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French First Lady Julie Gayet Breaks Silence, Poses For Magazines

PARIS — Breaking more than two years of public silence, actress Julie Gayet, the long presumed companion of French President Francois Hollande, appears on two major French magazine covers this week.

Gayet has guarded her privacy after her affair with the French President was revealed in January 2014 in a gossip magazine while Hollande was still living with another woman. Gayet and Hollande have still never appeared together in public.

"Julie Gayet will play her part. Free and committed to the president," reads Thursday's cover of French weekly Paris Match. The magazine, which features a major photo spread of the 44-year-old actress-producer, quotes her confidantes confirming that she wants to take on an "official" role alongside Hollande.

Gayet also gave an interview to the weekly magazine insert of Le Parisiendaily. The media availability was ostensibly to promote Gayet's new campaign against sexism. But French political observers note the choice to speak to the press may indicate that she is set to take on the "first lady" role for Hollande, who is suffering dismal approval ratings ahead of his expected campaign for reelection early next year.

The Hollande-Gayet affair was revealed by Closer magazine, which published a photo of the black-helmeted president arriving for a tryst with his mistress on a scooter. At the time, he was still living with his longtime partner, French journalist Valérie Trierweiler.

Hollande has four children with former presidential candidate and current Minister for the Environment Ségolène Royal.

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Geopolitics

Senegal's Democratic Unrest And The Ghosts Of French Colonialism

The violence that erupted following the sentencing of opposition politician Ousmane Sonko to two years in prison left 16 people dead and 500 arrested. This reveals deep fractures in Senegalese democracy that has traces to France's colonial past.

Image of Senegalese ​Protesters celebrating Sonko being set free by the court, March 2021

Protesters celebrate Sonko being set free by the court, March 2021

Pierre Haski

-Analysis-

PARIS — For a long time, Senegal had the glowing image of one of Africa's rare democracies. The reality was more complicated than that, even in the days of the poet-president Léopold Sedar Senghor, who also had his dark side.

But for years, the country has been moving down what Senegalese intellectual Felwine Sarr describes as the "gentle slope of... the weakening and corrosion of the gains of Senegalese democracy."

This has been demonstrated once again over the last few days, with a wave of violence that has left 16 people dead, 500 arrested, the internet censored, and a tense situation with troubling consequences. The trigger? The sentencing last Thursday of opposition politician Ousmane Sonko to two years in prison, which could exclude him from the 2024 presidential elections.

Young people took to the streets when the verdict was announced, accusing the justice system of having become a political tool. Ousmane Sonko had been accused of rape but was convicted of "corruption of youth," a change that rendered the decision incomprehensible.

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