When Nicolas Sarkozy promised the French more "open" government, this wasn't what they thought he meant. The recently-divorced president was photographed in Egypt just after Christmas, helping his new girlfriend negotiate a pyramid at Giza by applying pressure to her bejeaned behind.
Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni in Egypt. Photograph: Khaled el Fiqi/EPA
Today he told the French public he is "serious" about singer and ex-supermodel Carla Bruni, and did not deny reports they are engaged.
Much of the "serious" French media is studiously ignoring this latest development (it makes the penultimate paragraph in Le Monde's report). But the pace of Sarko's love life, and his candour about it, has blindsided the French. Is he trying to quell speculation? Is he on the rebound and blissfully oblivious to all else? Or is he deliberately cultivating an image of virility?
Consider that Francois Mitterrand maintained a secret mistress and an illegitimate daughter during his presidency, with the collusion of the French media. (Mazarine Pingeot-Mitterrand was smuggled into the Elysee for paternal visits in the back of a car.) Jacques Chirac's affairs were legendary, but unmentionable . Last month, Patrick Poivre d'Arvor, probably the country's best-known news presenter, said Sarkozy's private life was his own and he would not report it.
Sarkozy had his fingers burnt in 2005, when Paris Match published pictures of him with a previous conquest, a journalist at Le Figaro. (His then wife, Cécilia, was seeing an events organiser at the time.) The president may have decided that the French press can no longer be relied upon to keep a secret. He may be living what his future mother-in-law calls "a genuine love story".
But it is tempting to speculate that this (relatively) young and sporty president would like to incarnate a brave, new, unashamedly sexy France. He wants his compatriots to work harder and earn more - but clearly not at the expense of the cinq à sept, or the two-hour interval between work and home that the French have traditionally devoted to extra-marital sex.
Up before dawn, jogging, sort out France, dinner with Carla, horizontal jogging - eat your heart out Angela, Gordon and Barack.
