Sarkozy President

Two France's tonight greeted the news that Sarkozy is their new president. There was the 53 percent who voted for him, symbolised by the dancing happy crowds gathered in Place de la Concorde for the offcial celebrations, and the 47 percent who didn't, some of whom could be seen charging police on Place de la Bastille.
'Is there anything particularly French about these two reactions?' Herve Beroud, editor in chief of RTL radio, asked me during his election night show.
My first reaction was that two groups of people were just expressing their respective emotions. Yet the fact that they expressed themselves in the street - which under the Fifth Republic is the only place to question the president - is perhaps specifically French. Sarkozy promised to make the president more responsible, at least to the parliament and the press. Let's see what happens.
My evening began chez Segolene at the Maison de l'Amerique Latine.

When the result was announced, there was a few seconds of total silence, followed by a few whistles. How to react? Quickly a few supporters - among them stars such as Emmanuelle Beart - began chanting 'Bravo Segolene.' The crowd began clapping, and the Bravos and Thank Yous got louder.
Suddenly she was there on the stage. Her radiant smile was not that of a loser. She let the bravos wash over her for a few minutes, before descending into the crowd to thank everyone. When she spoke, she accepted defeat graciously.
'Universal suffrage has spoken,' she said in her trademark white dress, twinned with a cream jacket. Then she moved on.
'You can count on me to continue the profound renewal of the left,' she said to cheers. 'It's the condition of our future victories.'
Some people were crying. Most were defiant. Few of the people I spoke to in Segolene's first base, including Pierre Berge, former Creative Director of Yves St Laurent Group, were members of the Socialist party. They signed up to this campaign because they believed in Segolene (sorry DSK, who was offering his services as the Socialist Reformer on television stations).
'We will reconstruct and we will fight,' said Kykie Alcove, 26. a teaching assistant from the Paris region and member of the youth support group Segosphere. 'She represents a renewal of politics. Politicians who are concerned with everyday life. Her problem? Perhaps she didn't have enough time.'
In the gardens below, the stars and militants drank wine. Not champagne.
Will Segolene stick around for a shake-up of the Socialist party? Christophe Chantepy, her chief of staff, told me she intends to remain a prominent figure on the political landscape.
'With the Socialists?' I asked. `We will see. Today is for thanking the supporters. Tomorrow is another day.'

Segolene was accompanied by cheers on her short walk to party HQ at Rue Solferino. This was not the atmosphere of the losing team after a football match. She was smiling. People were smiling. Bravo, bravo. Next time.
I left the Socialists around 10 to go to RTL to give the Scottish view on the French elections. Cycling towards the studios I saw a man jogging by the Seine, unmoved by the celebrations on place de la Concorde. When I arrived, television cameras showed Sarkozy taking a break from his responsibilities only a few hours into his job. To the surprise of the media cavalcade accompanying him, he stopped at a restaurant near the Champs Elysee for dinner with a close circle of friends. Sure, he needs to celebrate. But tonight is a public night. Could he not have waited for tomorrow?
When he finally showed up at the party in his name, he gave Faudel, the singer keeping the crowd chaud, a big hug.
He asked the crowd to be 'tolerant' and 'fraternal,' and show 'an image of a united France that doesn't leave anyone at the side of the road.'
There were rumours that he might finish the evening in a nightclub.
I cycled home past the Elysee palace where the Chiracs' sleep would have been disturbed by the party at Place de la Concorde. On the ride home there was a odd toot of the horn, and several bars were full, but otherwise the atmosphere was strangely lacking. Perhaps it was happening elsewhere. There was less emotion that aftre the World Cup, understandable in a country that loves football. But this is France, and with an 85 percent turnout, you'd think politics was king.
As I zipped past the tramp asleep over the metro air vent, I wondered whether he is aware he has a new president, And whether he cares. And whether it will make a difference to him.

Is France Ready for Change?

