France lazily wraps itself around all things fashion and style (think chic, think couture, think haute, dear naysayer).
And the presidential election in the country that gave humanity the lofty ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity was no different.
In January 2005, a hot topic of debate on French television was whether Segolene Royal -- who, alas, failed to become the first woman French president on Sunday -- should have worn high heels on a trip to slums in Chile.
Royal, 53, is a mother of four, and a Socialist. She is also strikingly beautiful, and most political commentators -- not to mention her detractors -- think her looks definitely add to her charisma.
Newsweek magazine called her a 'sexy Socialist', while The Guardian declared, 'In the fusty and unrelentingly chauvinistic gentlemen's club of French politics Segolene Royal is a one-woman revolution.'
She was up against 'centuries of ingrained sexism,' the British newspaper added.
Text: Rediff Features Desk
Photograph: Bertrand Guay/AFP/Getty Images
Also see: Sarko, the man who beat Segolene
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