French are quite irreverent! In France a President can go scot free even if he begets a ‘love child’ outside of marriage. And imagine what happened when an American President was found just ‘playing around’ with a young woman!
And it is a continuing story in France…
“Presidential candidate Segolene Royal is not married, and if she wins, her romantic partner plans to scorn the trappings of life as France’s ‘first gentleman’,” reports India’s premier TV channel NDTV.
“He swears he will not even live in the official Elysee Palace.
“Conservative contender Nicolas Sarkozy’s marriage has been tabloid fodder. It was love at first sight when he fell for his second wife, at her wedding to someone else.
“During Sarkozy’s run for the presidency, she left him for a while, and paparazzi photographed her hand-in-hand with another man.
“No matter who wins the May 6 runoff, these are times of change for the dusty institutions of the French presidency. The election will shift power from 74-year-old Jacques Chirac to one of two people born after World War II.
“The French seem no longer to want a father figure in the Elysee: Gallant, hand-kissing Chirac now seems old-fashioned. Royal and Sarkozy both carry iPods and won endorsements from rappers. Sarkozy, 52, jogs. Royal, 53, was photographed at the beach in a turquoise bikini…”
To read my earlier post on French Presidential elections please click here…
Swaraaj Chauhan describes his two-decade-long stint as a full-time journalist as eventful, purposeful, and full of joy and excitement. In 1993 he could foresee a different work culture appearing on the horizon, and decided to devote full time to teaching journalism (also, partly, with a desire to give back to the community from where he had enriched himself so much.)
Alongside, he worked for about a year in 1993 for the US State Department’s SPAN magazine, a nearly five-decade-old art and culture monthly magazine promoting US-India relations. It gave him an excellent opportunity to learn about things American, plus the pleasure of playing tennis in the lavish American embassy compound in the heart of New Delhi.
In !995 he joined WWF-India as a full-time media and environment education consultant and worked there for five years travelling a great deal, including to Husum in Germany as a part of the international team to formulate WWF’s Eco-tourism policy.
He taught journalism to honors students in a college affiliated to the University of Delhi, as also at the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication where he lectured on “Development Journalism” to mid-career journalists/Information officers from the SAARC, African, East European and Latin American countries, for eight years.
In 2004 the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) selected him as a Trainer/Mentor for India under a European Union project. In 2008/09 He completed another European Union-funded project for the BBC WST related to Disaster Management and media coverage in two eastern States in India — West Bengal and Orissa.
Last year, he spent a couple of months in Australia and enjoyed trekking, and also taught for a while at the University of South Australia.
Recently, he was appointed as a Member of the Board of Studies at Chitkara University in Chandigarh, a beautiful city in North India designed by the famous Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. He also teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students there.
He loves trekking, especially in the hills, and never misses an opportunity to play a game of tennis. The Western and Indian classical music are always within his reach for instant relaxation.
And last, but not least, is his firm belief in the power of the positive thought to heal oneself and others.