FRANCE: Are there any lengths to which French politicians will not go for a five-year lease on the Elysée Palace? Ten days before the first round of the presidential election, Mr Jacques Chirac and Mr Lionel Jospin sent their wives, Bernadette and Sylviane, into battle yesterday, on the cover of Paris Match.
The First Lady and would-be First Lady were photographed by the fashion photographer Helmut Newton. Mrs Jospin - who has kept the name she inherited from a Polish immigrant grandfather, Agacinski - also confided in the celebrities' weekly, Gala. "Love Story at [the prime minister's office] Matignon", says Gala's cover.
When he refers to his second marriage with Ms Agacinski, Mr Jospin reportedly says: "Since I became happy..." The couple married in 1994 and he has raised her son Daniel as his own. In an earlier campaign interview, Ms Agacinski noted that they still sleep together. The implication was that the Chiracs, after 46 years of marriage, might not.
Ms Agacinski is a doctor of philosophy and her last book, Politics of the Sexes, was translated into 15 languages. But she "wasn't a good cook" when she married Lionel, she confessed to Gala. "Thanks to his compliments, I've made great progress! When you hear: 'Those are the best mashed potatoes I've eaten in my life', well you do better and better!" Mrs Chirac received less encouragement from her husband. "If I'd listened to him, I would never have done anything!" she wrote in her book, Conversation, which has sold 300,000 copies. "I would have sat prim and proper in an armchair and waited for him... When you're Jacques Chirac's wife, you cannot be self-effacing. If you are, you risk being crushed." She compares her husband to a crocodile. Among that species, "the females keep watch so the males are free to attack!" Paris Match asked both women what their husband's worst fault was. Forget about his eye for the ladies, or the unexplained millions floating around Mr Chirac.
Ditto Mr Jospin's lies about his Trotskyist past, and the socialist leader's foul temper. The thing that drives Bernadette crazy is Jacques' penchant for zapping between television stations.
Sylviane finds it impossible to talk to Lionel when he watches football. But she doesn't mind the lipstick all over his collar when he comes home from campaign rallies. "Lipstick is very feminine," Ms Agacinski says. "I like the idea that women still wear it. And then this expression of affection pleases me. It's gratifying that others also like the man one loves."