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 But "Mr and Mrs Everyone," due to premiere in a few weeks on
the private D8 network, has provoked charges of being a gimmick
debasing the decorum of public office at a time when a stagnant
French economy and high unemployment has already led to pubic
confidence in politicians hitting lows.
The eight politicians - now serving mandates ranging from
parliamentarians and mayors to regional councillors - come from
both the ruling Socialist Party and the rival conservative UMP.
The group includes Thierry Mariani, a former junior minister
under ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy, former parliament speaker
Bernard Accoyer and Samia Ghali, an outspoken Socialist senator
in the tough port city of Marseille.
"We are taking real politicians who will be living real
situations in real life and will draw lessons from them," the
show's producer, Olivier Halle, told Le Parisien daily.
The politicians do not play themselves, but instead disguise
themselves for one day as people from different walks of life.
Mariani was put into a wheelchair for a day for the show, while
Accoyer was immersed in a hospital emergency room.
Ghali said she agreed to be put in the shoes of a poor woman
looking for an apartment so that she could open viewers' eyes to
problems in the system.
"I hope to be able to raise viewers' awareness about housing
problems among the poorest," Ghali told the newspaper.
Some are not impressed. Conservative former prime minister
Francois Fillon, currently mounting a bid to run as president in
2017, called the show a "perversion of political debate."
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"If they need to disguise themselves to seek out real life, they
have a real problem," he told Europe 1 radio.
An Oct. 4 BFM-TV poll found 74 percent of voters pessimistic about
France's future and a rising number frustrated by "the powerlessness
of politicians in general".
Hollande's election promise to conduct himself as president in an
exemplary manner has been tested by a series of embarrassments,
notably over his affair with an actress that led to a split with his
longtime partner Valerie Trierweiler.
"Unable to resolve the debt problem, Brussels, the environment,
insecurity, deficits, public spending, they're going to the people
like Marie-Antoinette to the shepherds," political writer Andre
Bercoff said of the show in right-leaning Le Figaro daily -- a
reference to France's 18th century queen who escaped the pressures
of public office by cavorting in the countryside.
Communications consultant Philippe Moreau-Chevrolet said that given
the current gloomy mood of the French public, such media antics by
officials in office could backfire.
He warned: "They will certainly gain visibility, but lose
credibility."
(Editing by Mark John)
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