Does the French Justice Minister Rachida Dati look like she is just returning to work this week a mere five days after giving birth to a baby girl?

In a chic black suit and killer high heels, the 40something minister was at a cabinet meeting at the Elysee the day that she walked out of a Paris maternity clinic.

Not sure this is all necessarily for the best, but all credit to her for looking post-nataly fabulous.

The French press is even more craven in the reporting of political misdoings than our own tame/feral* Lobby. So it is no surprise that it was the French blogosphere, not the Paris press, that made it impossible to keep Socialist party leader François Hollande’s affair secret.

François had four children with Ségolène Royal (pictured left), the losing French Socialist Presidential candidate. He is having an affair with TV8′s political reporter, Valerie Trierweiler (pictured right). When announcing their split the elegant Ségolène said that now “he was free to enjoy his romantic life alone”.

France has strict privacy laws of the kind that some of our politicians would love to have over here. Blogs now make those laws almost impossible to enforce. Technological progress.

Hat-tip : EuroSoc

*You choose.

As the Tories traipse loyally into the “Aye” lobby with Blair it is worth reflecting on what they are really voting for – a foreign and defence policy subordinate to the U.S. national interest. Now it may be the case that U.S. and U.K. interests generally coincide, but this is a strategic decision which binds Britain to the U.S. for the next thirty years.

If it has been possible for the French to have an independent Force de Frappe and Force Océanique Stratégique since the sixties surely the British can manage after half-a-century to have control of their own weapons system. Since no U.S. president would ever sacrifice a U.S. city to save London, it is verging on treachery to vote to allow the U.S. the ultimate veto on the Defence of the Realm.

For the £30 to £60 billion the replacement system will allegedly cost, surely the Royal Navy could be equipped with a British made and truly independent deterrent. Or is British technology as inferior to French technologie as the British political establishment’s deference to U.S. interests is inferior to the French sense of exceptional national interest?