s liaison with actress Julie Gayet had been going on for two years. That heaped further humiliation on Valérie Trierweiler, Mr Hollande’s official first lady, who remains in hospital suffering from a “coup de blues”. The president visited her for the first time on Thursday evening.

Mr Hollande’s ordinary looks and reputation as a soft-centred politician – one of his nicknames is Flanby, after a wobbly pudding – belie a colourful private life featuring three striking women.

For more than 25 years his partner was Ségolène Royal, the Socialist presidential candidate who lost to Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007. They had four children but never married. In a bitter break-up, Ms Royal showed Mr Hollande the door shortly after the 2007 election because of his affair with Ms Trierweiler, a journalist on Paris Match. He and Ms Trierweiler have also never married.

Things first appeared to be less than peachy between them when Ms Trierweiler loosed off a tweet in June 2012 backing Ms Royal’s opponent in a parliamentary election. Ms Royal lost and the Hollande-Royal children publicly let their fury be known. Ms Royal said of Ms Trierweiler at the time: “She would do better to worry about the next one,” author Cécile Amar reports in Jusqu’ici Tout va Mal. It was, apparently, a prescient remark.

The president has said he will clarify the state of his relationships before he makes a state visit to the US in February. In the meantime, he has embarked on a bigger battle to rescue his presidency. (No surprise, he ditched Ms Trierweiler and chose Julie Gayet)

Mr Hollande’s 2012 campaign pandered to the left, symbolised by his promise of a 75 per cent top tax rate. In office, he has overseen a big increase in taxes – and a big rise in unemployment. Business leaders have grown acutely frustrated and the broader electorate deeply disillusioned. An apparently endless series of stumbles has left him the most unpopular postwar president.

He has not neglected the business community, frequently meeting top bosses. Warm and personable with visitors, he lives up to another nickname: Monsieur Petites Blagues – Mr Little Jokes.

But he often leaves them baffled. “Each time after a meeting with him everyone says, great, he has understood,” says the chief executive of a leading French company. “But then later there is disappointment when you see the practical decision.”

Now, however, Mr Hollande is touting an urgent acceleration of reforms, promising to cut public spending, taxes and labour costs in what he called a “responsibility pact” with business to generate growth and jobs.

It has been widely portrayed as Mr Hollande, always a moderate, finally turning his back on the hard left. This week, for the first time, he publicly proclaimed himself a social democrat (centre-left) – a term of insult to many on the French left (socialists).

Here, there may be a parallel with the conduct of his private life. He has always seemed inclined to let events take their course before being forced by a crisis to make a decision.

Says another chief executive: “He was wrongly convinced that France would rebound when the rest of the world rebounded. But in the past two or three months, France was really lagging. He has acted because becoming the sick man of Europe is not the way to have your voice heard on the international stage.”

Mr Hollande will face a tough test both in local polls in March and in European elections in May from surging support for Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Front. Lurking in the shadows, meanwhile, is the vengeful figure of Mr Sarkozy, relishing Mr Hollande’s gaffes and plotting a comeback.

But Mr Hollande appears serene. Ms Amar says her book title hints at his conviction that he can recover to win again in 2017. “He’s someone who always believes things will get better, that he will get out of trouble,” she says.

“He believes that he is smarter than everyone else – everyone, including his rivals and his colleagues. Throughout his career, he has been underestimated.”

That would include, it seems, his attractiveness to glamorous women.

The writer is the FT’s Paris bureau chief. Additional reporting by Michael Stothard