right or left? it's all kicked off in Strasbourg

Dieudonne

Dieudonne, pictured left, is a "humourist" who was very popular in France in the 1990s, and still I think draws big audiences.  He has been booked to appear at the Zenith in Strasbourg, a very large venue, on 12th June, which is between the two rounds of voting in the presidential election.  This is controversial (a number of his shows have been cancelled by local authorities in recent times) because Dieudo, as he is known, is a very political figure.  He was thought to be on the left in the 90s, and was active in circles which condemned France's colonial past, and still describes himself as of "the real left".  In fact he is on the Jew-hating far right, and has stood for election more than once on an anti-Zionist ticket, fulminating against "the lobby" - well, you get the picture.  Marine Le Pen jumped at the chance for him to be godfather to one of her children, and you can see why from his picture. Our Socialist deputy, Armand Jung, candidate in the elections to the National Assembly, which take place on 10th and 17th June, takes a dim view, and has put out a statement to that effect, in which he expresses dismay that "ce triste individu"  should be appearing in Strasbourg, capital of human rights, to promote values which are contrary to those of the French Republic, in an attempt to influence the elections. He says it is for the local authorities in Strasbourg to take responsibility and take a decision, and he is right.  He notes that the UMP candidate has chosen to write to the President about it.  As far as we know the Front National candidate has remained silent on the matter - so far.

Write a letter to the President, when something actually needs doing?  That's not how to get things done.  An elected representative, or someone who hopes to be one, should be taking action, not writing letters.  Remind you of anyone?

politics in France

Yesterday, 18th May, was the deadline for candidates' names to go forward for the parliamentary elections.  The Left has been trying to form an accord in 55 constituencies where the Front National (which was in third place with 18% of the vote in the presidential election) has a chance of winning, by standing one candidate, from the party of the left with the best chance.  The Front de Gauche, consisting of the Parti de Gauche and the Parti Communiste, has not been able to  reach agreement with the Parti Socialiste.  The Greens, the other party in this "coalition", have less say, because their vote in the presidential was so small at 2.3%.  But the head of their party, Cecile Duflot, has got ministerial post. Anyway, agreement has mostly not been reached.  Pity.  The Front National may well elect one or more deputies next month.  Marine Le Pen is certainly cock-a-hoop, especially at the apparent disunity of the Left.  As well she might be.

In other news, a Francois Hollande election pledge was to return to a five-day week for schools.  At the moment there is no school on Wednesdays or Saturdays.  From now they will have the choice - Wednesday mornings or Saturday mornings.  The teachers are against a return to five days, and the tourism industry is against a return to Saturdays, as it says people won't go away for the weekend so much.  The school day is long, from about 8 a.m. to as late as 6 p.m. in secondary schools, though there is a two-hour lunch break for most.  It is quite hard to get a response from many offices which deal with administration of various kinds on Wednesdays, as they are mostly staffed by women of an age to have children at school, and very many of these women work a four-day week so as to be able to take care of their children on Wednesdays.  Women's participation in the workforce is high, largely because of the amount of state-funded childcare which is available.  There is free full-day care available for children from as young as two, so long as they are toilet trained.

So you see, it's all a bit different on this side of the Channel.  Fabulous health system, lots of tedious bureaucracy, bakeries to die for, everything closed on Sundays.  No car tax.  VAT at 19% on lots of things.  Everyone goes on holiday at the same time.  Concept of customer service non-existent. No school uniforms.

ladies and gentlemen, introducing...

photo Le Monde

the new government of France, under Prime Minister Ayrault (who?), looks like this, well, some of it does.  There are 34 ministers, 17 of them women.  Pretty good going, but Sarko's government looked like this at first, and it didn't last.  But hostilities have already kicked off.  Martine Aubry, who wanted to be prime minister and is not, has declined to be in government.  She remains first secretary of the party, and as such has control over selections and nominations for constituencies.  The parliamentary elections are on 10th and 17th June, so she has moved fast, putting one of her own in the constituency of the Somme and deselecting one of Hollande's most loyal lieutenants - and so it goes.  Constituencies in France do not have names but numbers - we live in Strasbourg constituency no. 1 - which has taken some getting used to.  Another difficulty for the parliamentary elections is that the Parti Socialiste is in partnership with the Greens, and so must deselect some of its candidates and replace them with Greens.  This is not going down well. Also, those appointed to government have been told that if they are candidates for parliament they will lose their ministerial jobs if defeated at the election - and there I was thinking that separation of powers was not properly understood in the UK. Sigh.

