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The Islamic Solution for Such Love Triangles as That of Hollande, Trieweir, and Royal

By Hassan El-Najjar

September 2, 2012

 

The newly-elected French President, Francois Hollande, has led a turbulent romantic life for more than a decade for no other reason than being in love with two women at the same time. These are his current wife, Valérie Trierweiler, and his former partner and Socialist Party leader, Ségolène Royal. Both women have also experienced a turbulent romantic life, as a result of their love to the same man, as the book review below reveals.

This story of yet another love triangle brings back a very serious topic that nobody wants to deal with in the carefully-controlled mass media in the pre-dominantly Christian countries, which is the failure of the religious tradition to address issues related to sexuality and marriage. The result has been total separation between what people claim to follow religiously and what they really do.

Hollande had the two women as his sexual partners without being married to them, yet the French Catholic church would not say a word about that. But it would be the end of the world (from the church viewpoint) if anybody suggests for him to marry the two women, as Islam permits.

Bill Clinton had the same problem when he had several sex partners in addition to his wife, the last one was Monica Lewinsky, who was used to bring him down from grace by Netanyahu when Clinton tried to pressure him to live up to his agreement with Arafat. Israeli intelligence agents leaked the news and the evidence to the media and prompted their puppets in Congress to overwhelm him in impeachment proceedings that left him as a paralyzed president for the rest of his second term.

Newt Gingrich was leading Republicans in these impeachment proceedings against Clinton, while at the same time he had a relationship going on with another woman than his wife, which he later married after divorcing his wife. Gingrich suddenly resigned as a Speaker of the US House of Representatives, giving the impression that he was threatened by Clinton to resign or news about his affair be released to the media.  

The Democratic presidential candidate from North Carolina, John Edwards, who had a big opportunity to be elected as president of the US, was also involved in an affair with a TV producer at the same time he was traveling with his wife around the country, part of his election campaign. The leaked news about his affair forced him out of the race, facing charges of misuse of campaign money.

The French president of the IMF, Strauss-Kahn, also fell from grace when he assaulted a female worker in a New York hotel. He lost everything he worked hard for it in his life. This included his presidency of the IMF, his aspirations for French presidency, and his wife who finally divorced him.

The governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, and the governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford, also were involved in sexual activities outside marriage and they had to resign and their political careers ended disgracefully when their affairs were leaked to the media.

These stories represent a small portion of what's really happening in pre-dominantly Christian countries. These are men who work hard to reach the top statuses in their fields, particularly in politics, yet they fall from grace when their affairs are discovered.

Major Christian teachings promoting peace, love, and compassion are ignored by politicians and church leaders. Instead, these promote the opposite: Spreading endless wars, destruction, and corruption around the world.

Christian teachings about limiting sexuality to marriage are ignored but when the media exposes an affair, suddenly everybody becomes Christian.

This has led to the scandalous situation in the Catholic Church, in which priests are forced to be celibate. This has resulted in the continuous sexual abuse of children by these priests. Moreover, by not allowing divorce, the Catholic Church has forced unhappy couples to be together all their life. Even when they attempt to solve the problem by separation first, then by civil divorce, and finally by remarriage, they are shunned and left to live with the guilt of feeling that they are adulterers.  

Among Protestants, the whole issue of sexuality is avoided altogether, leaving people without guidance. However, leaders jump quickly to destroy their rivals whenever news are leaked to the media about their affairs.

It doesn't have to be that way!

Islam, the final message of God to humanity, teaches that a man can marry more than one woman, up to four of them, on condition that he is just among them.

Just imagine what would have happened if Clinton were a Muslim?

He would have married Monica too!

 Netanyahu could not have destroyed him!

 We could have peace between Palestinians and Israelis!

 Americans would not have been dragged by Pearle, Feith, and Wolfowitz to invade Iraq!

The U.S. would not have reached the current verge of financial and economic collapse, with $15.4 trillion in debt, as a result of the Israeli-Zionist-planned global war, which was executed by the Bush administration.

