[3][4] She signed a law criminalizing drunkenness in public, a move aimed at the area's homeless people.

[5] In 2009, her re-election was invalidated by a former councilor, Stéphane Salord, under the assumption that allegations spread about her opponent François-Xavier de Peretti were too personal and violent.

[10] She is among the French politicians who hold the most elected positions at different levels of government.

[3][12] Shortly after François Hollande was elected president in 2012, she suggested that he might be "illegitimate", arguing that the entire French media and labor unions supported him and unfairly criticized Nicolas Sarkozy's tenure, and she asked the Constitutional Council of France to annul the election results; however, she was rebuffed.

Now divorced, their daughter Sophie Joissains was a member of the French Senate and mayor of Aix-en-Provence since 2021.