The anti-Hillary
It's a safe bet that no one like Segolene Royal could get elected President of the United States, but President of France is another matter.
Ms. Royal is a 53-year-old, unmarried French mother of four who is stunningly attractive, a real babe, and may well become the next President of France. A protege of former French President Francoise Mitterand, she has just been nominated by the Socialist Party, one of the two large political parties in France, to face off against the right's candidate, Nikolas Sarkozy, Interior minister in the current government of President Jacques Chirac.
And no, she wasn't the "other woman" in the famous Mitterand funeral picture that depicted his widow and mistress standing side by side. That picture astonished many Americans, but the French reacted to it with a shrug.
Ms. Royal (American journalists will have to both learn how to pronounce her name and do accent marks on their computers--I left them off her first name--if she gets elected) has come up through French politics and is a graduate of one of the famous French universities that prepares civil servants to run the country. She is the same age as British Prime Minister Tony Blair and no lightweight. Probably to the dismay of feminists, she has been willing to use her femininity to appeal for votes. She is said to be the fantasy mother of many French men and women alike: pretty and kind. How many female politicians in any country have paparazzi angling for bikini photos on the beach?
If you look at the photo of her in the Times photo in the story linked above, doesn't the woman holding the microphone on the right side of the photo resemble Monica Lewinsky? For Royal, it's on the first round of French voting next spring.