From the Washington Post: Since taking over in May, Francois Hollande has repeatedly asked the French to regard him as a “normal” president.

Well, maybe. But it would be easier if his first lady, Valerie Trierweiler, were not a live-in girlfriend.

It would also be easier if he had married the woman he lived with for nearly three decades and had four children with before taking up with Trierweiler, a political reporter who wants to carry on as an independent journalist with an office near the president’s. And it would certainly be easier if the two women were not the subject of several books just out that describe in shudder-inducing detail how they elbowed for prominence as Hollande rose to the presidency.

“For a president who wants to be normal, this is not a great record,” said Philippe Allary, a physical therapist who prefers former president Nicolas Sarkozy.

The public airing of Hollande’s family troubles — one reviewer wondered whether to describe them as “vaudeville or tragedy” — has undercut the president’s standing, according to his son; his former companion, Segolene Royal; and independent analysts, because it depicts him as unable to impose his will on two obviously headstrong womenwho cannot stand each other.  Read more here.