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sion based on some great design-star advice.Happy tear-free painting.There are cheap cocktail dresses two good reasons to be fascinated by the love life of French President Francois Hollande, which is now getting an airing in the international press.ois Hollande, has demanded that a website promoting extramarital affairs drops a billboard campaign with a doctored image of her as an example of a cheated woman.the billboard advertisement for the French website of Victoria Milan also features a picture of Royal, who ran for French president and lost in 2007.After her defeat, she announced that her relationship with Hollande, the father of her four children, was over.He left her for Valerie Trierweiler, his current partner and France’s first lady.One is that it feeds the stereotype of France as a nation of compulsive philanderers, forever wooing one another or running off with a friend s spouse.The other is the nature of the lover in this instance: Francois Hollande is about as boring a figure as you could imagine.A dull, grey, uninteresting little man who normally wouldn t be noticed if he tripped over your feet on the subway.Yet in France he s a lothario.George Clooney would be jealous.Is power that irresistible an aphrodisiac that even a guy like Hollande, who could get kicked out of an accountants club for being too dull, has women crawling all over him?The man has to disguise himself for his assignations, wearing a helmet so as not to go recognized.Why because he fears more women might throw themselves at his feet?It s not a shock to anyone that a French president would have an affair.It comes with the job.Francois Mitterrand had a whole secret family, with a secret daughter, that no one spoke about because such things still aren t mention in modern France.Nicolas Sarkozy is on his third wife.He met the second at her wedding to another man, who she later left for Sarkozy.A few months after divorcing 2#he took up with supermodel Carla Bruni, who became #3.But Hollande is something else.A sex symbol he s not.Who would have thought cocktail dresses cheap short, grey and balding would be a turn-on for French women?It never worked for George Costanza.Hollande is also no longer politically popular.Eighteen months after winning election over Sarkozy, his approval ratings have been bumping along at record lows, the first French president ever to poll below 30%.or reduce unemployment, and have given rise to talk of a possible comeback for Sarkozy.But obviously there s something there that attracts women.Hollande had four children with Segolene Royal, a far-more interesting fellow socialist who ran for president in 2007, losing to Sarkozy.Not only did the couple later split, but Hollande ran in her place in 2012, and won.rie Trierweiler, a journalist, who tweeted snarky comments about Ms.Royal and is now reportedly prostrate at learning Mr.Hollande is no more committed to her than he was to Ms.His new flame is younger again, the actress Julie Gayet.The drama this has all incurred can t help but provoke wonder.Why, for instance, would Ms.Trierweiler assume she d get any better treatment from Mr.Hollande than any of the others (none of whom he has ever married, there obviously being little need)?She has reportedly been sent to hospital by her doctor for rest .Who gets rest in a hospital?French hospitals must be a whole lot different than Canadian ones, which most patients can t wait to escape.Canadian hospitals may be a lot of things, but restful?Trierweiler says she wants a clarification of Mr.Hollande s intentions.And she s planning to believe him?What if he clarifies that he has no long-term plans for Ms.Gayet, but in the short-term, anything goes.French men must love the licence they get from French women, which seems to be all benefits and no responsibility.cile Duflot, the French housing minister, turned up at the National Assembly in a dress, she was subject to hooting and wolf whistles.When former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn s career was destroyed by a sex scandal, he was actually irate that people would poke into his private affairs.And if he d stayed in France, sexy mini dress rather than accosting a hotel maid in New York, they might not have: Strauss-Kahn s arrest enraged the French public, which apparently thinks hotel maids should expect to be molested.Why else would they wear those outfits?You could argue that French sexual attitudes cut both ways.Rachida Dati, the justice minister in Mr.Sarkozy s government, was said to have a very busy love life up to eight relationships at a time and gave birth to a daughter whose father she refused to identify.But Dati was mysteriously demoted soon after the child was born and sent off to sit in the European parliament.She reportedly plans to run for mayor of Paris, which might not work out well if Mr.Sarkozy does make a comeback, as she doesn t get along well with Carla Bruni.Both sexes in France argue that a politician s private life should be their own.And that this demonstrates French sophistication.If sophistication means men get the better part of the deal, perhaps it does.Why French women put up with it is a mystery.But there seems little hope of keeping it all private when they insist on making it all so titillating.It was a year for pixie haircuts, chunky flat shoes, bangs on our first lady and bare skin lots of it, on movie actresses and pop stars.Fashion always has its royalty, and this year, Kerry Washington was a queen.For real royalty, we had Kate Middleton, making the rest of us mortals feel a little better by flashing her mommy tummy.If Kate made us feel good, Lululemon didn’t, when its chairman appeared to blame women’s own bodies for problems with those popular yoga pants.A look back at these and other key fashion moments of 2013:MICHELLE’S BANGSNobody would call bangs a new trend, but when the first lady’s involved, things take on more significance.President Barack Obama actually called his wife Michelle’s new hairdo the most significant event of his second inauguration.Just got a te