The Two Francois: An Essay in Criticism

Here’s a quote from a TLS review of Philip Short’s Mitterand: A Study in Ambiguity, (TLS, “Skilled at Distance,” 5/30/14): “Alongside his official family, and the inevitable retinue of mistresses, Francois also shared his life with Anne Pingeot, who was twenty years younger than him and with whom he had a child, Mazarine. Her existence was revealed to the wider public only in late l994, when Paris-Match published photographs of the President with his daughter.” This little paragraph written by the reviewer Sudhir Hazareesingh is worthy of exegesis since it contains a number of assumptions: 1) that a head of state in France has an official family (the current Francois in power in France confutes that assumption, of course 2) “inevitable retinue of mistresses.” Is it written in French law that a head of state must have a “retinue” in order not to face impeachment? Certainly the other Francois seems to have met this qualification handily having thrown over the journalist Valerie Treirweiler for the actress, Julie Gayet, (footnote: his 30 year relationship with Segolene Royal had come to an end one month after Royal’s defeat in the 2007 election) 3) while it seems that the name Francois can be attached to positions of power in French government, we know the name is not a requirement. It was not, for example, Francois de Gaulle. There have been many summit talks in which American presidents have met with their European counterparts. But there has unfortunately never been a sexuality summit in which major leaders could compare notes. Imagine a circle jerk with Francois Mitterand, Francois Hollande, John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton for starters. But reading about the exploits of the two Francoises, it's hard not to ask, were these two leaders of France sex addicts and what differentiates them from DSK, a renowned swordsmen, who also occupied a prominent quasi governmental position as managing director of the IMF?

How To Die

What does the How To Die cover of the current issue of Time says about the demographics of the magazine. This certainly wouldn’t be the cover of Vibe, Maxim, Esquire, Cosmopolitan or even the French magazine Paris Match for which the “companion” of France’s new president, Francois Hollande, Valerie Trierweiler, writes. Time and Newsweek are the two struggling old war horses of American magazine journalism and one can't help asking if the subject of pulling the plug, that's the substance of Joe Klein's cover story ("How To Die: What I Learned from the Last Days of My Mom and Dad," Time, 6/11/12) isn't a double entendre. Who the hell reads these dinosaurs anyway? At very least, that's obviously a question advertisers are apparently asking, when you look at the current waif of an issue weighing in at a mere 66 pages. There are only so many dental offices in America. Time is plainly a magazine whose time has come. Did the editors even realize that the cover logo itself was oxymoronic considering the name of their magazine. Or perhaps they were just trying to recapture the glory of the controversial "Is God Dead" cover of yesteryear (Time, 4/8/66). You don’t want to know “how to die” if you have “time,” though if it’s your time then perhaps you’d want to know. Perhaps the red was just left over from some old cover story about the days of China’s infamous cultural revolution? The magazine business is more competitive than ever with art and editorial directors trying to do something, anything to stanch the flow of losses, but is fire engine red, bleeding to the edges, really the way to go considering the audience that the current issue of Time (and Klein's otherwise heartfelt and insightful piece) is reaching out to. The post menopause, Flomax crowd may be discussing their “arrangements,” but they don’t necessarily want to see blood.