But people seem to be prepared to give Hollande a fair go, although without much enthusiasm.  That's pretty much how I feel too.

Le Monde sucks up to the new President

Francois Hollande of course, who takes office tomorrow.  In a piece with a large picture of DSK and entitled "the debt the French Left owes to Nafissatou Diallo" (the chambermaid, remember?) and which begins by saying that a statue of her should be put up, the newspaper (which has a philosophy corrrespondent btw) disses DSK all round the houses and praises Francois Hollande's political flair - which we have not had a chance to observe yet.  If Diallo had not raised the complaint she did, causing the police to be called,  it says, the affair of the parties in Lille at which prostitutes were present, attracting an action for "proxenetisme" (pimping) against DSK (he says he didn't know they were prostitutes) might have hit the public domain during the primaries, or worse, during the presidential campaign.  Well yes, it might.  But was it the left which removed DSK as candidate?  I think not.  There is some evidence that it was in fact Sarko's people.  We may never know.  But there is no evidence, nor any likely to emerge, that it was anyone close to Francois Hollande or the Parti Socialiste.

Julien Dray, a Socialist deputy, a man of the left (also a Jew and a freemason and someone who was sufficiently out of favour with the PS leadership in recent times, over matters financial as it happens, though no evidence of wrongdoing was found, to be deselected as candidate for the regional elections) had a birthday party on 28th April, during the presidential campaign, to which he invited many senior PS figures - including Francois Hollande.  Who didn't go, because he found out DSK and his wife were going to be there.  How embarrassing that would have been, trills Le Monde, although it does note in the same paragraph that the whole campaign was darkened by the shadow of DSK.  Embarrassing for Francois Hollande to be upstaged, is more like it.

In February 2011, before the Sofitel affair broke, DSK allegedly met Hollande in Paris in a borrowed flat, and asked him if he, Hollande, would stand against him, DSK, as he, DSK, was considering putting his name forward.  According to DSK's friends, Hollande gave a non-committal and equivocal answer.  According to Hollande's friends, Hollande said "I'm taking it all the way, and I'm going to beat you".  Hmmm.  Hollande managed to fight the whole campaign without once mentioning DSK, although provoked many times.  Sarko mentioned him before the campaign proper started, describing Hollande as a second-choice candidate, and then not until 2nd May, between the two rounds of voting, when he felt threatened and judged the DSK brand toxic enough to change voters' minds - he said he would "take no lessons from a party which had rallied round DSK".  He was wrong in that judgment, as the result shows us, and you can interpret that as you wish.  I know how I do.  Namely that the brand was not that toxic.  Which says to me that the French public could have supported DSK.  We'll never know now.

The piece, by Ariane Chemin, ends by citing Sarko, on 13th May 2011, just before the Sofitel affair took place, as saying to journalists that Hollande was lucky, because DSK was a product not to be found on this earth (hard to translate, that bit) and "comme un ovni qui arrive" ("like a UFO coming in to land").  Sarko allegedly then scanned the horizon, hand over the eyes, as if looking for an approaching craft.  The next day flight AF023 came in from New York, with a seat booked in the name of Dominique Strass-Kahn.  DSK wasn't on it. 

