Wispy, thinning and suspiciously free of grey, François Hollande’s boring hairstyle has never been held to much scrutiny, unlike his wonky ties, which have their own website.
But now the balding pate of the French president is at the centre of an embarrassing scandal dubbed coiffeurgate after the weekly paper Le Canard Enchaîné revealed his personal hairdresser is on contract for almost €10,000 a month, paid for from the public purse.
The publication of the contract with the hairdresser, named as Olivier B, has sparked a row over extravagant spending by a Socialist president who once liked to see himself as “Mr Normal”.
"I can understand the questions, I can understand that there are judgments," said the government spokesman and Hollande ally, Stephane Le Foll, as he confirmed the hairdresser's steep salary of €9,895 (£8,265) a month.
“Everyone has their hair done, don’t they?” said Mr Le Foll, known for his own bouffant style. “This hairdresser had to abandon his salon and he’s on tap 24 hours a day.”
The Canard Enchaîné reported that in addition to his salary, Mr Hollande's hairdresser was entitled to a "housing allowance" and other "family benefits". He never had a stand-in to replace him and demands on him were so tough that he had "missed the births of his children".
The hairdresser – employed since Mr Hollande took office and accompanying him on most of his foreign trips – is contracted to “maintain absolute secrecy about his work and any information he may have gathered both during and after his contract”.
Sébastien Huygue, a spokesman for Nicolas Sarkozy’s rightwing Les Républicains called Mr Hollande’s hairdressing habits “the frenzy of someone who has lost touch with reality”.
The outrage from politicians was matched only by the fast-trending Twitter hashtag #CoiffeurGate in which people offered their ideas for radical new styles that might provide Mr Hollande with more value for money, suggesting hairdos borrowed from Margaret Thatcher and the queen as well as the footballer Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Hollande's modest combover, although often drenched by rain and buffeted by wind at public events, had never previously garnered the same attention as the heavily invested hairstyles of the US presidential candidate Donald Trump and Britain's Boris Johnson.
But the row has annoyed even Mr Hollande's own party. Heavy spending at the Elysée palace has been a key political issue for years. The former president Nicolas Sarkozy was nicknamed "President Bling Bling". The government spokesman was quick to point out that the operational budget of the Elysée was cut by 15-20 per cent after Mr Hollande took over from Mr Sarkozy in 2012.
But Socialist MP René Dosière, who has campaigned on cutting Elysée spending, said it was "regrettable" the hairdressing incident would obscure real spending cuts that had been made. – Guardian service