Women Lifestyle, Fashion, Health, Beauty and Personality

The French taboo over politicians’ private lives has crumbled further with the publication of photographs of Segolene Royal, the left-wing favourite to succeed President Jacques Chirac next spring, on the beach in her bikini. Bikini shots of Segolene Royal, the Socialist favourite for France’s presidential election – printed opposite snaps of her main rival jogging on a beach – have rattled the status quo in a country where politicians’ private lives have long been taboo.
This week’s edition of celebrity magazine “Closer,” one of a new breed of brash celebrity magazines, included a cover picture of Royal on holiday in bathing suit, cap and sunglasses as part of a survey of “50 stars at the beach”.

The pictures were taken by paparazzi who followed Ms Royal and her partner, Socialist Party (PS) First Secretary Francois Hollande, to their holiday spot near La Rochelle. The paparazzi shots are harmless by most standards: ???Who would believe she???s 53!???, ran the caption in magazine, while VSD wrote admiringly of Royal???s ???siren???s figure???. The headline in the celebrity magazine Closer said: “And to think that she’s 53!” French socialist politician Segolene Royal (pictured in the blue bikini on the cover below) actually doesn’t turn 53 until next month, but even so she is a fine advertisement for the theory that French women look after their appearance. They show her in a turquoise bikini, walking along a beach, swimming and sunbathing on a rubber dinghy. Hollande and the couple’s elder daughter – they have four children – are also shown.
Under the headline “Duel in the sun”, its rival VSD’s front page showed Royal, who will be 53 next month, opposite her main centre-right rival for next year’s vote, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, 51, running barechested on the seafront with bodyguards in tow.

Segolene Royal, the photogenic Socialist who could become France’s new president next year, has said she is not going to sue two magazines that published photographs of her and her family taken secretly on a beach. “She looks like a star on holiday,” said the daily Le Parisien in a gushing report on what it called a “sulphurous” breach of privacy. The images are likely to infuriate the party barons, who see Ms Royal as a lightweight and are desperate to halt her rise as the likely left-wing champion against Interior Minister and centre-right contender Nicolas Sarkozy. Unlike the staged Sarkozy snaps, the Royal pictures ??? the first to show a French woman politician in small attire ??? seem to confirm politicians are now seen as fair quarry for the country???s gossip press.

Both politicians are shrewd at using the media to push their image as modern politicians ready to breathe life into France’s hidebound political system, and both have faced accusations that they place style and image over substance. Unlike the staged Sarkozy snaps, the Royal pictures – the first to show a French woman politician in small attire – seem to confirm politicians are now seen as fair quarry for the country’s gossip Press. Royal’s lawyers wrote to both magazines complaining of a breach of France’s strict privacy laws, though they decided not to sue.”Segolene Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy are the ‘people’ of the vacation season,” VSD deputy editor Marc Dolisi wrote in an editorial. “The public watches their smallest actions and gestures because they have used their private lives as a political weapon with such mastery.”

Ms Royal has won the hearts of much of France but she has yet to win over the hardline Socialist activists, who suspect she is a feminine version of British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The French media has traditionally been very discreet about covering politicians’ private lives, steering clear of sensitive issues and sparing them the relentless attention faced by their counterparts in countries like Britain.

Women find:

• segolene royal beach
• ségolène royal en bikini
• bikini and poiitician
• segolene royal bikini photos
• segolene royal DANS CLOSER
• segolene royal family
• segolene royal french politician
• Ségolène Royal images bikini
• segolene royal maillot de bain
• البكيني