He insisted on bursting the abscess himself. Target of mockery since his appointment at the Quai d’Orsay, Stéphane Séjourné decided to open up about his “disability” in an interview with Le Parisien published this Sunday. The Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, who has made several mistakes in French in recent days, says he has suffered from “dyslexia” since “very young”. “Fifteen years ago, I would not have been able to have the discussion I am having now (…). Through work and re-education, I have almost erased all of my oral faults,” explains the head of French diplomacy, whose difficulties reappear, however, “when there is a moment of fatigue or stress important”.
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For example, his recent trip to kyiv, where he said he wanted to defend the “fundamental principles” and “see what the Ukrainians need”. “There, my tongue split even though I had slept five hours in three days,” he confides while the sequence was widely relayed on social networks and earned him ridicule. “The foreign minister for the French language. What decadence for the Quai d’Orsay!”, notably saw fit to launch the RN deputy Julien Odoul, on the social network X (ex-Twitter). Before driving the point home the next day on LCI: “Perhaps Mr. Séjourné should have spent a little more time at school,” he quipped, criticizing his “three French mistakes in 5 minutes of interview “.
“I experienced all this in a much more traumatic way when I was little. Today, it’s slipping on me,” puts Stéphane Séjourné into perspective, who on the contrary intends to use his example to reassure other victims of this disorder. “Millions of people have this. I want to send them a message: it may seem insurmountable but, look, anything is possible. Don’t despair!”, he says. Before seeking to reassure the whole country: “On a daily basis, this has no implication on my work, my efficiency, my exchanges in international negotiations. This disability has no implications.”
Like him, another figure from the majority had already had to explain the minor illnesses that affect him. This is Édouard Philippe, who suffers from vitiligo and alopecia. Two dermatoses which led to a change in his physical appearance – a whitening of his beard combined with the loss of his hair and his eyebrows – and forced him to justify himself. “It is neither painful, nor dangerous, nor contagious, nor serious,” said the mayor of Le Havre. And to affirm: “That does not prevent me from being extremely ambitious for my city, it does not prevent me from being extremely ambitious for my country”. To the wise.