The world would have been a much better place to live in!

 

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French book lifts lid on presidential 'ménage à trois'

A new book dishes the dirt on the bitter feud between President Hollande’s former partner Ségolène Royal and first lady Valérie Trierweiler. The juicy details of the drama threaten to engulf France’s president and have the French public hooked.

By Joseph BAMAT (text)

Date created : 02/09/2012

French book lifts lid on presidential 'ménage à trois'    

 

 

From the first pages of ‘Entre Deux Feux’ (Between Two Fires), a new book about the bitter rivalry between President François Hollande’s former partner - French Socialist Party heavyweight Ségolène Royal and first lady Valérie Trierweiler - authors Anna Cabana and Anne Rosencher set readers up to expect an epic drama with plot twists so brazen they appear to be a work of fiction.

Background to the love triangle

Although never married, François Hollande and Ségolene Royal were together for almost 30 years and had four children. Valérie Trierweiler, a reporter with the French weekly Paris Match, began trailing the political couple after she was assigned to cover the Socialist Party for her magazine in the 1990s. Hollande and Royal split in 2007 shortly after her failed presidential bid. Hollande admitted in 2010 that he was in a relationship with Trierweiler, but she recently revealed that they began their affair as early as 2005. In 2012, Hollande provocatively called Trierweiler La femme de ma vie (the love of my life).

Indeed, the exposé describes a decade-long feud between the two women who have been closest to France’s most powerful man and the passions and betrayals that arise from this high stakes love triangle. The book reads more like the work of a novelist than established journalists – which Cabana and Rosencher undoubtedly are.

The story begins and ends with an episode that is already infamous in France: a message sent by first lady Trierweiler on the micro-blogging website Twitter, in which she endorsed dissident Socialist Party candidate Olivier Falorni a few days ahead of France’s June 2012 legislative elections. Falorni was running against Ségolène Royal, the candidate endorsed by the party and Hollande, but the rebel MP eventually won the contest.

Royal was already struggling against Falorni in the runoff poll, and many think Trierweiler’s tweet was the final nail in the coffin for her campaign; the act not only destroyed Royal’s chances of winning the race but also her coveted dream of becoming president of the National Assembly.

But Trierweiler’s transgression had an even darker consequence for Hollande, who repeatedly assured voters that he would, unlike predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy, keep his personal life out of the public sphere. With one tweet, the Royal-Trierweiler feud spilled over into a national election and onto the front pages of every French newspaper. One tweet destroyed the carefully crafted image of the self-dubbed “Mr Normal”, no drama president.

Like the Twitter incident, the rivalry between the two is common knowledge among the French public at large. However, Cabana and Rosencher’s book knits together the well-known events with fresh scoops and explains a broader tale about political ambitions and romantic jealousy. Readers will learn, with shock and guilty pleasure, that the twitter scandal is only the tip of the iceberg.

Who’s in charge? The book’s chapters are organised around a handful of tense encounters and standoffs between Hollande, Royal and Trierweiler. Through new interviews with the main protagonists and their confidants, the authors shed new light on this bitter feud.

Chapter six is by far the most jaw dropping part of the book. It is set in the western city of Rennes in April 2012, at a massive rally at the height of Hollande’s presidential campaign. The book says that because of Trierweiler’s all-consuming jealousy, Hollande avoided at all costs being photographed with his former partner during the race. In Rennes, campaign spokesman Manuel Valls, was given the unenviable task of heading off any encounters between the former lovers, thus neutralising any photo-op.

But the task proved too difficult. Royal gave the last warm-up speech before Hollande took to the stage in Rennes, and while she was forced to exit the floor before the presidential candidate appeared, Royal snuck back on stage. The waiting press pack quickly seized the opportunity to get the ‘money shot’ of the former couple side by side.

With a keen understanding of the French press, Trierweiler knew the picture would be splashed all over the front pages. Trierweiler was not about to let that be the highlight of the evening. She instructed Valls to direct photographers to take position near Royal’s seat in the conference centre, then, while Hollande delivered his keynote speech, she walked up to Royal and forced a handshake. In one bold move she gave editors another, equally striking image to consider.