Voting day today for two candidates promising change. At the same time, both are promising to maintain the status quo.
The man polls suggest most likely to win declares grandiloquently he will enact bold and dramatic change, quietly followed by a meek retreat to more consensual policies. He calls the 35-hour working week a 'general catostrophe.' Then he says he will keep it. The government has added one-million bureaucrats since Mitterrand in 1992, he says. Yet his enthusiasm for a roll-back of the state is tempered to a gentle non-replacement promise of one retiring civil servant in two. No debate over which services need more investment, and which ones need to be cut. Sarkozy may be hailed as the most market friendly candidate, but the French social model is safe in his hands. His program is full of subsidies and short of spending cuts. Normal perhaps in an election, but the national debt isn't going to shrink under this platform.
Nor have the Socialists come up with an answer. Despite having shaken up her party (she has done more in six months than the previous 15 years according to sociologist Loic Wacquant writing in Liberation yesterday), Segolene is hampered by an entrenched us-verus-them attitude among her supporters. Anyone who criticises is considered a traitor. Anyone who points out that things could be done better is given the cold shoulder.
The left 'needs to accept the confrontation of ideas,' Segolene's special advisor Julian Dray told RFI radio yesterday after La Candidate went a bid mad in an RTL interview, suggesting an Armageddon stype situation if Sarkozy is elected. He said he is not 'one of those who consider that Nicolas Sarkozy is a threat to the French Republic and tomorrow we will have to form a resistance.'
Sarkozy puts it like this (in an interview with France Inter four days ago):
'The French left has this fantastic idea that anyone who does not share exactly their ideas is illegitimate. If I am not in agreement with them, I am brutal. I am a danger for democracy for the sole reason that I do not have leftwing ideas.'
A fairly healthy, if a little limpid, economy has helped France avoid difficult choices about how to adapt to a changing world. If its leaders avoid a real discussion, then the country is just one recession away from being forced to face up to it.

Can Women Play Chess?

Tonight's long awaited and much-hyped televised debate - the only head-to-head of the campaign - was organised like a chess match. The mis-en-scene was dominated by four concave plastic triangles at the end of which was a giant counter. Segolene, Sarkozy and the presenters PPDA and Arlette Chabot sat at the other sides. All around them were images of the Elysee palace.
French law requires each candidate speaks for an exactly equal period of time - and it quickly became clear that PPDA and Arlette's main concern was watching the counter to ensure Segolene didn't overspeak. Forget the quality of debate or good TV, what mattered was the seconds. When it came to conclude, Segolene had a three minute lead over Sarkozy. He generously allowed her to keep some of his time.
The debate itself - two hours and fourty minutes - was not uninteresting and 20 million viewers tuned in. Segolene was a little shrill, dressed authoritatively in a black suit with a white shirt and on the attack from the outset. Sarkozy was Mr. Relax. Playing the perfect gentleman, he was unmoved by her emotional outburts to which he calmly responded point by point. Typically, she was unable to justify how she would finance her generous projects, promising vaguely a tax on share transactions to cover the burgeoning pension bill. Still she managed to catch Sarkozy out a couple of times, and succeeded in her aim of coming across as a strong woman.
The spiciest bit came when Segolene whipped herself up into a lather over the treatment of handicapped children in schools. Sarkozy, who reputedly struggles with controlling his temper, told her to cool it.
'To be President of the Rpublic, you have to be calm.'
'No I won't calm down. This is a justified anger,' she declared righteously.
Disappointingly, there was no big debate of ideas, rather a squabble over details and competence.
The most disappointing part came at the end however, when Segolene told France why they should vote for her.
'I know that for some of you, it's not evident to think a woman can take on the highest responsibility.' Comparing herself to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, she said: 'I think it's possible.'
At this stage in the game, the sex of the candidate should not be an issue. If a woman can be as competent as a man, which I strongly believe to be the case, there should be no need to appeal for voters to pick you just because you are not a man.

