Parisian delights - Telegraph Considered as a docu-soap with a plotline driven by sexual tensions, French politics is coming to resemble 'The Only Way Is Essex'. The whirlwind Bruni-Sarkozy romance was merely the start: since that couple's departure, the entertainments have included President Hollande's mistress, Valérie Trierweiler, attempting to terminate the political career of Ségolène Royal, his former lover; an allegation that Miss Trierweiler was in a ménage à trois with Mr Hollande and another politician; and a long-running saga of speculation over who is the father of former minister Rachida Dati's baby. Now Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy has ever so sensitively suggested that Miss Trierweiler ought to marry sharpish and give up her career. Not since the days of Madame de Pompadour and Madame du Barry have the French given us such a cast of leading ladies. Long may their reign of terror continue.