The host of the TV talk show I was taking part on this Thursday asked a question: "In the end, it's not a bad week for François Hollande?" And everyone agreed. Even my co-panelist, an editorialist for the rightwing newspaper Le Figaro, concurred: the French president had, indeed, made some political gains.
This may sound extravagant in a week when every detail of his private life was being joked about by the whole country, a week in which not only was his secret love affair revealed but his partner was in hospital – and with him apparently not even allowed to see her.
But the French never do things the same way as others. And though other world leaders would undoubtedly have been floored by such revelations, the French president might well come out of this embarrassing crisis perfectly intact, even if it comes at a time when his opinion poll ratings were already the worse for a fifth republic head of state so early in his mandate.
Hollande's detractors used to nickname him, pejoratively, "Flanby", a wobbly caramel pudding. The embattled president washed away sucn an image this week, as he tried to save France and his private life at the same time.
Pierre Haski writing in the Guardian
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