And so we are on the eve of the handover to President - Hollande.

the boomer President

Only a few months ago I was having a conversation with someone in which I remember saying that the baby boomers - my generation - have had their day in the sun, they have been n political power and are now out of it, the world's leaders are a new generation.  I was thinking of Tony Blair and Bill Clinton now out of power, and of Obama, Cameron and Clegg, all born in the 1960s, but I wasn't right.  Francois Hollande, the new President of France (technically not yet, as the investiture has not yet happened) is my age.  There have been a number of programmes about him, his family and his political career so far, as you might expect, given that he is France's second Socialist president ever and the first one was Francois Mitterrand, whose shoes cannot be filled by anyone alive.  And of course pictures of a young Hollande, the clothes, the hair, all that, remind me of my youth.  Though Hollande was too serious and too political even in his teens to have been in any way counter-cultural (as we used to call it then) or cutting-edge (as we didn't).  But none the less, we are talkin' 'bout my generation.  Here, and not only here, the boomers are giving something back.  Because that's what we wanted.  We didn't want to tear down the society we lived in, despite what the older generation said, we wanted to improve it.  That's why we didn't do much in the way of creating paintings and symphonies, we were more of an activist generation.  The Beatles were the soundtrack of our youth, but they were older than us, war babies.  The visual artists shaking things up in the 21st century are younger than us.  Writers, yes, there are some.  William Boyd (whose latest, Waiting for Sunrise, is unopened on my table in hardback, a pleasure to come) and Hilary Mantel (whose latest, Bring Up The Bodies, currently has me in thrall to my Kindle) were both born in 1952.  Ian McEwan and Martin Amis were both born in 1949.  So those are all boomers.  But you don't find out much about how our generation grew up from any of their books.  Interesting that you don't.  What they all do is tell stories, mostly from other times and other places.

The surname Hollande comes from how those Protestants fleeing religious persecution in the Low Countries, then under Spanish rule, were dubbed by the locals in northern France, where some of them found refuge.  So Hollande may well have Protestant heritage.  This would be most unusual for a French President.  It would be most unusual for a French person outside this part of France, which anyway has been German in living memory. Although I suspect Hollande is an entirely secular individual, and the question does not arise.  His predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, has Hungarian Jewish antecedents, and that was never really an issue, despite the terrible history of Jews in France in the twentieth century.

It's too soon to say what Francois Hollande will do.  I fear for the international future - I cannot see him providing the kind of leadership Sarkozy did in the Arab Spring, but I hope I am wrong.  He is going to reduce France's dependence on nuclear power, he says.  Wrong.  And the unionised workers at the Fessenheim power station not far from here will not like it one bit when he closes them down.  His government will be formed next week, and will probably include at least two Greens (those Greens are not a bit high-minded, you should see them treading on each other's heads in the hope of a ministerial post) which will tie his hands a bit.  Parliamentary elections take place next month, and in some places the Parti Socialiste is trying to kick out PS incumbents or selected candidates to make way for Greens.  With predictable and messy results.  This is happening here in Strasbourg too.

Jean-Luc Melenchon, the left candidate for the presidency, is to stand against Marine Le Pen of the Front National in Pas de Calais in the north.  Should be fun.  What's going to happen there?

France votes, and Hollande has already got it wrong

this pic taken last week in Goersdorf in the Vosges

This post might be illegal, as in France you are not supposed to publish or broadcast anything that might influence people's votes on the last two days of an election.  So sue me.

Francois Hollande is likely to be the President of France by this time tomorrow.  Here at rue de Molsheim we are making no plans for this evening, other than to watch the results coverage.  Our satellite channels, whose reception is erratic to say the least, appear to be being received correctly today (fingers crossed) so we will have more than French terrestrial coverage to choose from. Tomorrow is not a public holiday in France, as it is in the UK, but Tuesday is (VE Day, the cheek of it, considering France's contribution to the defeat of fascism in Europe) so a great many people have "fait le pont" and taken tomorrow off work too, as I have.  We thought we would hop across the river to Germany on Tuesday, where, surprise surprise, that day is not a holiday.

Anyway, while I would have voted Hollande if I had the vote in French national elections (give it time give it time) I am worried for the future of France, and of Europe, under his presidency.  He appears to be clueless about world politics, he has never held ministerial office (though neither had Tony Blair) and if he has a core of steel, as all politicians must, it is well hidden.  They are voting in Greece too today, and I believe they are hoping for a beginning of the end of "Merkozy", but I would say to them - be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.  Oh and good luck May Zanni, if I could speak enough Greek I would be in Athens now, campaigning for you.

