“I think that there are a lot of (male politicians) who must be a touch stressed right now,” warned Rachida Dati, the former justice minister and fallen star of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s cabinet whose love of designer clothes received as much coverage as her policies in France. Miss Dati was herself the butt of countless sexist jokes after using the word “fellatio” instead of “inflation” in a recent interview. She ruffled male reactionaries by refusing to name the father of her child and returning to work just five days after giving birth…

One female cabinet minister said that male politicians were so incorrigible that “if all those who mix power and sex had to account for their actions, half of our (male) politicians would be in trouble”.

A Socialist woman MP said that when she turned up in tight-fitting clothes to a parliamentary commission, a male MP from Mr Sarkozy’s UMP party exclaimed: “Dressed like that, don’t be surprised if you get raped.” “A kind of infantilisation of women reigns in parliament that I had never seen before,” said Sandrine Mazetier, Socialist MP for Paris.”