[soon to appear at american thinker]
Paris 28 May 2012
Nidra Poller
* “croissants” = flaky, buttery, crescent-shaped pastry… “croissance” = growth
Well, that’s settled! Angela will provide the meat and potatoes and François will bring the croissants.
From each according to his means, to each according to his needs. Now
you understand why Nicolas Sarkozy lost the election. He never thought
of that quick fix while running back and forth between Paris and Berlin
last winter, even when his wife Carla was in labor. The upshot was
Giulia, cooing and growing far from the camera’s eye—we’ve never seen
the tiniest image of the former president’s daughter—and French media
pissing on Sarkozy for letting Brunhilde Merkel dictate the terms of
what has come to be known as the infamous austerity pact. Now the
victorious François is transforming France, Europe, and the world. He
promised he would go to Berlin, to Washington, to the G8, and let them
know “French voters have spoken.” They don’t want austerity. The Greeks
don’t want austerity. The Spanish are sick to death of it, the Italians
are fed up, the Portuguese are feverish, and those who haven’t caught it
yet are terrified of contagion. They want croissance!
French
media love François. They hated Nicolas with a vengeance. They made fun
of him for being short. Now that President Hollande is the same height
it’s not an issue. Le Monde[i] looks
on with tender indulgence as the new president, jumping from his
provincial sinecure to the highest office, bumbles awkwardly into
international meetings like a mistaken identity comic: “… he’s still a
bit out of step in the midst of the world leaders. If he hasn’t acquired
Barack Obama’s relaxed casual look or the snobbish ease of David
Cameron at least he’s not stiff like the austere Angela Merkel.” So what
if Hollande misses cues, arrives late for his own press conferences,
missed Obama’s opening remarks at the NATO Conference, and the only
thing he wants to do ahead of schedule is pull French troops out of
Afghanistan? With a flip of the wrist he turned the eurozone from
austerity to croissants.
Merkel,
we are told here, is isolated. Everyone else wants to have fun and the
stolid lady (don’t forget she’s up for re-election next year) says the
party’s over. Bailed-out Greece wants to stay in the eurozone and back
down on the harsh, humiliating austerity agreement signed a few months
ago. François wants Euro-wide stimulus spending, public works projects,
luscious investments (green energy anyone?) and eurobonds that will
bundle German prosperity with Greek debt, Spanish bankruptcy, Italian
distress, French neo-socialism, and a basket full of small nations with
holes in their socks, and madame Merkel says nein. Is anyone thinking she might add: “Instead of a Grexit let’s imagine a Gerkout, vershtaiste? Germany pulls out and you guys can publish all the Eurobonds your hearts desire.” The project would lose its luster!
It
seems that English-speaking readers lost interest in France sometime
back in 2003. Some are still recycling surrender jokes. Hey guys, what
about Libya? The French president—it was Sarkozy then-- tried pulling
his American counterpart by a ring in his nose but B. H. Obama, fed up
with American “hyperpuissance,” chose to lead from behind. I’m
not saying that the final result is blue skies and flowers, it’s just an
example of how things change. Especially when everyone is distracted by
incessant tweeting. The current string of incidents in Syria
demonstrates the rapid acceleration of leading from behind.
Well,
I think you should be attentive to the tide of events in France and
it’s not just because I live here. Grant me that dose of objectivity.
One good reason? There’s a war going on and we’re all in it together.
That old adage “all’s fair in love and war” doesn’t apply to Western
nations anymore. We are expected to respect a higher standard. Unless
and until the enemy beheads us, we are supposed to be rational,
reasonable, humane, tolerant, hospitable, generous, decent,
well-organized, high tech, etc. All the reasons for which the enemy
wants to live among us, smear and slime us, pick our pockets, break our
locks, move into our houses and sit in our seats of power.
So how about love? France still rhymes—in free verse--with amour and my only regret is that I cannot share with you the Net revelations of a ring around the Socialist rosy[ii]
that puts the whole political scene in perspective. How am I supposed
to know if it’s true that the ex-concubine of the newly elected Xxx had a
fling with the recently appointed Xxx Minister and that’s why the
current concubine didn’t want him in that position? Is it true that she
also put her foot down to prevent the mayor of Xxx from getting a juicy
cabinet post so that his or her deputy could become mayor, so what’s
wrong with that? Well it seems that the said deputy is the mother of
what you call a love child fathered by… I dare not say who. Even though I
heard it from two sources. And they concur: she discovered the fruit of
this liaison already ripened to the age of 20+ and kicked him out!
