The news that Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni are both having affairs strikes me as a little implausible. Don't get me wrong. I can quite believe that Mrs Sarkozy is romantically involved with Benjamin Biolay, a musician six years her junior. It's the complimentary affair, between Mr Sarkozy and Chantal Jouanno, his 40-year-old ecology minister, I'm sceptical about. It seems like a clever bit of spin control, a damage-limitation exercise dreamt up the French President's PR man. Sarkozy knew the story of his wife's affair was about to break, so, on the advice of his PR man, he invented the fact that he's having an affair as well in order to save face. In the eyes of the French electorate, Sarkozy the Swordsman cuts a more appealing figure than Sarkozy the Cuckold. Poor Ms Jouanno has been ordered to take a bullet for him. (To read more, click here.)
