Trierweiler or Gayet? It doesn't matter . . .

So the British and American media is wondering why the French media are worrying about something the French are certain that only the British and the Americans would be concerned about . . . 

After all, presidential affairs are as French as blanc des noirs and mimolette, right? (Don't mind that the latter is actually a French knock off.)

The difference here, I think, is marriage. If the hapless Hollande and Trierweiler (or Royale, for that matter) were actually married, then his fling with an actress would have passed I think with nothing more than the by-now traditional "et alors?". But in reality, the only thing that gives Trierweiler any status, the only thing that makes it even possible to refer to her quite (albeit improperly) as the Première Dame is the fact that the President has decided to bed her on a presumably regular and on-going basis. Should le President decide that another bed is more amenable, she becomes nothing more than another member of the ubiquitous class of French media personalities. The status of Première Dame becomes something arbitrarily in the President's gift, to be retained or revoked as he sees fit. As a result, we are in the beyond ridiculous situation of bating our breath to see who Hollande will name as First Lady, in terms that remind me at least of the Lebron James Decision of 2010. Maybe one could convince Trierweiler's old pals at Direct8 to have a live hour-long special to broadcast the President's choice.

What this means in the long term is probably the obsolesence of the office. After all, the idea of a presidential couple is suffused with the not-quite-entirely-exorcised spirit of monarchy - it is a sacral concept still hanging on in a decidedly non-sacral political system. After all, companies are not ruled by the CEO and his consort anymore, although perhaps a century ago the position of factory-owner's wife was real and meaningful (although sometimes extremely pernicious, as Lisbeth Burger has shown).

If Hollande were married, none of this would have happened like it has. As silly as it may seem to use the word sacral in connection with as sad a sack as François Hollande, he will go down, I think, as the last French president with that particular remnant of monarchical aura. And that is a sad thing.

On a different note, that famous French attitude of unconcern about marital fidelity (even if it has never been as true as the stereotype suggests) is bound to disappear as well. You can only have affairs if you're married - it is simply silly to talk about cheating on a paramour. In its place will come a string of overlapping romantic or erotic connections, every person always inching towards their next one, perhaps held back by lingering ties of affection or familiarity. Without marriage as something real and solid, the boundary between relationships and flings is bound to grow fuzzier still. And somehow, that also seems like a sad thing too.