M. Hollande, if you are elected today, think on this: you will owe your victory to the people of France who work hard, and who think they deserve better than high prices and rising unemployment (they do).  You will also owe it to the failure to vote by thousands of people who voted Front National in the first round.  You will need to ask those people why, and you will need to take them with you if France is to prosper in polity as well as economically.  I do not think you can do this.  I do not think you want to.  You will need to consider France's place in Europe and in the wider world.  France's colonial past gives it a voice in Lebanon and in north and west Africa that other great powers, to use that old-fashioned moniker, do not have.  Use it well, and lose the Guardianista non-intervention mask.  It doesn't suit you, and it shouldn't suit France.

he's the man

And be a bit more grown-up.  Politics is not nice sometimes.  People in it do not always behave nicely. Tell your party to be grown-up about DSK.  Walking out of a birthday party just because he was invited, this is playground stuff.  Besides, I think DSK may be right.  I shall read the Epstein book about the affair, which comes out next week, with great interest.  And of course you know, M. Hollande, that DSK is head and shoulders above you in intellect, political stature and world statesmanship.  What's that you say? You knew that but you don't want to discuss it?  Francois, come back!  Francois?  Francois! *sound of tumbleweed*

Bas-Rhin

or Lower Rhine is the name of the departement of France I live in, and this is how that departement voted yesterday, according to francetv results service:

as you can see, it does not make pretty reading


Bas Rhin


1er tourRésultats

Participation :79.83%

Sarkozy 33.61% 196 968 votes

Le Pen 21.21% 124 264 votes

Hollande 19.57% 114 702 votes

Bayrou 11.94% 69 940 votes

Mélenchon 7.22% 42 300 votes

Joly 3.00% 16 188 votes

Dupont-Aignan 2.00% 10 173 votes

Poutou 1.00% 5 993 votes

Arthaud 0.64% 3 779 votes

Cheminade 0.28% 1 655 votes

Votes blancs et nuls1.88%

how would the cartoons vote?

20 Minutes, the free paper you get on the tram, has a feature today on how the cartoon characters beloved of millions would vote.  Remembering that we are in France, I am talking the presidential election, whose first round is on Sunday.  Sadly I do not have the right to vote here - yet - but that is another story.  There are ten candidates, outgoing (yes!) President Sarkozy, and his Parti Socialiste opponent, favourite in the polls Francois Hollande, may well be known to cross-Channel and other non-France readers, the others less likely.  Anyway, I will do my best.  The feature had some fun plays on words, but I will not try to translate those.  That way madness lies.

SpongeBob SquarePants, who has been vilified by the American Right for believing that climate change is real, would vote Eva Joly.  She is the Green candidate,, and is currently wearing green glasses to prove it.  I like her a lot.  She is not French but Norwegian, and her accent is relentlessly mocked and vilified.  This is partly why I like her.

Batman, who believes in zero tolerance and who is against corrupt elites, would be at one with Marine Le Pen (Blonde Catwoman, this paper calls her), especially as one of the Batman original artists is very much of the right politically.  Marine Le Pen is Front National - well, I don't need to tell you what that is, I hope.

Princess Leia of StarWars is for a legitimate democracy.  What those wars were all about really, or so say some of the fans.  She is voting Sarkozy.

Marge Simpson, who, according to her creator, Matt Groening, would have voted for Obama, because she believes in social justice and will vote for a person with a good voice, is voting Jean-Luc Melenchon. He is the candidate to the left of the Parti Socialiste, and is a terrific speaker.  Currently doing very well in the polls.  Tomorrow is the last day polls are allowed.  Campaigning stops tomorrow too.

Super Mario is for Philippe Poutou, a kind of bizarre Gaullist who says he is the voice of the people.  Because he supports the workers.  Go figure.

