Sexus Politicus is a new (French) book, which reveals decades of philandering, adultery and seduction at the heart of the French state, with politicians of all colours apparently sharing the same passion for extra-marital sex.
According to the book, President Jacques Chirac and his predecessors Francois Mitterrand and Valery Giscard D’Estaing have juggled the fate of France, their families and a bevy of lovers with great ease, helped partly by an acquiescent media.
“All these politicians present themselves as clean-living individuals, but at the same time almost all French male politicians are compulsive womanisers,” said Christophe Dubois, who co-authored the book with Christophe Deloire.
The current French president comes across as a veritable Casanova, disappearing on midnight rendez-vous and using state funds to take a mistress on foreign trips. “Do you know where my husband is tonight?” the book quotes Chirac’s long-suffering wife Bernadette as asking his chauffeur on the night Princess Diana died in a Paris road accident.
“There is a French tradition of politicians who equate the conquest of power with the conquest of lovers. Sexual prowess seems to go with political success,” said Dubois.
However, all that may change if Socialist presidential front-runner Segolene Royal should win the 2007 election. Royal may have to live by very different rules. “What is tolerated for men would never be tolerated for women politicians. They would immediately be discredited if they went around having affairs,” said Dubois.
