OH MON DIEU!
It’s Bastille Day, but not everyone is celebrating. Many are expressing shock and anger over the recent revelation that French President Francois Hollande’s hairdressing bill falls just short of 10,000 euros per month, or approximately $132,000 per year. To put that in perspective, the official presidential hairdresser makes five times what a normal hairdresser makes. Hollande does not believe this is a talking point. Pointing to Twitter’s #CoiffeurGate as a massive overreaction, he says "They can reproach me for anything but this". The French president had previously accepted a 30% salary cut, but many think this does not excuse the salary of the hairdresser. A spokesman for Hollande said that, in addition to the pay cut, Hollande had also cut the operating cost of the presidential residence by 15-20%. The anger over “Coiffeur Gate” is mostly due to the sensitive nature of the French economy at the moment, which is growing at a painfully slow 1.1%.