Dublin hairdresser claims François Hollande is ‘overspending’

David Marshall has had some of the country's most famous people in his hair-cutting chair in South Great George's Street in Dublin, but he says he has never had a client like the French president, François Hollande.

Marshall was speaking in the aftermath of what has already been dubbed CoiffeurGate, in which the French newspaper Le Canard Enchaine revealed the monthly bill for keeping Hollande’s hair neat and tidy comes to €9,985 a month.

The bill includes the costs of bringing his hairdresser, who so far is known only as Olivier B, everywhere the socialist president goes, including on foreign trips.

“It’s great money if you can get it and with very little responsibility. Hollande doesn’t seem to have that much there to be keeping, hair-wise,” the owner of the David Marshall Salon and School of Hairdressing said.

“It depends on how often he is calling him, he must be conscious of how he looks,” said Marshall,

“It’s interesting, he’s a socialist guy. To my way of thinking, he’s overspending a little bit, he’s overspending a big bit to be honest.”

Sympathy

However, Marshall has sympathy for Olivier B.

“It’s a lot of money, but this guy is on standby all the time and he has given up his business to look after [Hollande],” he said.

Marshall said running hair salons was not easy and taxes and rates are “very heavy”, so a job that frees people of such responsibility would be attractive to some.

“It’s a big responsibility, taking on a business and making it work, but it seems like a very good option to have one client, have very little responsibility and make good money. I tip my hat off to him,” said Marshall.

Not every famous person has such high hairdressing costs as Hollande, said Marshall, who has a friend in the UK who looks after the hair of Queen Elizabeth II.

Instead of cash, the Queen has given a plaque to the hairdresser to hang inside his shop, which states that he looks after her.

“It obviously lifts his profile quite a bit,” said Marshall.