An elderly retainer wheels a packed breakfast trolley towards the presidential suite after Nicolas Sarkozy’s first night in the Elysée Palace on 16 May. He taps discreetly on the door and it is opened not by the new President but by Ségolène Royal, wearing a translucent Chanel nightgown that leaves nothing to the imagination. Inside, Sarkozy is still in bed, snoring loudly. As Mme Royal takes in the trolley, smiling sweetly, the retainer returns towards the kitchens, shaking his head in wonderment. “Mon Dieu! Is there nothing that lady will not do to run the Republic?”
Parisian night club satire such as this – pure fantasy of course – illustrates the main problem for Royal during the French Presidential Election, won easily by Sarkozy in the run-off, by a margin of 53% to 47%. She was the butt of sexist jokes from the start. “Who is going to look after the children?” asked her defeated Socialist rival, former prime minister Laurent Fabius, a reference to Royal’s brood of four by her partner, but not husband, the Socialist party’s secretary-general François Hollande. Unfortunately the French sisterhood did not come to her rescue. More women voted for Sarkozy than for Royal, especially among the over 65s, which political analyst Mariette Sineau said was explained by “this age group still thinking men should be in control”. But only 16% of the people, male and female, who voted for Royal believed that she had the necessary ‘stature’ to be president. Her grasp of foreign affairs was generally reckoned to be poor, particularly after she described the Taliban as still the government of Afghanistan.
A fly on the wall in the Hollande-Royal household at breakfast the day after the result was announced might have been treated to some bitter recriminations. Hollande had expected himself to be the candidate of the Left, frequently contradicted his common-law spouse on policy issues, and to Royal’s horror scored the biggest own goal of the campaign by announcing tax rises, in the event of her victory. During the heated televised debate between the candidates, watched by an audience of 20M, Sarkozy quoted effectively from one of Hollande’s messianic speeches in which he had said, “I don’t like the rich”, while even one of Royal’s own election team described him as her “biggest defect”.
Not that Cecilia Sarkozy gave much support to her husband. She did not appear at the victory rally and is rumoured once again to have left the marital home, possibly for good. Cecilia was quoted as saying, when Sarkozy began his campaign for the presidency, that the prospect of living in the Elysée as France’s first lady “bores me rigid”. Sarkozy, for his part, has been linked with a female journalist who writes for Le Figaro, which may produce some fascinating conflicts of interest.
Sarkozy seemed more interested in healing the rift with Ségolène and her supporters than with Cecilia, saying in his victory speech that he had respect for Royal and her ideas. But the pair clashed repeatedly during their televised debate, and Royal strayed outside the bounds of traditional rhetoric on the hustings when she said that if Sarkozy won, it could “trigger violence and brutality across the country” and that his candidacy was “dangerous”.
Many of those who voted for Sarkozy did so with misgivings. France is bitterly divided, with a recognition that ‘something must be done’ about 10 million unemployed and a huge budget deficit but a total lack of unanimity about the way forward. Many fear that Sarkozy’s expected attack on the 35-hour working week, social security benefits, and the right to strike without the endorsement of a secret ballot, will provoke massive unrest. He is expected to act swiftly. As one French newspaper warned its readers: “Fasten your seatbelts!”
With the Left’s propensity to look for scapegoats, especially after a third successive defeat in the presidential elections, it seems unlikely that Royal can remain their figurehead. But after receiving more than 17 million votes in what was an 84% turnout, a post-War record, she is now the most famous woman in France. One celebrity agent, possibly touting for business, said that the Socialist Madonna could make 10 million Euros a year as a television presenter.
