Infidelity a La Française

I love France for many reasons, but not the French broad tolerance around cheating in relationships and marriages!  The majority here seem to be in utter denial about the underlying implications of infidelity, as it is something that is nonchalantly treated with amusement or shrugged shoulders.

Infidelity is the worst sort of betrayal  and inflicts the worst sort of pain.  Yet, in this country it is just joked up to” men will be  men” as an unavoidable male trait, and as if nothing really damaging took place.

The French have so banalised and normalised infidelity throughout history that is seems to be  ingrained in their cultural mores.   However there is a double standard here, in that societal expectations that men will cheat is not the norm for French women, who do not have the same immunity from  scorn.

Arranged marriages in the past were par for the core in royal and bourgeoise families, which understandably precipitated straying beyond marital boundaries to find real love and passion.   However, that is not the case today.

Royal mistresses were given much compensation and some exerted quite a bit of power over their beloved kings.  They often retired to their gifted chateaus and received royal titles.   Today’s mistresses, unpaid and uncompensated are often treated like cheap hourly whores.   Even if most are in love with the man,  they will for the most part end up alone after being tossed away like used pieces of Kleenex or traded in for a younger model.

Getting rid of their royalty, however, did not change the exceptional accord and complacently vis-a-vis their modern-day leaders private lives.  French politicians have been notorious serial players of the worst sort, all protected under a strict law protecting their “la vie privee”.

President Francois Hollande is just the most recent to arrogantly refuse any explanation or clarification around his reported midnight trysts with a younger French actress, and God forbid,  any public display of apologetic concern towards his duped companion Valerie Trierweiler.

For those of you who are not aware , France has some of the strictest privacy laws around the personal life of their heads of state.   They have complete immunity to do whatever they want to do privately, without any scrutiny, nor any accountability for their behaviour to the French public.

For that very reason you will not find my opinions about them, nor analysis of personalities involved, and somewhat subdued expressions in this post out of fear of reprisal.  There is no transparency allowed or expected as in Anglo-Saxon countries, and the press reporting on these “frivolous” matters risk lawsuits, which one has already by filed by the actress involved.

The majority of their elected presidents would have never made into the candidacy if they were Americans, where scrutiny of a politicians private life is deemed appropriately correlative and collaborative of his overall character, morality and judgment.

The last 5 presidents, all carried a lot of baggage along these lines.   These brief descriptions sound like they were taken from  cheap and sordid romance novels, but are indeed true and well documented.

Francois Holland came into the presidential election with public knowledge that he had left his never married partner Ségolène Royal, after 30 years together and 4 children.  One month after she lost the presidential campaign to Sarkozy, they separated.   He reportedly had started the relationship with Valerie Trierweiler during her compaign.

Before Holland became the presidential candidate, the favourite of his party was Dominique Strauss Khan.   Besides his accusation of sexual molestation of the maid in New York City, there were two journalists, one French, the other Italian, who accused him of sexual violence. He is currently facing charges of pimping prostitutes and organising sexual orgies .

I shudder  to think that had it not been for the American police in arresting him; this man could have continued to the French presidency, as he was favoured over Hollande.   It was the American maid’s courage that helped bring others out of the bush of secrecy with their own complaints and opened up a French investigation into his other sexcapades.

Ex president Sarkozy during his first marriage, began a relationship with the wife,  of a couple he betrothed, when he was mayor of a Parisian suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine.  This woman later became his second wife.  Shortly after his Presidential inauguration, they separated and divorced with him quickly rebounding and marrying his third wife, a French Italian singer.

Before Sarkozy, there was president Jacque Chirac, who was also at one time mayor of Paris.  His multiple affairs  were done more discreetly, as he wrote in his memoires; admitting he had loved several women, despite that his wife of 58 years certainly has suffered in silence.

