A baby at last for Carla! Quick, call the hairdresser - As Carla Bruni-Sarkozy toasts the health of her newborn daughter, Giulia, it is interesting to compare French and British attitudes to being a 'maman’.
Crack open the Pastis! Light up a post-natal Gauloises for the presidential Maman! The waiting is over and the First Lady can finally smoke and drink. Oh yes, and she’s had a baby, too. Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, 43, who complained, with Gallic bluntness, that being pregnant was boringly abstinent, can celebrate the safe delivery of her little girl, Giulia, with a shrug and a Gitanes. And, of course, a leg wax.
Here, in Britain, the NHS tradition may be a lukewarm cup of tea and a nice cry, but in France the cutting of the umbilical chord is the signal for a woman to seize back control of her pelvic floor and squeeze back into a Chanel pencil skirt. Yes, that Caesarean wound may be puckering like a half-loop stitch on Chinese silk but, c’est pas grave, c’est la vie.
President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy
The baby is Madame Bruni-Sarkozy’s second child, so the rather hardline emphasis on immediately reclaiming her feminity and renewing conjugal relations rather than eating mille-feuilles, with cabbage leaves stuffed in her bra, won’t be entirely new to her. Her 10-year-old son, Aurélien, is the product of a previous relationship with a philosopher, which is apparently considered to be a proper job on the Continent. For his part, President Sarkozy already has three sons from his previous two marriages.
And now we are told, he’s coq-a-hoop at having a daughter. She, in turn, has been trumpeted as the first baby to be born to an incumbent head of state in France since Empress Eugénie brought Louis Napoleon Bonaparte into the world 155 years ago.
This historical precedent might explain why the President left the hospital within hours of the birth for foreign parts. Ostensibly, he was attending an International Monetary Fund meeting in Frankfurt, but rumour has it he nipped over the border to Austria in his lunch hour to seal a dynastic marriage alliance with a spare Habsburg.
The First Lady, meanwhile, has, rather inconsiderately, sworn to preserve her daughter’s privacy from the predations of the media, despite inevitable national and international interest. Her stern announcement that there will be no pictures was greeted with dismay. Not only is it a shame for all of us, as we want to know if (heaven forfend) she looks like daddy, but it represents a tragedy for Sarkozy père, who was quite possibly counting on a baby bounce to boost his dismal popularity ratings.
In the UK, Prime Ministerial babies – with their manly connotations of youth, potency and vigour – are fast becoming the norm. Tony and Cherie Blair had their fourth child, Leo, while he was in office and David Cameron’s wife, Samantha, gave birth to their fourth child, Florence, four months after he came to power.
“There’s a suspicion that given Sarkozy’s highly competitive nature, he was determined to show that even at 56, he was virile enough to match Britain’s leaders,” opines one French media insider. “Because he’s short, he continually strives to prove his political stature and his masculinity. People are pleased for him, because he has a younger wife and a child makes that bond stronger. But I can’t see the birth of a baby having any significant effect on the electorate, who really don’t like his policies.”
In Britain, there is always a groundswell of goodwill at the sight of politicians kissing their own babies for a change. Florence Cameron, now aged one, was showered with an eclectic range of gifts, including a crocheted shawl from a grandmother in Sutton Coldfield that she famously wore for her first photocall. Mademoiselle Bruni-Sarkozy can count on a more stylishly upmarket drawerful of Dior babygros and tiny Agnès b. vests.
If the baby is glimpsed outside the hidden confines of the Elysée Palace, her wardrobe will come under enormous scrutiny, especially given her mother’s fondness for elegant simplicity that has drawn comparisons with Jackie Onassis. In the latter stages of pregnancy, she favoured much more casual clothes and exuded a visible air of weariness, opining, as a great many pregnant women do, that she was tired of being so cumbersome and feeling uncomfortable.
Now the baby has arrived, she will at least be spared the angst-ridden experience of motherhood in Britain, where women often find themselves polarised by the irreconcilable doctrines of pick-them-up versus let-them-cry parenting gurus. If we’re not agonising over which child-rearing style to slavishly adopt, we’re fretting about our work-life balance or theatrically beating ourselves up over breast feeding.
Across the Channel, the pressure is equal but opposite; Frenchwomen are expected to act as though nothing much has happened. Pregnancy is no excuse to let yourself go and, once the baby is delivered, your first visitor should really be your hairdresser. This no-fuss, no-nonsense, Sacré Bleu! No-you-may-not-leave-the-house-in-those-jogging-bottoms attitude is, in its way, every bit as prescriptive, but at least there is consensus.
