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Showing posts from April, 2013

When The Private Lives of Presidents Go Public

A few weeks ago as I was flipping through the channels of French TV, I came across a documentary called ‘La maladie du pouvoir’ (literally, ‘The power illness’). I figured this would be another French political documentary and wasn’t extremely interested, but I kept it on anyway. The first hour of the documentary got me hooked: starting with Georges Pompidou (president from 1969-1974), the film basically recounted how several French presidents had been severely ill, terminally ill in some cases, and yet their illnesses were kept a secret from the public, and even the president’s families. For Pompidou, the documentary showed how his failing health (due to blood cancer) was becoming more and more obvious in the fourth year of his presidency, but the Elysée (the French equivalent to the White House) continued to deny any rumors of illness. The last images showed Pompidou isolated, exhausted and very ill. His death was announced to a very surprised public, who thought he was ill