It's official: France now has the hairiest government in recent memory. While previous government leaders have tended to grayness and baldness, President Nicolas Sarkozy has brought change on the follicular as well as the political front. It's not that Sarkozy, 52, has the thickest coif on the planet. Long gone are the lengthy hippy-era locks of his youth, replaced first by a curly little '70s nest and more recently by a more efficient and candidate-like Brillo wave. That said, by France's thin and pasted-back presidential standards (set during World War II), Sarkozy might as well be Samson himself.
His Prime Minister, Francois Fillon, 53, also has an acceptable little broom of hair. (No, he can't compare with the heroic salt-and-pepper-mane-in-the-breeze of his predecessor Dominique de Villepin, but who can?) Unfortunately, Fillon decided to trim down his traditionally side-parted flop into a schoolboy snip, circa 1954, upon being named to his new gig. But they are just the starting point in a government of 15 mostly next-generation ministers, many of whom came of age in the late 1960s.
The lion's share of the hair--and the greatest change marked by France's new government--can be seen atop seven other ministers, all female. There is the short brunette wave of new minister of Justice, Rachida Dati, 41. Then there is the soccer-mom-meets-movie-star blond coiffure of Valérie Pécresse, the 39-year-old minister of Higher Teaching and Research, who earned her stripes as a pugnacious campaign spokeswoman.
And don't miss the Janet Reno-like butch cut of Roselyne Bachelot, the 60-year-old minister of Health, Youth and Sports (whose hair, incidentally, doesn't appear particularly youthful or sportive). Or how about the silver helmet-head of the new minister of Agriculture, Christine Lagarde, 51, who might need its protection as she leads France into intense World Trade Organization negotiations over eliminating subsidies that protect some French farmers.
Fortunately, the best hair from the previous government has been, ahem, preserved. That much-merited title goes to new minister of the Economy, Employment and Job Creation, Jean-Louis Borloo, who often wears an unruly mop of corkscrew curls that make him look like a long-lost member of the Rolling Stones.
For now, the French are smitten with this new-look government, and many of the most hirsute ministers are enjoying sky-high approval ratings. One poll says that more than seven people in 10 approve of Dati, while another places the feathered do of minister of Foreign Affairs Bernard Kouchner, a former Socialist, in the stratosphere at 78 percent. And while it would be difficult to define a definitive hair mass-to-popularity ratio, it is worth noting that the two prominent ministers with the lowest initial approval ratings look most like the shiny-headed politicians of decades ago. They are Alain Juppé, a former prime minister and Chirac protégé who has been named minister of the Environment and Sustainable Development, and Sarkozy intimate Brice Hortefeux, who is the minister of Immigration. Their honeymoon seems over even before its begun, with initial polls reflecting approval ratings of just 55 percent. But perhaps it's not about the hair they arrive with, but how much they still have when they leave.
