The XX Factor: What women really think.

re: Vive La France

Emily,

So glad you brought up the love affair between Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni. It's pretty much a de rigeur topic of conversation in European capitals at the moment, but I daren't mention it too much on an American Web site, during the all-too-serious American primaries, lest I be thought lightweight. Here's what I like about it

1) As you say, the protocol issues. How do the Jordanian and Egyptian government treat the president of France and his mistress? I have just come home from a dinner at which Count Z. held forth on this subject, arguing that everybody ought to get out their 18th-century history books and work out how heads of state treated Madame de Pompadour and the various other royal mistresses, back in the day. There's plenty of precedent!

2. The way it makes everyone else look dowdy. Apparently the Blairs were holidaying in Luxor at the same time as Sarkozy and Bruni, and the latter made the former look terrible. Tony breezed down to dinner in some inappropriately casual outfit, and Cheri made him go upstairs and put a jacket on. Allegedly. Then when Cheri got cold - it's chilly during those desert nights - the waiter had to lend her a jacket. Allegedly. Meanwhile, over at the Sarkozy-Bruni table, everyone looked magnifique. Allegedly. Anyway, one would have loved to have been there to watch everyone's facial expressions.

3. The way it puts everyone else's sex scandals to shame. What, Bill Clinton talked dirty with an intern in the Oval Office? So what! The president of France can get on a plane with his notorious mistress, an ex-girlfriend of Mick Jagger, and go to Egypt! And the French tell pollsters it's his business, not theirs!

4. The possibilities it opens for everyone else. If Hillary would just find it in herself to ditch Bill, she could end up with ... (who is the male equivalent of Carla Bruni.? Warren Beatty?) ... Anyway it would be more amusing to gossip about them than Paris Hilton. Though she should wait until after she's won, as Sarkozy himself did.

Anyway, to be continued. Can't wait to find out if Carla's really pregnant.