Then there was President Mitterrand, elected before Chirac, who lived a double life with a long time mistress with whom he had a daughter.  Both his widow, mistress and illegitimate daughter attended his funeral in plain sight of each other.

Valéry Giscard d”Estaing , before Mitterrand, also enjoyed his paramours with total secrecy and protection by the French press.

A much earlier French president Felix Faure in died infamously in 1899 during extramarital sex right in the Élysée palace.  Heavens knows how many other heads of state went to their grave with dirty little secrets under their belt.

If indeed the French are so callously indifferent to the sexual shenanigans of their elected officials, why is there so much media attention and increased sales of the magazine Closer and other journals?  My take of it, is they are indeed very much interested in the private lives of those who govern them, and just as much given to voyeurism as any other nationality.

In sifting through comments from the French public, I did notice a variance of opinion depending of the sex of the one commenting.   True the majority of males seemed to go alone with keeping the president lives secret and saying it had nothing to do with political decisions, but the majority of female responders took a different view.

Many comments complaining about Ms. Trierweiler being hospitalised proliferated; “if all the wives in France had to be hospitalised because of their husbands cheating on them, there would be no longer any hospital beds in France”.  Both genders were very critical of her tile as “First Dame” and that taxes were used to provide her with a office and 4 assistants, in addition to her hospitalisation and continued recovery in the presidential retreat La Lantern near Versailles.

There was a definite tendency in female commentators to be much more critical and projecting a sense of correlation between what happens in private affairs as revealing in overall character judgment.  Maybe after all the years of having to suffer in silence around their husband sexual peccadillos, there is a hidden rebellion brewing amongst French women.

From my own observation, French women are more submissive to male companions and much less independent in general than American women.  The male hierarchal system is still well at play in French society and corporations.

It has also been just in the last few years, that anti sexual harassment in the workplace  been somewhat implemented, though rarely enacted .  Women here are very indoctrinated to being a sexual object, and though the attention might be complimentary to most, the consequences has resulted in lower salaries than those of males, and less protection from male abusive behaviour in families and on the job.

Husbands, who are cheated on by their wives are  ridiculed, and called cockolded, as if the situation openly demonstrates a lack of  sexual prowess, which makes up the fiber of every true Frenchman’s pride and glory.

French wives and companions, since many are not even marrying in the first place, may certainly become enraged, but nevertheless are expected to suffer in silence.  French society expects the cheated upon wives to display dignity and “classe” to preserve her marriage with graceful public indifference.

Even one French psychologist, Maryse Vaillant has gone so far to in her book ” Les Hommes, L’Amour, La Fidélité to suggest that women should welcome their husbands lustful wandering because extra conjugal liaisons made for a “healthier” marriage.

With the lightening speed of communication enabled by the internet, I feel the French will eventually demand more appropriate behaviour from their elected officials private lives, which are increasingly more difficult to hide.  Quite a few of the comments lamented over France’s reputation being ridiculed worldwide for their politicians sexual antics.

France is an old civilisation, and things don’t change quickly here.  If the French, in their patriarchal dominated society, want to acknowledge the perceived male biological tendency to resist monogamy, perhaps they are ahead of the game in these matters.  I am curious to see though, if the evolving independence of French women will eventually cause them to make more stringent demands of fidelity or leave their  emotionally abusive relationships.

My opinion, like many Americans, is that the lies and deception inherent in cheating on your spouse or companion, can be  easily transferred and contaminate decisions involving running a corporation or government.  Not surprisingly, Chirac and Sarkosy,recently have each faced charges over financial mismanagement of funds.

The ordinary French man, who may be sexually bored in his marriage or relationship, feels totally free to pimenter( or spice up) his  love life, without much guilt, if any, due to societal and cultural indifference.   He might even enjoy and take pride in being called “un chaud lapin” or hot rabbit!

After all, if his elected officials and heads of  state enjoy these benefits, why should he be denied the same privileges in the country where “liberté, ´egalité, fraternité” is the country’s motto!