Gauche caviar

Gauche caviar("Caviar left") is a pejorativeFrenchterm to describe someone who claims to be asocialistwhile living in a way that contradicts socialist values. The expression is a politicalneologismdating from the 1980s and implies a degree ofhypocrisy.The dictionaryPetit Laroussedefinesleft caviaras a pejorative expression for a "Progressivismcombined with a taste forsociety lifeand its accoutrements".One description referred to it as "the free-thinking, authority-hating, individualistic, tolerant, socialist position... which shaded into a bohemian, existential, communitarian, fairly depressed" worldview espoused by people with money and good clothes.
The concept is broadly similar to the EnglishChampagne socialist, the AmericanLimousine liberalorlatte liberal,  the GermanSalonkommunistorChampagnersozialist, the Dutchsalonsocialist, the ItalianRadical chic, the Polishkawiorowa lewica, the Portugueseesquerda caviar, the Spanishpijoprogre, the Argentinian Spanishzurdo con osde, the Chilean Spanishred set, the Peruvian SpanishIzquierda Caviarand the DanishKystbanesocialist, referring to well-off coastal neighborhoods north of Copenhagen. Other similar terms in English includeHampstead liberal,liberal elite,chardonnay socialist,smoked salmon socialist, andBollingerBolshevik.
The term was once prevalent in Parisian circles, applied deprecatingly to those who professed allegiance to the Socialist Party, but who maintained a far from proletarian lifestyle that distinguished them from the working-class base of the French Socialist Party. A more explicit reference identified this group as left-wingers who speak with great passion about the plight of the poor while eating caviar in their spectacular Parisian duplex apartment.
The label was also employed by detractors to describeFrançois Mitterrand.This was further reinforced by the fact that several members of his administration were identified as part of the gauche caviar such asJack Lang, who was the culture minister.
In early 2007,Ségolène Royalwas identified with thegauche caviarwhen it was revealed that she had been avoiding paying taxes. The description damaged her campaign for the French presidency.Similarly French politicianBernard Kouchnerand his wifeChristine Ockrenthave been labelled with the term. However, his appointment asMinister of Foreign Affairswas not hampered by the label.Other supposed members of thisgauche caviarincludeDominique Strauss-Kahn, the formerIMFmanaging director, and his wife, the journalistAnne Sinclair, heiress to much of the fortune of her maternal grandfather, the art dealerPaul Rosenberg. It is said that around 2015, thegauche caviarsupported also the Greek government ofSYRIZAand PMTsipras, "desperate for a new 'anti-imperialist hero' after Hugo Chavez's death".
The weekly news magazine,Le Nouvel Observateur, has been described as the "quasi-official organ of France's 'gauche caviar'".
Regardless of whethergauche caviaris accepted by those given such label, politicians who fit this classification wield power in the French polity. For instance, during the administration of Mitterrand, a number of policies were adopted to avoid offending this group, which included theGais pour la liberte(Gays for freedom).