Gordon Brown's monthly (weekly?) press conference in Downing Street yesterday never stood a chance in comparison. How could he compete with Nicolas Sarkozy's equivalent event in Paris earlier in which the President answered questions about his relationship with ex-model Carla Bruni? Not only did he declare that their liaison was “serious” but hinted that marriage may be imminent. This soon overshadowed his views about labour market reform and every other policy initiative.

He also went much further. When it was put to him that his ostentatious courtship of Ms Bruni might not be impressing his electorate, he commended his candour. He would not, he intoned, continue a “deplorable tradition” based on “hypocrisy and lies” which had allowed his predecessors - notably François Mitterrand - to keep a string of mistresses and even an illegitimate daughter secret through an understanding that private matters were not for public consumption.

While Mr Sarkozy's honesty is, in one regard, commendable, he and other prominent figures in France may well live to regret it. Far be it for a newspaper to extol the virtues of de facto censorship, but it has been a feature of French life that the sort of scrutiny which reached its zenith during the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky saga in the United States was not seen in Paris. Would Mr Sarkozy welcome the exposure that the likes of Cecil Parkinson, David Mellor, Paddy Ashdown and Peter Mandelson received here? The President has invited the media to break the taboo. They will relish the challenge. When they do, La France profonde might not be the outcome.