Ségolène Royal said it, and looked serious when she did so. But surely it was one to take with more than what now passes for a healthy pinch of salt. Or, as the French might say, à prendre avec des pincettes.
So now that you are in government, the television interviewer asked Royal, how will you address François Hollande? The new minister of ecology, sustainable development and energy - a big job making her number three in Manuel Valls's government - replied without hesitation: "Monsieur le Président, bien sûr."
But M Hollande is, to her, more than just the man who created the "moi, président de la République" phenomenon, so called in honour of his use of the phrase 15 times in succession to describe during the 2012 Elysée campaign what sort of head of state he would be. A 16th promise - to embody a "présidence normale" - came without the mantra but has stuck, too, indeed stuck rather messily at times.
Monsieur le Président is also papa to Royal's four children, the products of a 30-year relationship as what the British call common-law husband and wife though marriage itself was naturally too bourgeois a concept for the couple.
Surely their salutations will be a touch less formal. Hollande is, after all, a man given to informality. I don't just mean jumping on a motorbike to pop round to discuss an actress friend's latest script. One reporter suggested that the unfortunate Jean-Marc Ayrault left the president's office on Monday thinking he was still prime minister only to be told later that this was not the case.
I predict that in the months to come, the French media will very unFrenchly concentrate a good deal on the body language, and perhaps also indulge in a spot of lip-reading, whenever the president and the woman who might have been his first lady are seen together in public.
One more thought on the reshuffle. Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, promoted to add sport and urban matters to her duties as minister for women, and probably quite happy to end her spell as the government's spokesperson, had an early taste of the perks her new role will bring. At least, I assume she did not have to pay for her seat at the PSG-Chelsea match.
With the French team 3-1 up, it goes without saying that she absolutely needs to be at the return leg in London next week.
But if I were her, I'd even now be insisting that a trip to Brazil in June, to study how international sporting competitions are organised in South America, is also indispensable.
And if she pulls it off, maybe she will then be inclined to become a Friend of Salut in gratitude for the idea.
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