Two faces of French President Francois Hollande

East German playwright Bertolt Brecht was a Marxist who made big influence over left-winger intellectuals around the world. Brecht had antagonism to the capitalism and the rich, while he praised the poor. But he had a totally different face, too. “I don’t care whether the public is starved to death or not. I will make success and gain fame no matter what it takes. I need to have a theatre to show my play,” said Brecht, in the book “Intellectuals” written by English journalist Paul Johnson.

Francois Hollande was elected as French President in 2012. As a member of the French Socialist Party, he claims to be a “president for ordinary people.” Hollande pledged to increase tax for large corporates and high-income earners. After inauguration, the president pushed ahead with super taxation law to impose 75% of income tax to the high-income bracket, in aims for more balanced distribution of wealth. But his reckless pursuit of high taxation was found unconstitutional. Hollande shock put French economy into downturn, pushing unemployment rate upward. The ruling French Socialist Party lost in the local elections in March. His approval rates dropped to 14 percent, the lowest ever among the previous presidents, and this year’s economic growth rate is estimated at around 0 percent.

Recently, a memoir of Valerie Trierweiler is drawing attention from the public. She was France`s first lady who was not married to the president. They split up earlier this year after allegations of his sexual indiscretions. Trierweiler, who had been living together with Hollande for eight years, exposed in her memoir that “He presents himself as a left-winger who doesn’t like the rich. In reality, the president doesn’t like the poor. He calls them in private ‘the toothless ones.’” According to her book, the French President showed antipathy to her parents from the working class by saying “They are not good people.”

U.S. New York Times columnist David Brooks coined a new term “Bobos,” which combines bourgeois and bohemian. In French, this term is “Bobo,” meaning the left-wingers who pursue materialistic prosperity and cultural abundance together. It is a concept similar to the caviar leftist or the limousine leftist, or a “left-wingers of Gangnam (wealthy districts south of Han River)” in Korea. There are many left-leaning politicians and intellectuals having no consistency in their behaviors and words, just as Hollande or Brecht did. Those ‘Gangnam leftists’ are enjoying prosperity, sending their children to foreign language high schools or international schools, or even to the U.S. for children’s education. But in front of others, they talk about the poor and structural inequality, and criticize the rich. As their life is not in line with their ideology, it can be said a genuine hypocrisy.