Tag Archives: France

Our national irrationality

Humor, Miscellaneous, , , , ,

Adam Gopnik examines his native country (the United States) and three adopted ones (Canada, Britain, and France), and attempts to locate their core irrationalities:

Let me start with my own country – don’t worry, your turn is coming. The core irrationality of American life is its insularity, which can be captured in three words: The World Series.

This is, of course, the annual championship of the American-invented game of baseball, a championship played almost exclusively in American cities and, until recently, entirely by American players – yet still referred to, without a hint of irony, as the global championship.

In all my years in the US, not once have I ever heard any American who found this name mildly ironic, or even strange. It is not even a rueful national joke. It’s just a fact of life, and when you point out its absurdity, you get a puzzled look.

It isn’t just baseball. The winners of the Superbowl in our US version of football cry out “We’re world champs!” as the gun sounds – and they do the same at the end of the American championship of the world sport of basketball.

When Americans play other Americans in American cities for an American audience, the world championship of whatever sport they are playing is thereby decided.

The real irony is that there is an actual world championship in baseball – and Americans do very badly at it. No one cares. It is broadcast on an obscure cable channel and no one pays any attention as the Dominicans or the Japanese triumph.

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Old American dignitaries speaking French

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The series continues tonight with shiny new Secretary of State — and longtime francophile — John Kerry in Paris:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVcI50YBnLg]

New York Magazine explains more:

In Paris today, Kerry chose to speak in French unprompted, but the press conference in which he refused a direct request to speak in French took place in Washington. Kerry was famously mocked for his Francophilia during the 2004 presidential race, and perhaps, in his mind, speaking French in the Treaty Room of the White House — the very seat of American power — would open him up to the same kind of right-wing derision more so than would speaking French in France, which is really just good manners. It’s a theory based on a small sample size, admittedly.

The other possibility is that Kerry, justifiably, just hates Canada.

And here is the video of Kerry refusing to speak French in Washington:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3AF_8w1VsQ]
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The French think strategically…

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…while the United States continues to think anachronistically:

France will vote in favor of the Palestinians’ request to heighten their profile at the United Nations, the French foreign minister told Parliament on Tuesday, embracing a move that Israel and the United States oppose.

The support of France, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, is the most significant boost to date for the Palestinians’ hopes to be granted nonmember observer status and thus greater international recognition. Russia and China, two other permanent members, have also thrown their support behind the Palestinian bid.

The French support appeared calculated to strengthen the position of the Palestinian Authority’s president, Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fatah party governs the West Bank, after fighting with Israel in the Gaza Strip this month that left Hamas, the Islamic militant organization that oversees Gaza, ascendant.

For too many years, the American approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been incoherent. We want democratic elections, but then we decry the results and call the winners a terrorist organization. We want fewer terror attacks, but then support Israel in policies that only strengthen the hand of those same people we call terrorists. What do we want, exactly?

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An apology tour…for France

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The New Republic‘s David A. Bell contrasts France’s approach to its checkered past with that of the United States:

Is your president a socialist who has repeatedly apologized for his country? If you are an American, the answer to this question is no, despite apoplectic Republican claims to the contrary. If you are French, however, it is most certainly yes. Not only is President François Hollande a proud Socialist; this year he has made two high-profile apologies for France. This summer, on the seventieth anniversary of the notorious “vel d’Hiv” roundup of Jews in Paris. he gave a speech acknowledging the country’s guilt in the deportation of Jews to Nazi death camps, And this past week, he ended official denials that the Parisian police had carried out a massacre of Algerian protestors in 1961, and paid homage to the victims. The two statements say a great deal about French public life today, about the country’s relation to its history, and about its widening differences from the United States.

Both of the incidents for which Hollande apologized, in the name of the French Republic, were long hidden from sight. After the liberation of France in 1944, a battered and demoralized population consoled itself with the myth that all but a few traitors and criminals had resisted the Nazi occupation. The deportation of some 76,000 Jews to the death camps was blamed on the Germans. Only slowly, and in large part thanks to the effort of North American historians (especially Robert Paxton of Columbia) did the full sordid story emerge in the 1970s and 1980s. Most of the French had in fact supported the collaborationist government of Marshal Philippe Pétain for several years. Many had applauded, enthusiastically, anti-Semitic policies modeled on those of the Nazis. And while it was the Germans who demanded the deportation of Jews from France, the job of identifying, arresting and transporting these Jews was carried out entirely by French authorities, including the horrific, days-long incarceration of 13,000 Jews in the “Vel d’Hiv”—an indoor bicycle racetrack—without adequate food, water or ventilation…

In the United States, sentiments of this sort, apropos of the darker episodes in American history, are anything but uncommon in university classrooms. In politics, however, they have become virtually taboo. In the civil rights era, American politicians could speak frankly and eloquently about the ways that slavery and institutionalized racism stained the American past. In the 1980’s, Congress could pass legislation acknowledging the wrong of Japanese-American interment during World War II, and granting compensation to its victims. But in the past quarter-century, conservatives have successfully cast any attempt to discuss the country’s historical record impartially in the political realm as a species of heresy—“blaming America first,” as Jeanne Kirkpatrick put it as far back as 1984. A turning point of sorts came in 1994, when the Smithsonian Institution planned an exhibit of the aircraft that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, accompanied by material that highlighted the human toll of the bombing,  inviting debate on its morality.  The outcry from conservatives and veterans groups was deafening, and few politicians dared to defend the Smithsonian, which eventually canceled the exhibit.

