I suspect that while many people in France seriously envy the pulling power of this unprepossessing 60 year old, but don’t condemn him for having such a liaison, they are annoyed that while the president of the republic can go to such meticulous lengths in organising the practicalities of his trysts with Julie, he can’t bring the same organisational skills to trying to improve the desperate state of the French economy.
Still, he made one slip while he was riding on a scooter to his overnight stays with the delicious Julie, who has made many sizzling sex scenes during her movie career. He kept on his shiny black shoes, a dead giveway. The president should have worn trainers! Just to add to the general furore, there are also allegations that the apartment that the president and Julie have been using, near the Elysée palace, has had connections with a Corsican crime gang.
One pertinent question that a Guardian reader asked hasn’t been taken up. Like the US president, the French president has to have the firing codes for the country’s nuclear weapons with him at all times, so the unanswered question is: where were those codes while the president was ensconced with the actress?
There’s also the question of what happens to the president’s partner since 2007, Valérie Trierweiler? She is currently in hospital, recovering from the shock engendered by the news scoop about the president’s love life. If the president’s relationship with Valérie ends, she will presumably be booted out of the Elysée, another “first” for the French presidency. I strongly suspect that Hollande’s term as president is going to be of rather shorter duration than originally planned.
Here in Ireland, Old Moore’s Almanac has been making predictions for the best part of 200 years. Some turn out to be accurate, others not, but one of their predictions for 2014 is that the term of office of Ireland’s president, Michael D.Higgins, is going to be suddenly terminated this year. Substitute Hollande for Higgins and this prediction might well come true.
Meanwhile, Marine Le Pen, the leader of the Front National, is rubbing her hands with glee. Her far right party is currently leading all others in the poll predictions for the municipal elections in France in a couple of months' time. The party currently has a 24 per cent rating. She reckons that not alone will her party do well but that hers and similar parties across Europe are going to do equally well in the European parliament elections in May. She says she wants to blow up the EU, which she describes as the Soviet Union of Europe.
Also in France, on a lighter note, I see that the Spanish clothing chain, Desigual, had its usual good turn out for its January sale. It promised shoppers at its store in Paris that the first 100 to get into the shop wearing just their underwear would get a brand new outfit, for nothing. The company started its semi-naked parties back in 2005 and the trend has lost none of its popularity, so that a huge queue built up at its Paris store the other day,despite the awful weather. Imagine queuing for hours in just your underwear in temperatures hovering around eight degrees Centigrade. Seems more than a bit daft to me!
Positive news, too, on the museums front. The new museum in Marseilles dedicated to the civilisations of the Mediterranean has been a big hit with visitors. During 2013, close on two million went to have a look, which is an impressive number indeed. But one media outlet remains unimpressed by what French tourism has to offer, The Guardian. The other day, it did a list of the 20 best places in the world to visit this year. France only got one entry, Bordeaux.
I also see that in France, they are predicting that the traditional public phone box is likely to disappear within a few years. At the moment, the law states that any commune with more than 1,000 inhabitants has to have a public pay phone, but this requirement may soon change. I can see the change here in our own locality in Dublin. Some public payphones have already been removed. The ones that remain are totally unused; I haven’t seen anyone actually using one of them for many a long day, hardly surprising when practically everyone has a mobile phone or iPhone. I also see that Monaco has just had the longest strike in its history. The Hotel de Paris, a landmark hotel in the principality, is going to close soon for substantial renovations. The staff have been negotiating with management over their pay during the closure and this led to an eight day strike at the hotel. It’s now ended, while negotiations continue.
Here in Ireland, the usual shambles continues. The present coalition government seems to have a death wish as far as the elderly, the sick and the disabled are concerned. It never misses an opportunity to cut away at benefits for pensioners, the sick, the unemployed and the disabled, but of course it never makes any cuts to the vast expenses of its ministers or the continuing substantial sums of taxpayers’ money still wasted in the public service.
A prime example of political greed came to light the other day when it was revealed that Eamon Gilmore, the Irish foreign minister, spent €130,000 of taxpayers’ money using the government jet to get to New York on two occasions last year. There are plenty of daily commercial flights between Dublin and New York and if the minister had taken those, the travel bills for these trips would have been cut by 90 per cent. It’s typical of the out of touch elite in the Irish Labour Party - they have their snouts in the trough and they want to siphon up just as many goodies as they can get their greedy hands on, all the while cutting, cutting, cutting from the meagre budgets of old age pensioners.
It’s hardly surprising that since 2008, 400,000 people have left Ireland to live and work elsewhere in the world, with a large proportion of them young people with admirable skills and qualifications. I’m indebted as usual to Fintan O’Toole of The Irish Times who says that all this talk of a rebound in the Irish economy is a load of European blarney, something dreamed up by the country’s paymasters in the EU and bearing little resemblance to reality. He points out that all the vast US corporations that run low tax operations in Ireland in their own gated communities are all doing well, but that for the ordinary citizen, there’s little prospect of real improvement in the economy any time soon.
A striking anniversary came up the other day. On January 9th., 1799, the British government introduced 20 per cent temporary tax on income to help pay for Britain’s war against Napoleon. That little temporary measure introduced over two centuries ago is still in full swing. So much for politicians’ promises!
I just had a shock when listening to the news on Radio 4 on the BBC. The announcer said that the time was “twenty to eight” which was two hours later than the actual time!Needless to remark,no apology,no correction. And talking of Radio 4, I tuned in to Desert Island Discs the other day to hear Nicola Benedetti, the star violinist who has made a wonderful career for herself - she’s just 26 and even got an award in the recent New Year’s Honours list. But what a disappointment she was - she appeared mono-dimensional, with no interests outside music - how dull and dreary. I know the life of a concert violinist needs the utmost dedication, to cope with all the rehearsals and the endless travelling from one venue to another, but it all sounded utterly dreary. The programme was so typical of much of the BBC’s offerings these days, tired and formulaic.
And on that cheerful note,I’ll sign off for this week!