Hollande’s Affair Turns Into a Political Spectacle

New York Times: “As a candidate for the French presidency in 2012, François Hollande promised to be more boring spouse than flamboyant seducer… Twenty months into his presidency, Mr. Hollande’s campaign pledge is faring even less well than the unemployment-cursed French economy.”

“Caught in a clandestine affair that is more bedroom farce than Shakespearean drama — a beautiful actress, a scorned woman at home, surreptitious comings and goings on a most unpresidential scooter — Mr. Hollande is testing the limits of France’s tolerance for private indiscretion and leaving himself vulnerable to ridicule.”

“The episode has revealed a colder, more politically calculating side to Mr. Hollande, familiar to those around him but largely hidden from public view. His judgment, not least about his personal security, has been called into question.”