May 1: Segomania

The Charlety stadium in Southern Paris was litterally overflowing with Segolene supporters when I arrived for her last big public meeting. People were scaling the fences and vaulting into the grounds while nervous security personel looked on helpless. Fearing a crush, the organisers appealed to the prefecture and closed the gates, prompting an outcry and a lot of pushing and shoving. It took me over an hour to get past the security at the press entrance, where journalists were being allowed in one by one.
'I hope she runs her country better than this,' remarked one colleague. He was one of the polite ones.
Inside, Socialists blamed foul play by the interior ministry for deliberate lack of crowd control.
Around 40,000 supporters madde it into the stadium, leaving 20,000 outside. Segolene won then, beating the measly 20,000 UMP supporters who showed up on Sunday to cheer on Sarkozy at his final meeting in the Bercy concert hall. Had they turned up for a free concert with rock stars Yannick Noah, Benabar, Indochine, and Les Tetes Raides? You might have thought so when Segolene arrived in her trademark white suit, twinned with an orange t-shirt (trying to reach out to Bayrou supporters?). She had hardly begun her speech, when she was drowned out by 'Segolene, president' and 'we are going to win.' But like so often, she appeared unable to harness and channel this energy. Instead of urging the holidaymakers to enjoy the concert, she started to talk politics, prompting a small exodus. People, many of whom were rally virgins, may have got bored. They might also have got fed up with the mediocre sound system which made it almost impossible to make out what she was saying most of the time.
'The Socialists always try to do things on the cheap and it shows,' said one colleague.
Segolene was best when she picked up on the whiff of the '68 that Sarkozy tried to crush last week.
In his speech at Bercy he claimed 'everything is the fault of May 68,' Segolene said. 'He got stung by which fly? Because May 68, it was 40 years ago!' She accused him of wanting to create a 68-style revolt, giving him the excuse to crush it. She told the crowd, where several rainbow flags were flying, that she stands for peace. And flashed her radiant smile.

May 1: Another World

A completely different Labour day festival was taking place a few metro stops from Place de l'Opera and the National Front. Long haired hippies danced with sympathisers of Sri Lanka's Tamils and Zapatsitas in Che Guevara t-shirts as an enourmous march led by the CGT union left Place de la Republique. The Turkish unions made a lot of noise protesting against imperialism, racism and many other things besides. 'Vive le Maxisme, Leninisme,' read one poster. Young people distributed Trotskyiste newsletters, and I bumped into my friend from Olivier Besancenot's rally who occupying a Canadian factory to protest job cuts. Lutte Ouvriere stickers urged proletarians of all countries to unite. Communists of all colours were out in force, and capitalists were clearly not welcome.
'Together, let's fight neoliberalism,' read another banner.
Banners urged the end to genetically modified foods with the marvellous phrase: 'Les Vaches Folles du capital: Ne Soyons Pas Les Veaux.'
There was a distinct whiff of rebellion in the air, tamed only by the faint smell of cannabis. Was there anything that united this disparate and international group? Despite a deliberate lack of political direction from the unions, stickers urging 'Stop Sarko' decorated the bottoms of pretty girls and the chests of bearded men the length and breadth of the march.
'Anti-Sarko, it's in my genes,' read one poster, a reference to his belief that homosexuality and depression are hereditary.
There is something quite charming about the other-wordliness of the march, whose slogans seemed to belong to another era. And something quite remarkable about the number of people of all ages and colours who showed up (60,000 according to the CGT, 25,000 according to the police). Being labour day, it did have one thing in common with the National Front march. Street sellers offered the same lilly-of-the-valley that decorated Le Pen's botton hole, and marchers from both events sought sustenance in the form of barbequed sausage.

