Sarkozy, the Heartbreak Kid
Can’t resist some more gossip.
I’ve been following Sarkozy’s latest uncouplings and recouplings with some fascination. But until I read this piece I wasn’t aware of the histrionic history of how he’d met and married his previous wife, Cécilia.
It’s either romantic or abominable, depending on how you look at it—or perhaps both:
[Sarkozy] had famously fallen in love with his second wife, Cécilia, while officiating at her wedding in his capacity as mayor of Neuilly, a well-to-do inner suburb of Paris. He was 28, Cécilia was 26, and her groom–Jacques Martin, France’s answer to Johnny Carson–was 51. Sarkozy later recalled thinking: “What am I doing marrying her off to someone else? She’s for me!” Still married at the time to his first wife, Sarkozy pursued Cécilia relentlessly for four years. Where he departed from the usual pattern was in eventually suing for divorce even though he was mayor of a famously conservative town. It would take him eight years to secure a divorce from his devout Catholic, Corsican-born first wife, Marie; but in the meantime, including his stint as budget secretary under Prime Minister Edouard Balladur, he lived, sometimes in official residences, with Cécilia, who called herself Madame Sarkozy.
Wow. The marriage itself was fraught with well-known and winked-at affairs, but that’s standard operating procedure to the public in France, although it still might raise a few eyebrows here.
Sarkozy and new wife Carla appear, therefore, to be far more well-matched than I’d originally thought. And that’s not a compliment. His courtship of second wife Cécilia began on her wedding day; Carla has the distinction of having left an affair with writer Jean-Paul Enthoven in order to take up with his own son.
Giuliani is a model of marital decorum compared to these two; they make Bill Clinton’s peccadillos seem mild.
French politics is indeed different than ours; I doubt anyone with this Byzantine a marital history could be elected here. Yet.
First: I love the gossip about Sarkozy and Carla. I also love the posts about Salmon Rushdie’s wife.
Now, an attempted hijack:
I frequently hear New York and DC types say Giuliani’s personal life + various scandals make him unelectable. I’m not familiar enough w/Giuliani to know what details they are talking about. From Texas, it sounds like heresay horse manure.
A skim through Google’s top 50 hits on three things:
1. Kerik
To me: mistakes happen. No big deal. I am actually impressed with the forthright fashion in which Giuliani owns up to this – as opposed to, for instance, the way Hillary owns up to her mistakes.
2. Multiple marriages
I don’t believe voters care. I believe voters understand real life happens.
3. Mistress + police protection scandal
The mayor had to be protected. I see no true scandal here.
And that’s it. Is there some unknown-in-Middle-America, inside-NYC-baseball which will go national and prevent Rudy’s election?
Rudy’s business dealings can be (unfairly) demonized, just as every businessperson’s dealings can be (unfairly) demonized. I don’t believe such will disqualify Rudy with voters.
Glad you said YET. Won’t be much longer.
Giuliani has been accused by some reporters of having a “seigneurial attitude” about women. But he’s nowhere near the scale or out-of-control philandering that Bill Clinton engaged in. Not even close. He’s been married three times, seems to have been faithful (for the most part), but got involved with Judith Nathan while married to Donna Hanover. I’m not sure, but I think she also saw someone on the side: there are two camps on the story of that marriage.
At any rate, he’s not been accused of grabbing or harassing staffers, or dropping trou in hotel rooms, or any of that vulgar business Clinton (and Bob Packwood). The MSM hate him because he has the stones to speak his mind.
Mind you, I haven’t always been a fan of his (used to call him Ghouliani, in fact). But when you’re in a fight, he’s the fellow you want at your side: a tough, smart Italian guy from Queens.
This is tabloid stuff.
The French, they are lovers, wie?
Thanks, Beverly. I like Giuliani. I hope he can make a serious run.