While the book will likely be written off by many as a tabloid-like take on Hollande’s life and rise to power, the authors advance a serious question: is Trierweiler overstepping her bounds and influencing government policy?

Royal spoke to the book’s authors and told then that she was certain Trierweiller “wouldn’t allow” Hollande to pick her to head a government ministry. The book also suggests that Valls was given his interior minister post as a reward for his dirty work in Rennes and his allegiance to Trierweiler.

At Hollande’s victory rally in Paris’ iconic Place de la Bastille on May 6, France’s new president-elect once more found himself caught between the two women in his life. Waving to supporters, Hollande was surrounded by his campaign team and the Socialist Party elite. In the warmest gesture toward her in years, Hollande walked over to Royal and gave her a kiss on each cheek.

At that moment their difficult past seemed to be erased, but Trierweiler would not let the scene play out as such. When Hollande returned to stand beside his current flame, Trierweiler told him “kiss me on the lips”. He obliged, but, the book says, the smooch looked clumsy and television viewers clearly saw Trierweiler mouth her unusual order to the new president of France.

Finally, the authors back the theory that Royal, undeniably one of the most high profile figures in the Socialist Party, was barred from Hollande’s swearing in ceremony at Trierweiler’s behest. So that her exclusion would be less ostentatious, other Socialist Party notables were kept off the invitation list.

The good, the bad and Le President Cabana and Rosencher make a half-hearted attempt at not taking sides in this high-level soap opera, but readers will find winners and losers in ‘Entre Deux Feux’.

In an episode dating back to 2002, Royal invites Trierweiler to her office at the National Assembly only to bark at her, “Don’t go near François or you will regret it!” At the time Trierweiler was a starry-eyed journalist who, through no design of her own, had become Hollande’s class pet among the press core. Sensing danger, Royal warned Trierweiler off.

A few years after this confrontation, Royal allegedly leaned on Trierweiler’s bosses at Paris Match to take the reporter off the Socialist Party beat and give her less visible assignments.

Entre Deux Feux (Between Two Fires), hit book stores on August 29, 2012.

But even in the instances when Royal is cast in a less than becoming light, she comes off less like a bully than a woman fighting to save her relationship and political career. Above all we are presented with a woman who has learned to accept defeat, embarrassment and even betrayal, with grace.

The book has a few nice things to say about Trierweiler too. It clearly credits her with inspiring Hollande to go for the ‘top job’, when no one, least of all himself, believed it was possible. However, Trierweiler largely comes across as insecure, impetuous, scheming, and when necessary, malicious.

The authors question Trierweiler’s motivations for throwing her support behind Falorni with the Twitter endorsement. Was it because he had been a loyal friend to Hollande when everyone thought he was a politically washed up, or only because he was running against Royal?

Cabana and Rosencher recount how on two different occasions during Hollande’s presidential campaign Trierweiler stormed off back to Paris without telling anyone, in a fit after Hollande could not offer her any time alone.

However, the book also looks down on Hollande, portraying him as someone who constantly fails to accept responsibility in the affairs that intimately concern him. He comes across as a man who does not lack ambition, but who is pushed and pulled by others’ passions; a ship that without Royal or Trierweiler at the helm would be uselessly adrift.

Worse, the book argues, he constantly goes back on his promises: he publicly endorsed Royal in the legislative race after swearing to Trierweiler and Falorni he would not. He pledged to the French he would lead a more ‘normal’ presidency at the Elysée, in which his public and private life would be hermetically separated, and has arguably delivered everything but.

The book implies that the fiery duel that threatens to burn France’s president is far from over.

It also seems to herald the return of Royal, whose political comeback has been questioned by many. ‘Entre Deux Feux’ sets up her up to be a phoenix, rising from the ashes after the competing fires have consumed each other.

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Date created : 02/09/2012

 



 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

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editor@aljazeerah.info & editor@ccun.org