That’s why the current concubine didn’t want the long lost love to
become mayor of Xxx. With all those concubines you’d think we were in
China but this is France mes amis and even the official biography is succulente. To wit: François Hollande and Valerie Trierweiler (ha! “trier”
means sort out) who have known each other close to forever and
definitely while some of the above innuendos were going on, have been
lovers since 2005 but only went public in 2010.
François Hollande and Ségolène Royal lived in “union libre”
for three decades. Here, in a vintage (1992) news report, then Minister
of the Environment Royal introduces the public to their newborn fourth
child, Flora.[iii]
In 2007, French media prattled about how cool it was that Socialist
party chief François Hollande and Socialist presidential candidate
Ségolène Royal could live as a couple while behaving, politically, with
consummate professionalism. Très bien except for the fact that
all the journalists knew they had long since drifted apart. She
officially kicked him out after losing to Nicolas Sarkozy.
{I just lost my sense of humor. Why? Because I just did some fact-checking and stumbled upon “Valerie Trierweiler la juive.” Déjà! The cybergutter is already hissing. The woman has power so she has to be a Jew, right?}
In
the euphoric victory days President Hollande went here and there
honoring this one, thanking that one, seeing and being seen with happy
campers, including François Mitterand’s extra-curricular daughter
Mazarine Pingeot, who grew up like a princess under the protected of the
monarch’s secret services and on the riches of the public purse. Her
coming out--at Mitterand’s funeral, side by side with his widow and her
sons-- was praised as the ultimate in elegance.
And Madame Trierweiler is elegant too, says the Huffiington Post:[iv]
“Style-wise, critics have praised Trierweiler for her chic fashion
sense; she dons stylish scarves (very French!) and opts for classic
silhouettes that give her an aura of elegance.” She does have the
French touch and is quite photogenic (see the photo gallery in the
aforementioned article). That’s why I was surprised to discover her
thick legs broad hips, and unflattering election night outfit. A week
later, Cécile Duflot came to the inaugural male-female-parity cabinet
meeting in horse’s rump jeans. I wasn’t the only one to notice. The
press was all over it and the PM must have dressed her down. Or, more
exactly, up. She came to the next meeting in a dark short skirt and
black knee-high boots… apparently indifferent to the bursting out of
springtime. The temperature was in the high 70s that day. Well, the
voters wanted a change, and they got it. Out with the slim, trim,
upscale, high-heeled lovelies of the Sarkozy government; in with the
broad-hipped ladies in plain clothes, flat shoes, and colorless
coiffures. Except for the well-named Fleur Pellerin and the
French-Algerian film director Yamina Benguigui… see for yourself.[v]
Politics is merciless and even more so for women. Witness the deplaning
on the eve of the NATO meeting in Chicago: President Hollande first and
solo, followed by Trierweiler with no one to hold her arm as she
negotiates the stairs in high heel platform sandals and unlovely legs,
followed by Barack and Michelle holding hands, rapping and smiling as
they dance down the stairs with youthful grace. Enough to make you
forget Michelle’s dirndl skirt!
We’ll
see which way the trend goes. The current cabinet is a sort of
gerrymandered, tribal, vote-getting makeshift affair proportioned to
increase the chances of getting a clear Socialist majority at the
Assemblée Nationale. After the votes are counted on June 17th we’ll find
out where this government really intends to go. Forward to pragmatic
social democracy? Backward to rigid ideological socialism? Round in
circles of internecine squabbles? Wherever.
But who would have thought they’d bring back the ancien régime?
Comrade Hollande, the populace has no bread. Qu’ils mangent de la brioche croissance ! They have no bread ? Let them eat croissants.
Nidra Poller is an Associate Fellow of the Middle East Forum.
Nidra Poller
[i]
http://www.lemonde.fr/teaser/?url_zop=http%3a%2f%2fabonnes.lemonde.fr%2fa-la-une%2farticle%2f2012%2f05%2f22%2fchronique-d-une-alternance_1705401_3208.html#
[iii] http://www.ina.fr/economie-et-societe/vie-sociale/video/CAB92039370/segolene-royal-et-son-bebe.fr.html
[iv] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/07/valerie-trierweiler-france-first-lady_n_1495454.html . N.B.see her with Mazarine Pingeot in the last photo.
[v] http://www.google.com/search?q=yamina+benguigui&hl=en&rlz=1T4TSNP_enUS475US475&prmd=imvnso&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=VTXDT4qTF82r8AOUzeD-Cg&ved=0CGcQsAQ&biw=1366&bih=641
http://www.google.com/search?q=fleur+pellerin&hl=en&rlz=1T4TSNP_enUS475US475&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=HDzDT568Lo_78QPascG2Aw&ved=0CFcQsAQ&biw=1366&bih=602
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