May 1: Manhandled by the FN

I began my May 1 paying hommage to Joan of Arc, together with several thousand National Front supporters. It was a beautiful sunny day, and the atmosphere was charged as the recently defeated Jean Marie Le Pen arrived, sporting lilly-of-the-valley in his button hole, for the Front's annual ceremony. The crowd was a noxious mix of war veterans sporting rows of medals set off by berets and flags, old ladies in pearls and heavy mascara, and skinheads. The heavies from Front's own security service, the DPS, glared menacingly at the crowd which they were iin charge of controlling as they marched to the Opera.
Still, I was quite enjoying myself -- until I was manhandled by Alain Vizier, Le Pen's director of communications. Directed by members of the DPS inside the cordon protecting Le Pen's cortege, I was happily chatting with some of the veterans such as Michel Bayuet, a regional councillor for the Yvelines suburb, who had two youths ejected from the march for refusing to remove the headscarves that were obscuring part of their faces.
'It's a provocation,' the charming grand-father told me. 'They are skinheads. They come to our meetings only to cause trouble.'
Then I spied Vizier, who I had met at a dinner a few months back, smiled at him and made my way over to say hello.
'Get out of here,' he yelled at me. 'You have been here for half an hour. Get out, get out.'
'Ok I am going,' I said rather taken aback. ' I just wanted to ask you how many people are on the march.'
'Get out,' he said.
'You can't tell me how many people are here?'
'Au revoir,' he said, gabbing my arm and pushing me away from him. 'You work for which media? American I presume?'
I nodded. He was hurting my arm. 'That doesn't surprise me.'
Shocked, I started to write down his insults as I made my way out of the cortege. Once outside I stood for a few seconds, scribbling furiously. He ran over to me, thrusting his card in my face. 'Voila. So you know who I am.'
'I know who you are,' I replied. 'We had dinner together.'
He pushed his card down the front of my shirt and returned to his place in front of Jean-Marie.
I had seen more courtesy from the skinheads.
'He must be jumpy about the result,' journalists who usually follow Le Pen told me. 'He's not normally like that.'

Le Pen supporters mostly blamed Sarkozy for stealing a million voters from Le Pen, reducing his score to 10 percent in last Sunday's elections. Some blamed Marine for softening the party line, appealing beyond the traditional party base to the children of immigrants.
'He's better paying attention to people who are French by blood rather than people who are French through immigration,' said Gaetan Heneman, 21, a labourer from Dunkirk who had travelled to Paris on his own for the ceremony.
'A nice National Front voter doesn't interest anyone,' an elderly gentleman told me.
Marine, the butt of most of this criticism, brushed off the nay-sayers who she claimed 'are the chewing gum that has been stuck to our heels for years.'
Loyalty to Le Pen remained high. The crowd waited eagerly for instruction in how to vote for the second round.
'We are not sheep, we are faithful,' said one young man from the Midi Pyrenees. 'We will do what he tells us to do.'
His advice was largely anticipated. 'We want Le Pen not Sarkozy. Jean-Marie not Segolene,' the crowds chanted.
Le Pen gave them what they wanted, urging his supporters to 'abstain massively' from Sunday's vote.

`Le Pen holds the key to the election,' said Jean-Marc Lech, co-Chairman of polling company Ipsos. 'Nothing would be worse for Sarkozy if the le Pen voters don't go out to vote.' He said the Le Pen voters who decamped to Sarkozy were the wealthy, leaving Jean-Marie with a more obedient core of support.

The door to Eastern Europe opens a crack

As the U.K. fills up with migrant Polish workers (prompting some towns to put up road signs in Polish to prevent lost lorry drivers reversing into their cabbage patches - and my cousin to consider changing her name to Vandorski to improve her chances of finding a job), France is planning to crack the door a little further open to the newest members of the EU.
Les Echos reported the government is extending the list of professions seeking Eastern European workers, stressing that the jobs are not only 'non qualified and unattractive.' Engine mechanics, electricians, chefs and computer professionals figure on the new list of jobs where demand is greater than supply. Plumbers, despite the shocking prices demanded in Paris, were not on the list for obvious reasons, given the election is only days away.
A latent admission perhaps, that given its aging population France will rely on immigrant labour to pay the future pensions of its workforce? Not likely. Restrictions won't be fully removed until 2011 when everyone will be used to the exotic sound of Eastern European accents on the street. Curious timing though, this annoucement...