In her blog, Frenchmamma.com, Carrieanne Le Bras, an American married to a Frenchman and living in Normandy, documents the contrasting styles of motherhood she encounters. “Parents are much more relaxed in France and do not pressure themselves with being the best,” she says.
“They know if they act on their instincts and are rational, their children will turn out fine. They do not worry about what others think of them or their parenting styles. They are not judged if they yell at a child in public or give them a little smack. French mothers are more strict, let the baby cry things out and do not hover over them.”
Her views are echoed in a book due to be published in the New Year, entitled French Children Don’t Throw Food, by Pamela Druckerman, who makes clear it’s not just 19 nautical miles of water that separate us. In recent years, the British have lurched from their traditional stuffed-shirt “seen not heard” position to an alarming “anything goes” extreme, where children are treated like mini-adults and afforded the sort of decision-making power that makes for domestic dictatorship.
The French, however, are focused on boundaries that are widely accepted, so adults don’t think twice about reprimanding a child who isn't their own and, as a consequence, youngsters learn to accept adult authority.
There is also another crucial difference; French parents are liberated by the absence of any compulsion to be regarded as a best friend by their children. “I find myself a bit shocked when I come back to the UK, because everyone is so weirdly in thrall to their children,” admits British-born Mandy Laurent, who lives in Burgundy and has three daughters aged 12, 10 and seven. “In France you say, 'Go to bed’ and your child goes, end of story.
I watch my brother’s children arguing, wheedling and whingeing and I can’t believe he lets them get away with it. I know my family in Britain think I’m too strict on my girls, but I think children need firm rules.”
But back at the Elysée Palace, such concerns are a world away, as the First Couple bond with their new baby. With the global economy in meltdown, there is agreement that Sarkozy was right to leave his wife’s bedside and fly off to see another woman, given the woman in question was German Chancellor Angela Merkel. To have done otherwise would have laid him open to accusations of weakness.
“The French public don’t particularly want their president to be human; they want him to be presidential,” observes author and expat Daily Telegraph columnist Michael Wright. “They remember the giants of old – De Gaulle, Pompidou, even Giscard d’Estaing – and it is no accident that Sarkozy’s fragile popularity began to collapse once the human-interest story of his romance and divorce began to hit the headlines.
“Mind you, people are already taking bets about how long Sarko will be able to stick to the promise that there will be no glossy pics of him holding the baby in soft focus. The widespread view, over dinner last night, was roughly seven days.” ( telegraph.co.uk )
Crack open the Pastis! Light up a post-natal Gauloises for the presidential Maman! The waiting is over and the First Lady can finally smoke and drink. Oh yes, and she’s had a baby, too. Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, 43, who complained, with Gallic bluntness, that being pregnant was boringly abstinent, can celebrate the safe delivery of her little girl, Giulia, with a shrug and a Gitanes. And, of course, a leg wax.
Here, in Britain, the NHS tradition may be a lukewarm cup of tea and a nice cry, but in France the cutting of the umbilical chord is the signal for a woman to seize back control of her pelvic floor and squeeze back into a Chanel pencil skirt. Yes, that Caesarean wound may be puckering like a half-loop stitch on Chinese silk but, c’est pas grave, c’est la vie.
President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy
The baby is Madame Bruni-Sarkozy’s second child, so the rather hardline emphasis on immediately reclaiming her feminity and renewing conjugal relations rather than eating mille-feuilles, with cabbage leaves stuffed in her bra, won’t be entirely new to her. Her 10-year-old son, Aurélien, is the product of a previous relationship with a philosopher, which is apparently considered to be a proper job on the Continent. For his part, President Sarkozy already has three sons from his previous two marriages.
And now we are told, he’s coq-a-hoop at having a daughter. She, in turn, has been trumpeted as the first baby to be born to an incumbent head of state in France since Empress Eugénie brought Louis Napoleon Bonaparte into the world 155 years ago.
This historical precedent might explain why the President left the hospital within hours of the birth for foreign parts. Ostensibly, he was attending an International Monetary Fund meeting in Frankfurt, but rumour has it he nipped over the border to Austria in his lunch hour to seal a dynastic marriage alliance with a spare Habsburg.
The First Lady, meanwhile, has, rather inconsiderately, sworn to preserve her daughter’s privacy from the predations of the media, despite inevitable national and international interest. Her stern announcement that there will be no pictures was greeted with dismay. Not only is it a shame for all of us, as we want to know if (heaven forfend) she looks like daddy, but it represents a tragedy for Sarkozy père, who was quite possibly counting on a baby bounce to boost his dismal popularity ratings.
