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Exotic family gives Jospin a bounce Matthew Campbell Paris AN UNUSUAL issue is obsessing the French political elite as they prepare for a presidential election: has Lionel Jospin, the sober-minded and somewhat robotic Socialist prime minister, fallen prey to an uncharacteristic belief in the occult? The French are discovering that Jospin, 63, a grey, bespectacled figure whose reputation for dullness is reminiscent of John Major, is human after all: in the run-up to next April's poll it appears he hails from a family of eccentrics and that hitherto unsuspected passions may be stirring his soul. Talk of the supernatural comes with a new novel depicting life at the Matignon, the home and office of Jospin, who "cohabits" uncomfortably in power with Jacques Chirac, the Gaullist president. The book imagined the prime minister to be in the thrall of a strange talisman kept in his office - an aluminium, star-shaped object that he believes brings him luck. The Star of Matignon is one of several recent tomes about Jospin, who has largely succeeded in hiding his background and private affairs. Timed to coincide with the start of the campaign in which Jospin is likely to take on Chirac, the books are helping to humanise a figure whose dry, professorial air was on display again last week as he went on television to back controversial calls for an "anti-globalisation" tax but retreated from a proposed extension of the 35-hour week to small businesses. In a performance panned by commentators, Jospin was defensive about his record after four years in power - a drop in unemployment and a rise in productivity - and declared that he disliked the attention being focused on his personal affairs. Yet this wooden public performer should be thanking his lucky star - if it exists. Until now, the only thing French people found remotely interesting about him was his former membership of an underground Trotskyist group. A new biography, however, says he was once seen weeping in a Madrid flamenco bar after listening to a doleful song, and was sent home from school aged 10 for explaining the facts of life to his classmates. The French have learnt he also suffers from a thyroid condition that can trigger severe anger; likes cooking omelettes for friends; is passionate about sailing and bricolage, the term for pottering and doing repairs with a drill; and, if he loses at tennis - it happens more often than he would like - is plunged into so foul a mood that ministers put off appointments until the next week. His most eye-catching feature is his parentage. Just as Major's background as the son of circus performers singled him out, Jospin should be rejoicing in stories about his eccentric mother. A lifelong activist who still practises as a midwife at 90, she went to Africa four years ago as part of a campaign against the circumcision of women and lived for a month in a hut in Mali. She made her children sign an agreement that if she died there her remains would be fed to crocodiles. She lives to this day in a council flat in a Paris suburb. When invited to stay with Jospin at Matignon, she turns up clutching a sleeping bag saying: "I don't want to dirty the sheets." His father Robert, who broke a violin bow over his buttocks when beating him for not practising enough, may be less of an asset. He was a fervent pacifist in the last war, got a job in the Vichy regime and was accused of being a collabo, or Nazi collaborator. A half-brother nicknamed "Mowgli" - from Robert's first marriage - adds a racy touch to the Jospin tale. He was a womanising jazz musician roaring about town with the future prime minister in a convertible Lagonda. It has also emerged that Jospin's first wife, Elizabeth, with whom he had two children in a 25-year relationship, was an air hostess turned sociologist. He wooed Sylviane, his second wife, a philosophy professor, in 1988, by whispering Italian words in her ear. The French political world, however, is obsessed more with talk of Jospin's secret talisman. The novel says this "lucky star" disappears a few months before the presidential election, precipitating a political crisis. As a result, the fictional Jospin's poll ratings tumble, economic indicators turn sour and his coalition government collapses. Distraught, he contemplates resigning, leaving the task of battling Chirac for the presidency to somebody else. Eric Aeschimann, the journalist who wrote The Star of Matignon, admits the talisman is pure invention. "I've been bombarded with calls about this," he said. "It is funny, but since I wrote it, some of these things have started happening." Jospin's popularity has dropped to 20 points beneath that of Chirac, according to a recent poll. Unemployment has stopped falling and the economy is slowing; crime is rising and several high-profile companies have announced huge lay-offs. So if Jospin does not have a "lucky star", perhaps he should get one - and quickly. |