Sarkozy Blames the Students

Sarkozy, who seems to have developed a penchant for grabbing his heart these days, wouldn't have been much of a laugh as a student I imagine. Films of him as a young UMP activist have been widely broadcast, but the question today must be asked. Did he leave any time for having fun?
Much as I disagreed with the CPE protestors, had I been a student I would surely have joined them. Because marching when you are a student is fun. And you can tell your children about it when you are older and your youthful ideals have gone a bit hazy. When I was at university, the overwhelming consensus was that the time of great causes and strong beliefs (the 1970s) was over. People didn't care anymore. They just watched Eastenders and smoked dope instead. Still, I jumped at the chance of waving a banner at the then Education Minister Harriet Harman, even if I didn't give a toss about why.
We forget that it was also a little like that in 1968, when French students riots provoked by the refusal to let men into women's dormitories escalated into a full scale social movement that forced De Gaulle to dissolve parliament and call new elections. Still, the gloss of history should mean any self-respecting once-upon-a-time student pay respect to the 68ards and their glory days.
Not Sarkozy. He attacked them today in a star-studded Paris rally, blaming the 'moral crisis' in France on the social protests over 40 years ago. 'The heirs of '68 have imposed the idea that anything goes,' he told a 20,000-strong crowd. They led France to the false belief 'that a hierarchy of values doesn't exist.'
Oo-er. He IS beginning to sound a little scary....

What should you do if your friend votes Sarkozy?

This was the question posed to me on Saturday night: If a friend trusted you with his or her procuration to vote, but you disagreed with their choice, should you follow their instructions?
Pressed a little further, and it was revealed that the person in question had been asked to vote Sarkozy, which they felt was like unleashing a plague of locusts on France. A moral dilema. Respect the trust of a friend, or contribute to the downfall of your country.
For me there was no question. If your friend trusted you with a task which you agreed with, there is no other option but to carry it out. You can try to persuade them otherwise, but ultimately, the choice is not yours. Not everyone felt the same, however. And I realised that not being French means my passions don't run quite as high.

The Sego-Bayrou non debate

In the end, there wasn't much of a debate. The debate about the debate was more heated. Should she? Shouldn't she? Will it break election broadcast rules?
In the end she did, much to the irritation of Sarkozy who thought she should be paying attention to him, and only him. Even election opponents get jealous, it would seem.
Amid bewildered American tourists, Bayrou and Segolene installed themselves in the ballroom of a central Paris hotel and let the BFM cameras roll. They sat down next to each other to underline the fact that this was not a traditional political showdown. The questions were incredibly earnest and serious, revealing disagreements on everything from the 35-hour week to the state's role in the economy. The smiling couple insisted the gaps between them could be bridged.
Yet if Segolene caves in to Bayrou, what does she gain? Most of his 29 MPs have already come out in favour of Sarkozy, and his electorate are volatile and will make up their own minds.
'He's like the a commander in battle whose troops have deserted,' said Stephane Baumont, a professor at the university of Toulouse. 'Bayrou has been inflated by the media.'

Sarkozy Gaffes Too

Sarkozy, despite being a man, sometimes gets things wrong. Though being a man, people don't tend to make as much of a fuss as they do when Segolene gaffes. In a televised interview on France 2 last night, Sarkozy said that Gordon Brown likes to meddle with interest rates to boost the economy and keep the pound under control.
'I like England very much,' he told Charles Bremner, the Scottish reporter from the Times about the Bank of England, a Scottish invention, and the Scots-born Brown. 'As soon as growth slows, Chancellor Gordon Brown and the central bank governor meet and decide to cut interest rates to make the pound fall.'
After decades of disastrous boom and bust economics, blamed on government meddling in the economy, Brown made the U.K. central bank independent 10 years ago. It was one of his first acts as chancellor, and is credited for much of the healthiness of the U.K. economy today. Much as he likes to tinker, Brown has largely left the central bank to do its job without interference.
I've been told by many French diplomats and politicians that the reason France is so critical of the European Central Bank is because it doesn't have the same tradition of central bank independence as Germany. But neither does Britain. We set the bank free because politicians realised it was better leaving the job to professionals. France's state-centric tendencies makes it difficult for politicians to surrender control, but they would do well to consider it. Given the extent of economic ignorance in France, it is quite incredible they think they could do a better job.

Why is Bayrou still here?

