Oh my. I thought the alcohol was always the main culprit of my feeling sick on school mornings following a night out. Turns out sheer lack of sleep might also have something to do with it. This is what happens when I update this thing, then have dinner, then take a quick shower and go to bed with the papers at 1:30am.
Allow me to discuss French matters today. Here's what The Guardian prints this morning: "Bruno Dumont, the award-winning golden boy of French independent film whose recent offerings could be described as a mix of extreme violence, extreme sex and extreme boredom, is the latest victim of audience desertion." I love this. French cinema, at long last, getting embarrassingly real. This story is merely stating the obvious but, as one of my smartass colleagues puts it, someone's gotta do it.
On a more political note, there's something happening in France foreign press doesn't seem to have picked up on yet. Most of you know we're electing a new president in a few months (if not, where have you been?). Disillusioned by Socialist Party's candidate Ségolène Royal, a dilly-dallying populist with no clear vision for her country, and scared of right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy, an economic revolutionary (good) with fascist tendencies (bad), a growing minority is seriously (yes, seriously) considering François Bayrou (who?) as a viable option.
The Third Man, huh...? Just look at the length of the wikipedia entries for each of them. It says it all. A few months ago, I would have laughed at the prospect and I wouldn't have been the only one. Papers like Le Monde are still snickering at the thought of it, but with apparently diminishing confidence.
People who would traditionally vote for the Socialists are letting go of the past and reluctantly moving forward, for lack of a better choice. The European constitution, the state of the tax system, the level of unemployment call for some sort of change. So far, 'Ségo' hasn't offered more than a (most un)comfortable status-quo. 'Sarko', on the other hand, told the Americans that he was ashamed of being French (I'm sorry, Mr. I-Want-To-Represent-The-French-People, what did you just say?).
Whatever it is, people are desperate for inspiration and ideas that will go beyond the anachronic right-left debate, which, I'm sorry, is totally last century. "Can we please move on?" is the question that seems to be in everyone's minds. Anyway, Paris Link is the only one so far (along with a couple of obscure Canadian publications) that has bothered writing something up on it in English. Wonder if others will catch up.
Good day, now.
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1 comment:
Brilliant politic analysis. Maybe we could add that François Mitterrand, former French president, said before dying that François Bayrou (pronounce "Bye-Roo")would one day be president of France. He was impressed by the will he showed, correcting his talking defect (he stuttered). Mitterrand also forecast that Jacques Chirac would become president and would be the laughing stock of the world. For those who forgot, the first decision elected president Chirac took was to resume nuclear tests in the Pacific... No comment.
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