On the road that led him to the 2012 presidential election, François Hollande went to scooter. Quiet, he doubled everyone. The socialist leader filled his agenda by flexibly piloting his Piaggio MP3, a machine appreciated by urban people who are too in a hurry to rely on public transport and modern enough to challenge the taxi or the individual car. With its three wheels, this model is very stable, but it is not made for those who seek to slalom in traffic. A reformist, social democratic scooter, in a way. The ideal mount for a future “normal president”, far from the image of DSK descending from a Porsche Panamera.
During the socialist primary, the helmeted appearance of François Hollande in “a” of Parisian-today in France had talked about. His rival Vincent Peillon had considered this image more evocative of “a pizza delivery man” than of a presidential icon. Once enthroned candidate, the herald of the Socialist Party (PS) had caught himself against this ostracism: “Would this mode of displacement be infamous? Would it be so ordinary that he would decrease the one who uses it?” And, in A cry from the heart, he added, about his three-wheelers: “I take it less now, for security reasons, but it costs me. Frankly, it costs me …” The sacrifice was not in vain. The primary smiles at him; The presidential election, also.
Experienced rupture
For François Hollande, grasping a handlebars has never been a posture. When he directed the PS, the first secretary appreciated being able to chain Parisian trips using a faster and more pleasant means of transport than the four-wheelers. More discreet, also, when you do not want to spread your schedule in the open time.
One fine morning in January 2014, the scooter caught up with the president. The magazine Closer publishes photos showing him about to take place as a passenger on a MP3 piloted by a bodyguard. Direction, a building in rue du Cirque, from which Julie Gayet will be released a few moments later. We know the continuation: Elyséan Vaudeville and expeditious break with her partner, Valérie Trierweiler, who will publish in September her thank you for this moment (the arenas) written in vitriol.
From that moment on the Dutch scooter is no longer the president of the president’s favorite mobility at the good Franquette, but the devious vehicle of the infidelities of a fickle head of state. A tray to drag, or rather to push, like a dry breakdown. We will even criticize the “helmet man” for having been surprised at the back of a Piaggio and not a Peugeot Metropolis, the three-wheeler made in France. Resilient personality, François Hollande did not abdicate anything. In April 2018, to students from Cergy-Pontoise who asked him if he was rather “Uber or Scooter”, he replied without hesitation: “Scooter, of course!”
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