Some people never change

Humor, Politics, , , , ,

Bill Clinton’s still in the hunt:

They — there are only two countries I’m eligible to run for the leadership position is if I move to Ireland and buy a house, I can — I can run for president of Ireland, because of my Irish heritage.

And because I was born in Arkansas, which is part of the Louisiana Purchase, any person anywhere in the world that was born in a place that ever was part of the French empire, if you move to — if you live in France for six months and speak French, you can run for president…

However, I once polled very well in a French presidential race. And I said, you know, this is great, but that’s the best I’d ever do because once they heard my broken French with a Southern accent, I would drop into single digits within a week and I’d be toast. I just don’t think — that’s what I think. I think the system we have may have some opportunity costs.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSKfOH7GOKY]

Slate.fr nabs a post-victory interview with François Hollande

French, Politics, , , , , , ,

François Hollande

Fairly comprehensive stuff. A few highlights:

On France’s relationship with Germany:

L’existence d’un couple «Merkozy» a été critiquée en Europe. Quelle est votre position sur ce couple franco-allemand?

Autant je crois au moteur franco-allemand, autant je conteste l’idée d’un duopole. La construction européenne repose sur une relation France-Allemagne équilibrée et respectueuse. Les couples Schmidt-Giscard, Kohl-Mitterrand,  et même Chirac-Schröder ont prouvé que les différences politiques n’empêchaient pas le travail commun. Mais ces dirigeants veillaient à conjuguer la démarche intergouvernementale avec le processus communautaire, c’était la meilleure façon d’éviter que nos partenaires éprouvent le sentiment d’être écartés, ou pire encore soumis.

Cet équilibre a été modifié ces dernières années. Le rapport franco-allemand a été exclusif. Les autorités européennes ont été négligées et certains pays, notamment les plus fragiles, ont eu la désagréable impression d’être en face d’un directoire.

On Barack Obama, and speaking English (and he couldn’t resist a jab at Sarkozy):

Justement, vous allez rencontrer Barack Obama pour la première fois au G8 de Camp David les 18 mai et 19 mai. Une première question, qui pourra vous sembler anecdotique: Mister Hollande, do you speak English?

Yes I speak English, more fluently than the former President. But a French president has to speak French!

Au-delà de la plaisanterie, est-ce que vous pensez que c’est important que le chef d’Etat français parle la langue commune de la diplomatie internationale?

Il a besoin de la comprendre et de pouvoir avoir des échanges directs avec ses interlocuteurs. Mais je suis attaché à la langue française et à la francophonie.

Lorsque je participais à des sommets de chefs de partis en Europe, il a pu m’être désagréable d’entendre des amis roumains, polonais, portugais, italiens parfois, parler anglais, mais j’admets que sur le plan informel, les contacts puissent s’établir dans cette langue. Je défendrai néanmoins partout l’usage du français.

On a nuclear Iran:

Quelle est votre position sur la crise liée au programme nucléaire iranien?

Je n’ai pas critiqué la position ferme de Nicolas Sarkozy par rapport aux risques de prolifération nucléaire. Je le confirmerai avec la même force et la même volonté. Et je n’admettrai pas que l’Iran, qui a parfaitement le droit d’accéder au nucléaire civil, puisse utiliser cette technologie à des fins militaires.

Sur ce sujet, l’administration Obama semble plus souple, plus encline à la négociation, que le gouvernement français…

Les Iraniens doivent apporter toutes les informations qui leur sont demandées et en terminer avec les faux-semblants. Les sanctions doivent être renforcées autant qu’il sera nécessaire. Mais je crois encore possible la négociation pour atteindre le but recherché.

All in all, Hollande’s triumph may signal a rocky future for Europe, especially in French-German relations but even extending beyond that to a more general backlash to the politics of austerity. As some have noted, Hollande’s victory may in fact suit the Obama administration just fine, at least on economic issues. If his election — and the rising hopes of leftists around Europe — can somehow hold back the tide of plummeting stocks and rising bond yields until at least November 6th, he may prove very useful to Obama’s reelection chances. Furthermore, his economic philosophy is, in many ways, closer to that embraced by the United States than Sarkozy’s pro-austerity administration has been. Foreign policy, however, may be a slightly different story.

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Laptop at the laundromat

French, Miscellaneous, , , ,

Laundromat

There are many certain things that the French just don’t do, and I seem to end up doing all of them in France. One of those things is eating while walking down the street. This is often necessary for me to do, however, since I often had days at school that began at 8 AM and ended at 9 PM without much in the way of breaks.

And now I’m at the laundromat, doing part-time work on my computer for my job back in New York. I definitely think I’ve gotten some weird looks, but I console myself by remembering that I’m making money while they’re looking at me like a two-headed alien.