The Blues are voting Red.  It says here.  The Smurfs (les Schtroumpfs in French) have created a collective syndicalist movement, and effectively embody the dictatorship of the proletariat.  It says here.  How we roared.  Anyway, they are voting Nathalie Arthaud, who describes herself as the communist candidate, and who is in fact a Trot gobshite.

ET is from, and mostly on, another planet.  He is therefore voting for Jacques Cheminade, who is - get this - a supporter of Lyndon LaRouche and thinks the Queen is a drug dealer.

Prince Charming - remember that Cinderella and many other beloved fairy tales were first written in French  - is voting for Mr MoDem, which means something like LibDem, Francois Bayrou, currently fourth in the polls after Marine Le Pen.

The Gaulish Gaullists - Asterix and his pals - are voting for Nicolas Dupot-Aignan.  He describes himself as  Gaullist of the right, and, er, you what?  No clue.  Less than one per cent in the polls today.

And our friend Francois Hollande of the Socialists gets the support of - sorry probably not much known outside France and Japan - Naruto.  He is a funny little person taken seriously by nobody but who finishes up as the Great Ninja of them all.

la gauche in France

for those not following the French presidential election as closely as I am, left to right, depicted by Plantu of Le Monde, Jean-Luc Melenchon, candidate of the far left, who is pulling in many thousands at rallies, Francois Hollande, well, you can see what the chain on his ankle is indicating, and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who on hearing "La Gauche" (a feminine noun in French) says "Do I know her?", indicating as clearly as possible what his own personal ball and chain is.  OK, not very subtle, but the broadsheets rarely are.  You need a tabloid for that.  I learned a long time ago that broadsheet headlines are understandable by just about anybody "UK set to go into recession in first quarter of 2012", but for tabloid ones to be comprehensible you need HUGE amounts of context.  "Gotcha!"  Oh yes.  Meanwhile, in the French election campaign Marine Le Pen, far right Front National, in third place, inches forward, tortoise-like.  The Green campaign appears to have failed already, and Francois Bayrou, for MoDem, the equivalent of the LibDems - well, there is simply no point to him, as there is not to the LibDems in the UK.  The important thing to remember is that there are two rounds of voting, two weeks apart.  The first round is on 22nd April.  I would be surprised if Melenchon makes it into the second round.  And some of his votes will go to Le Pen, as will some of Hollande's as time goes on.  But most of Melenchon's will go to Hollande.  The crucial point is how many of his, and Hollande's - who is not wowing the electorate - go to not voting.  Quite a lot I would say.  That could leave a run-off between Sarko (currently ahead) and Le Pen.  And then, who knows?  Just saying...

when you're in a hole...

stop digging, of course.  Cllr Matt Rodda (Lab, Katesgrove) said he had lobbied the Planning Inspectorate over a local planning issue.  Cllr Warren Swaine (LD, Katesgrove, defeated Dictatorship Dave "moronic members of the public" Sutton) did a FoI request which indicated that he hadn't.  Cllr Rodda had, of course, done plenty of media, including the hackneyed "open a bottle of champagne on the site", which I remember doing in 1993, and not since.  Caught lying to the electorate, Cllr Rodda sprang into action.  His Master's Voice faithfully copied out Cllr Rodda's protestations that the dog had eaten the emails he said he'd sent, thusly:

His Master's Voice

the Chronicle actually talked to both sides:

Chronicle

notice two things here: (1) Cllr Rodda expresses "sadness" that Cllr Swaine would stoop so low as to "criticise a local councillor".  Diddums.  That's politics, matey.  It's not all champagne and Martin Salter's bottom and hagiographic pieces in the Reading Evening Post.

(2) the person actually standing for election for Labour in Katesgrove ward is Rose Williams, a fine person in my view and a former Mayor of Reading, one of the best.  She is nowhere to be seen in all this.  In her place I wouldn't be, either.  But why did Cllr Rodda, in his creepy little stunt based on lies, never mention Rose or include her?  He must have thought the whole thing was a good idea to have gone to the bother of making up a story that he had lobbied for local people, so why not try to give the candidate a boost?  She's a girl, after all, and Reading Labour have got some ground to make up on misogyny.

Oh.