Gauche caviar is a pejorative French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 term to describe someone who claims to be a socialist while living in a way that contradicts socialist values. The expression is a political neologism dating from the 1980s and implies a degree of hypocrisy.

It is broadly similar to the English champagne socialist

Champagne socialist

Champagne socialist is a pejorative political term originating in the United Kingdom. The phrase is used to describe self identified socialists whose comfortable upper middle class lifestyles are perceived to be incompatible with their professed political convictions...

, the American Limousine liberal

Limousine liberal

Limousine liberal is a pejorative American political term used to illustrate perceived hypocrisy by a political liberal of upper class or upper middle class status; including calls for the use of mass transit while frequently using limousines or private jets, claiming environmental consciousness...

, the German "Salonsozialist" the Italian "Radical Chic" and the Danish "Kystbanesocialist", referring to well-off coastal neighborhoods north of Copenhagen. Similar terms in English include Hampstead liberal, liberal elite

Liberal elite

Liberal elite is a political stigma used to describe affluent, politically left-leaning people. It is commonly used with the pejorative implication that the people who claim to support the rights of the working class are themselves members of the upper class, or upper middle class, and are...

, chardonnay socialist

Chardonnay socialist

Chardonnay socialist is a derogatory Australasian term used to describe those on the political left with comfortable middle or upper-class incomes, tertiary education, and a penchant for the finer things in life, Chardonnay being a form of white wine for example.It is similar in thrust to the North...

, champagne socialist

Champagne socialist

Champagne socialist is a pejorative political term originating in the United Kingdom. The phrase is used to describe self identified socialists whose comfortable upper middle class lifestyles are perceived to be incompatible with their professed political convictions...

, champagne-and-caviar socialist.

The dictionary Petit Larousse

Petit Larousse

Le Petit Larousse Illustré, commonly known simply as Le Petit Larousse, is a French-language reference book first appearing in 1905 and later published in a 100th anniversary edition in 2005...

defines "left caviar" as a pejorative expression for a "Progressivism

Progressivism

Progressivism is an umbrella term for a political ideology advocating or favoring social, political, and economic reform or changes. Progressivism is often viewed by some conservatives, constitutionalists, and libertarians to be in opposition to conservative or reactionary ideologies.The...

 combined with a taste for society life

Socialite

A socialite is a person who participates in social activities and spends a significant amount of time entertaining and being entertained at fashionable upper-class events....

 and its accoutrements".

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 proletariat lifestyle that distinguished them from the working-class base of the French Socialist Party.

It was often employed by detractors of François Mitterrand

François Mitterrand

François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand was the 21st President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra, serving from 1981 until 1995. He is the longest-serving President of France and, as leader of the Socialist Party, the only figure from the left so far elected President...

.

In early 2007, Ségolène Royal

Ségolène Royal

Marie-Ségolène Royal , known as Ségolène Royal, is a French politician. She is the president of the Poitou-Charentes Regional Council, a former member of the National Assembly, a former government minister, and a prominent member of the French Socialist Party...

 was described as a "gauche caviar" when it was revealed that she had been avoiding paying taxes. The description damaged to her campaign for the French presidency. Similarly French politician Bernard Kouchner

Bernard Kouchner

Bernard Kouchner is a French politician, diplomat, and doctor. He is co-founder of Médecins Sans Frontières and Médecins du Monde...

 and his wife Christine Ockrent

Christine Ockrent

Christine Ockrent is a Belgian journalist whose career has principally centered on French television.Daughter of Belgian diplomat Charles Ockrent, she was born in Brussels, Belgium. She graduated from Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris in 1965. She worked for American television and...

 have been labelled with the term. However, his appointment as Minister of Foreign Affairs

Minister of Foreign Affairs (France)

Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs ), is France's foreign affairs ministry, with the headquarters located on the Quai d'Orsay in Paris close to the National Assembly of France. The Minister of Foreign and European Affairs in the government of France is the cabinet minister responsible for...

 was not hampered by the label.

The weekly French news magazine, Le Nouvel Observateur

Le Nouvel Observateur

Le Nouvel Observateur is a weekly French newsmagazine. Based in Paris, it is the most prominent French general information magazine in terms of audience and circulation ....

, has been described as the "quasi-official organ of France's 'gauche caviar'".