London, England--
“The greatest deception, and the deepest source of unhappiness, is the illusion of finding life by excluding God, of finding freedom by excluding moral truths and personal responsibility” --John Paul II, 2002
L’amour toujours l’amour. Yet another French President in the form of Francois Hollande has fallen into its promise of escape from the humdrum of moral duty, and the British papers are lapping it up.
This past weekend the Times ran a few bios of common-or-garden French mistresses. The one who is bored with her life and goes for her ‘special treat’ to feel good about herself. Plus she gets scarves, chocolates, lingerie and all sorts of gifts every time they meet. Or the one who doesn’t ever want to marry again and is happy to live without the snoring, cooking and washing up after a man that bores her. It is, after all, not chic to be bored in France. Nor is it chic to carry on affairs without discretion, a sin for which Francois Hollande cannot be forgiven by many. This piece incidentally was run in one of the paper’s lifestyle section a few pages away from another featuring tips and hints on oral sex, indicating just how far down the path of a sexualized society we have roamed.
Affairs are part of the cultural and philosophical framework of France as a number of my French acquaintances will tell you. Two of them, let’s call them Clotilde and Marie, are typical. Clotilde flirts, at times outrageously, with Marie’s husband. When I pressed Marie on how she felt about this, she replied that ‘if ee as an affair wiz er, at least ee as chosen a beautiful girl’. But in the next breath I am told that Marie will never introduce Clotilde to her ‘special friend ‘that she goes to art galleries with when in Paris. The question here is how can a friendship based on trust and openness flourish here. It can’t, of course.
Nor can happiness flourish in a society when the ‘chic rule of discretion’ is broken, as was the case with Hollande and his girlfriend Valerie Trierweiler, who, allegedly, knew nothing of his affair with actress Julie Gayet or of the alleged pregnancy. She quickly landed in hospital when the story broke with friends saying that she had taken “one pill too many” after hearing the rumours of her partner’s affair, according to the Telegraph.
Meanwhile the French are up in arms over who the first lady now is, because without the vows of marriage, it really does depend on who is in the president’s bed. Should they be paying for Trierweiler to stay in the Élysée Palace when Gayet may be the new first mistress or first girlfriend? Hollande has not made any statement about the affair, nor will we know his choice until his trip to the US in February.
But the real question here is whether a man can run a country when his personal life has no moral grounding? Hollande after all, never married his former partner and mother of his four children, Ségolene Royal. After 30 years, he decided to move on to the younger Trierweiler and now the younger still Gayet. Can this freewheeling lack of commitment be translated into the kind of character that is needed to make hard decisions for the good of a country?
The French will tell you ‘what is private is private’ and it does not interfere with the work one undertakes, a point Hollande made at his annual press conference on the state of his country’s affairs, no pun intended. This argument makes no sense, in that decisions must have a basis or reference from which they are taken. In western culture, morality has been the basis on which we make laws, ultimately for the good of all people.
What the French are doing is lying to themselves – about sex and love, about their precious social contract that harks from their 18th century revolution (liberty, equality and fraternity) and that somehow private morals or principles are all relative and don’t affect the common good.
François Hollande is a typical example of where a lack of moral commitment feeds the choices made in his political life. Dubbed ‘the marshmallow’ in his presidential campaign, he has prevaricated on just about every critical issue that plagues France. He promised more jobs, yet raised taxes from 65% at the top tier to 75%. This started a mass exodus of money from the country as most famously demonstrated by Gerard Depardieu who hot-tailed it to Moscow where Putin rushed to give him a free passport. Then there’s chairman and chief executive of LVMH Moet Hennessy, Bernard Amault who took out joint Belgian citizenship.
Hollande also wanted to raise business taxes, now he is talking about some nefarious ‘responsibility pact’ which will reduce the constraints on companies. He says he wants to cut 50 billion Euros of public spending, but by some magic this will come from “increases in productivity” and the fallacious argument so popular at the moment with Western politicians that somehow renewable energy will come in and save the day. It is all as wishy washy as his indecision over which woman he wants to be in a relationship with.
Hollande is a staunch supporter of the redistribution of wealth. This has no moral validity to it in that it destroys the entrepreneurial spirit (ask any French businessperson) and interrupts the relationship between a free people who give to those in need and those that must take in all humility. Socialism is France’s biggest lie and because it is so ingrained in the culture, the people refuse to see it. They will keep on electing leaders like Hollande, cry when he fails, elect a reformist , then proceed to strike and rip up the streets of Paris when any sniff of a reform is suggested.
If a man is of good moral character, which used to be a desirable quality, he leads and protects his family making decisions within a strong moral framework. This kind of leadership translates into any situation, including the grand stage of national politics. While Hollande remains unfettered by the constraints of morality as exemplified by his support for the redefinition of marriage and euthanasia, and the lie of wealth redistribution, France will continue to suffer, slowly dying under the enormous strain of state control, and decisions made doggedly from a socialist ideology, rather than what is morally correct for its people.
