Tuesday 11 November 2008

Ségolène Royal and me


Before you get too excited, no, I am not the "dashing and handsome media figure" with whom the Socialist Party's defeated 2007 presidential candidate has recently been photographed in a "stepping out" kind of way, although you could be forgiven for thinking this to be entirely plausible.

The lucky chap in question is Bruno Gaccio, who founded the French equivalent of Spitting Image – a puppet show which lampoons politicians. He left the show in January 2007, so presumably will now be delighted that he doesn't have to take the rise out of his alleged new squeeze to pay the bills.

Me and Royal have history (well, sort of, very tenuously). I first heard of her a few years ago during a trip to the Poitou-Charentes region, of which she had just been elected Council President (2004, I think) and I vividly remember somebody – a tourism bod if memory serves – telling me that she, Royal, would be President someday. I've kept an eye out for her ever since and although Sarkozy convinced the electorate that he was the man to change France for the better, Royal is firmly back on the front foot.

As for news on the dynamic President, his wife Carla Bruni has taken an admirable public stance on Berlusconi's crude Barack Obama suntan "joke".

Whatever you say about France's current crop of public figures, boring they ain't.

1 comment:

Kolley Kibber said...

Well done Carla. And at least she's learning to say 'I'm an Italian' without feeling the need to add '...a cat, a tamer of men.'

Royal, now there's a woman. And not finished yet.