In the UK, Prime Ministerial babies – with their manly connotations of youth, potency and vigour – are fast becoming the norm. Tony and Cherie Blair had their fourth child, Leo, while he was in office and David Cameron’s wife, Samantha, gave birth to their fourth child, Florence, four months after he came to power.
“There’s a suspicion that given Sarkozy’s highly competitive nature, he was determined to show that even at 56, he was virile enough to match Britain’s leaders,” opines one French media insider. “Because he’s short, he continually strives to prove his political stature and his masculinity. People are pleased for him, because he has a younger wife and a child makes that bond stronger. But I can’t see the birth of a baby having any significant effect on the electorate, who really don’t like his policies.”
In Britain, there is always a groundswell of goodwill at the sight of politicians kissing their own babies for a change. Florence Cameron, now aged one, was showered with an eclectic range of gifts, including a crocheted shawl from a grandmother in Sutton Coldfield that she famously wore for her first photocall. Mademoiselle Bruni-Sarkozy can count on a more stylishly upmarket drawerful of Dior babygros and tiny Agnès b. vests.
If the baby is glimpsed outside the hidden confines of the Elysée Palace, her wardrobe will come under enormous scrutiny, especially given her mother’s fondness for elegant simplicity that has drawn comparisons with Jackie Onassis. In the latter stages of pregnancy, she favoured much more casual clothes and exuded a visible air of weariness, opining, as a great many pregnant women do, that she was tired of being so cumbersome and feeling uncomfortable.
Now the baby has arrived, she will at least be spared the angst-ridden experience of motherhood in Britain, where women often find themselves polarised by the irreconcilable doctrines of pick-them-up versus let-them-cry parenting gurus. If we’re not agonising over which child-rearing style to slavishly adopt, we’re fretting about our work-life balance or theatrically beating ourselves up over breast feeding.
Across the Channel, the pressure is equal but opposite; Frenchwomen are expected to act as though nothing much has happened. Pregnancy is no excuse to let yourself go and, once the baby is delivered, your first visitor should really be your hairdresser. This no-fuss, no-nonsense, Sacré Bleu! No-you-may-not-leave-the-house-in-those-jogging-bottoms attitude is, in its way, every bit as prescriptive, but at least there is consensus.
In her blog, Frenchmamma.com, Carrieanne Le Bras, an American married to a Frenchman and living in Normandy, documents the contrasting styles of motherhood she encounters. “Parents are much more relaxed in France and do not pressure themselves with being the best,” she says.
“They know if they act on their instincts and are rational, their children will turn out fine. They do not worry about what others think of them or their parenting styles. They are not judged if they yell at a child in public or give them a little smack. French mothers are more strict, let the baby cry things out and do not hover over them.”
Her views are echoed in a book due to be published in the New Year, entitled French Children Don’t Throw Food, by Pamela Druckerman, who makes clear it’s not just 19 nautical miles of water that separate us. In recent years, the British have lurched from their traditional stuffed-shirt “seen not heard” position to an alarming “anything goes” extreme, where children are treated like mini-adults and afforded the sort of decision-making power that makes for domestic dictatorship.
The French, however, are focused on boundaries that are widely accepted, so adults don’t think twice about reprimanding a child who isn't their own and, as a consequence, youngsters learn to accept adult authority.
There is also another crucial difference; French parents are liberated by the absence of any compulsion to be regarded as a best friend by their children. “I find myself a bit shocked when I come back to the UK, because everyone is so weirdly in thrall to their children,” admits British-born Mandy Laurent, who lives in Burgundy and has three daughters aged 12, 10 and seven. “In France you say, 'Go to bed’ and your child goes, end of story.
I watch my brother’s children arguing, wheedling and whingeing and I can’t believe he lets them get away with it. I know my family in Britain think I’m too strict on my girls, but I think children need firm rules.”
But back at the Elysée Palace, such concerns are a world away, as the First Couple bond with their new baby. With the global economy in meltdown, there is agreement that Sarkozy was right to leave his wife’s bedside and fly off to see another woman, given the woman in question was German Chancellor Angela Merkel. To have done otherwise would have laid him open to accusations of weakness.
“The French public don’t particularly want their president to be human; they want him to be presidential,” observes author and expat Daily Telegraph columnist Michael Wright. “They remember the giants of old – De Gaulle, Pompidou, even Giscard d’Estaing – and it is no accident that Sarkozy’s fragile popularity began to collapse once the human-interest story of his romance and divorce began to hit the headlines.
“Mind you, people are already taking bets about how long Sarko will be able to stick to the promise that there will be no glossy pics of him holding the baby in soft focus. The widespread view, over dinner last night, was roughly seven days.” ( telegraph.co.uk )
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