We are often fed the idea of France as a mythical land where no one eats snacks, the women never grow larger than a size 12, everyone ages gracefully despite smoking Gauloise and drinking vin rouge, eating dinner takes three hours thanks to harmonious family chat and, best of all, everyone is shagging someone they really shouldn't be in an elegant, discreet manner and no one gets hurt.
Clearly, the last part is codswallop, because segments of France do care that Francois Hollande may no longer be faithful to Valerie Trierweiler and, in fact, the media is chuntering loudly about why this affair hasn't been confessed to and why taxpayers should fund Valerie's office within the Elysee Palace if she's not First Girlfriend after all. The French, in fact, have behaved about high-level adultery exactly as the British would, with a mass clutching of pearls, then a cacophony of soundbites from whoever the French version of the UK's TaxPayers' Alliance are: those people who pop up knowing the exact cost of everything yet the value of nothing at all.
So, with the French and the British increasingly aligned in affairs of the heart, it will be interesting to watch Valerie's next move. In Britain, among the comfortably-off classes, when one partner has behaved or regularly behaves like a giant sh*t, there is a tendency to put up, to shut up, to think of what one might lose - status and financial security-wise in the eventuality of a split - and to give them another chance. Then a final chance. Then another chance after that.
Social media reverberates with brazen serial adulterers who spend all Christmas being loudly #familyfirst and #mulledwinewithmymrs or #mylovelyhubby and January back to their old "snuffle after anything with a pulse" tricks. Social media rocks with cuckolded partners clinging on bravely, territorially pissing around Twitter timelines while their other half "works late".
If Valerie Trierweiler decides that - when all things are considered - being First Girlfriend with an office and five staff inside one of France's most prestigious houses is a better deal than being a single, dumped, flat-hunter, she won't be the first to make a similar warped bargain.
What interests me most about this whole fandango is Valerie's hospital admission for the heartbreak. Love is such an intense, mentally and physically jarring emotion that I've often thought it's only a matter of time before Bupa opens wards especially to deal with the weeks that follow being badly, abruptly dumped or betrayed. The searing chest pain, the lack of appetite, the delusional thoughts, sleep deprivation, the overriding feeling that life is spent, it has no meaning, that the light of love in one's heart is gone and will never ever re-ignite.
If I opened a heartbreak clinic, the first days post-admission would see patients encouraged to lie in a foetal position howling over albums like Blue by Joni Mitchell or Steve McQueen by Prefab Sprout, moving on to - in stage two - angry pop ditties like We Are Never Getting Back Together by Taylor Swift.
My heartbreak clinic would favour talking therapy, access to a good lawyer and a digital detox specialist to remove evidence of the arsehole ex and their new life from all your accounts. The staff would be statuesque, can-do, Carry On-style matrons who would become quite hardline in - stage three - forcing you to wash, dress and consume something other than Bell's whisky and Kit-Kats. I'd be happy to take Valerie as my first patient.
Love is a losing game, Amy Winehouse said, but I believe in big second-half comebacks.
- The Independent
