Le Divorce

For all the blather about how Europeans are so much more progressive than Americans when it comes to sex and relationships, there sure is a firestorm brewing over the sudden divorce of France's President Nicolas Sarkozy from his now-ex-wife Cecilia. You'd think if anywhere the notion of a divorce in office would go over with a shrug and a "c'est la vie," it would be en France but there are swirling questions about whether Sarkozy could have won the presidency as a new divorce' and what this sudden collapse of his marriage will mean to his popularity.

I can recall my ex-boyfriend, who was raised outside the US and often looked upon our sexual and cultural mores with disdain, pointing out during the Monica Lewinsky debacle that when former French President Francois Mitterand died, his wife and mistress both openly attended his funeral. But I think the difference there is that at the time it was all going on, it wasn't talked about--nobody discussed the fact that Mitterand was cheating on his wife even though everyone (including the wife) knew. Here, we like to examine and pick apart personal foibles in our leaders out of some sort of perverse need to prove that they really aren't that great people after all. Certainly they aren't any better than the rest of us, or at least that's what we'd like to believe.

If half of all marriages end in divorce in the US, the number must be approximately the same in other developed countries including France. So certainly the notion of a marriage falling apart is not novel to the French. Yet when was the last time that a world leader endured the breakup of their own marriage while in office? If it has happened before, I cannot remember it. And this is the more troubling truth: most political marriages are probably every bit as fallible as the rest of ours, but the political fallout of divorce is so unpredictable and dangerous that couples stay together for the benefit of the political career. When they do not, as with the case of Jim McGreevy coming out as a gay man after leaving the governorship of New Jersey, divorce follows soon after the spotlight has faded away.

Many people wondered if Hillary Clinton's political stature would have been improved or hurt if she had divorced her admittedly unfaithful husband Bill after he left office and while she was a US Senator. Some thought that would be seen as a strong move to be her own person, while others believed it would make her too vulnerable to those who oppose divorce and believe couples should stick it out. I honestly don't know what the effect would have been, but have been concerned that because of the public knowledge of Bill Clinton's past infidelity there will be inordinate attention paid to the health of their marriage if she is elected President. What tumultuous normal relationship can survive that kind of assault? You just know that bimbos will come out of the woodwork, accurate or made up, and claim that they've slept with the First Husband. Why would anyone choose to live through that?

Sarkozy had been publicly cuckolded by his wife in 2005 before he sought the Presidency, when she was photographed in the tabloids in compromising positions with another man in New York. The couple separated at the time and nearly split up. The cynics among us will wonder if the deal was struck that Sarkozy needed to be married to make a run for the highest office, and so Cecilia was asked to take one for the team by staying married and making the best of it, while Nicolas had to take back the wife who cheated on him. That's a terrible choice for any person to have to make.

The truth is whether a President is happily married or not means nothing to their ability to be effective as a leader even though it may mean a great deal to their ability to be taken seriously by their public. I hope the French press and public will do what we would all have expected them to do before this news hit, and let the couple have their privacy while they go through a heartwrenching ordeal.