The Queen of Links pointed out this Telegraph article about how the Paris press is having a field day over an apparent affair Chirac's chief opponent's wife is having. Got that? Don't bother, it's just gossip, and the evidence they have is that she exchanged smiles with a businessman. I bring it up only to note the Telegraph highly approves of this field day, describing it thus:
the French media finally abandoned their tradition of treating public figures with high-minded discretionThe 'Graph notes later in the story that the late French Prez. Francois Mitterand had a whole second family. A fact widely known in his circles, but not reported until he was a lame duck in office, thanks to alleged French "coyness about the private lives of public figures." I sniff not a new standard, but a very old double standard: if the politician is liberal, his sex life is none of your business. If he is conservative, there's a right to know.