Why is he still here? Bayrou is having a remarkable effect on the second round of the presidential election, despite as Sarkozy pointed out on France 2's A Vous de Juger last night, being a loser. Sure, his 6 million voters will decide the outcome of the second round. But a curious spectacle is set to take place tomorrow: a televised debate between Segolene and the man she defeated in the first round. Either she is making a fantastic gamble given her gap in opinion polls with Sarkozy (who is crowing that more people voted for him in the first round than for General de Gaulle in 1965). Or, as some in the Socialist party are mumbling, she is inflating Bayrou's importance in a desperate bid to woo his traditionally centre-right voters away from Sarkozy.
The problem is that the smell tends to linger when you hang out with losers, and by agreeing to a televised debate with Bayrou, Segolene may well have sullied her stature. The duel is to be held late Saturday morning on BFM television, a time and television station unlikely to attract vast amounts of viewers ahead of a long weekend. The impression is that Segolene has marginalized herself by putting her ideas on par with those of Bayrou. She is not projecting the image of a strong leader that French voters tend to lap up.
Still, Segolene's flirtation with Bayrou was immediate. While Socialist flunkies were insisting there would be no compromise Sunday evening, Le Point magazine reported she delayed her victory speech to the nation in a vain bid to reach him on the telephone. She publicly reached out to Bayrou on Monday, saying she was 'available' for a public dialogue with him during a rally in the eastern town of Valence. Meanwhile, Sarkozy dangled the carrot of ministerial positions to senior UDF figures who back him.
Bayrou's challenge is to suceed in making the most of his first round score and he isn't ready to back either contender and risk a backlash from his new electoral base. The suspense of his decision ensures he continues to exist.. He gave a press conference Wednesday, where he announced that both candidates had left messages on his mobile phone, but he'd been too busy to call them back. He poured scorn over Sarkozy, comparing him with former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Sarkozy's cosiness with the media, and his 'taste for intimidation and threats,' aggravated by 'his temperament' makes him a megalomaniac, Bayrou said. Royal, on the other hand, is merely misguided 'perpetuating the illusion that the state can take care of everything.' Sarkozy is a danger to democracy, Segolene to the economy, he said.
With the June parliamentary elections in mind, Bayrou announced the creation of a new 'democrat' party. His bet is clearly to unite his current UDF party (whose 29 lawmakers in the outgoing 577-seat parliament owe their poisitions to no-competition deals with the UMP) with disgruntled members of the Socialists. The success of such a bid depends on a strong defeat of Royal in next Sunday's elections. Backing Sarkozy may have made more sense, but either Sarko ain't taking the bait, or there is something about Sarkozy that Bayrou can't stomach. Leaving him to debate common ground with the woman he needs to loose.

Ce soir ou jamais

A truly fabulous television show. Ce soir ou jamais by Frederic Taddei.
The subject:
The French Election seen from abroad.
Why it was fabulous?
I should perhaps been impressed by my illustrious fellow guests - which included Goncourt Prize Winner Tahar Ben Jelloun and popular Cuban writer Zoé Valdès. But, perhaps betraying my inner Anglo-Saxonne, it was the mise-en-scene rather than the quality of debate which excited me. Entering the studio felt like being granted acess to an exclusive club. White fringes hid a mirror-ball interior decorated by impossibly fashionable and skinny people lounging around drinking champagne out of white or black opaque glasses. They spent much of the debate speaking to each other, but their lack of interest didn't bother me too much. I was too busy marvelling the fact that they had come to a television show on which I was speaking. I would occasionally zone out of the serious debate to admire someone's outfit, which only once made my mind race to find something to say when Taddei posed me a question I wasn't expecting.
My press attache had instructed me to speak up as much as possible.
'Every time you do your name and your book appears on the screen,' she told me as we sneaked under the heavy curtain to get my make up done.
I was perhaps a little over-enthusiastic against the largely male guests who were largely bemoaning the lack of intellectualism in the presidential debate.
'The intellectuals are despairing' of Segolene, Ben Jelloun bemoaned.
'So what,' I cried. 'This is not the election of the president of the intellectuals. The next president of France will be elected by all of France and many people have really problems which quite naturally they want their next president to fix.'

I thought I'd done reasonably well, holding my own againt the intellectuals. But when I sought support from my fellow Anglo-Saxon Peter Gumbel, author of French Vertigo and a 'grand reporter' at Time magazine, it was lacking.
'Hello, I know your boss,' I said bouncily after the show had finished, referring to Time magazine's Paris and Brussels bureau chief. Bad start.
'He is not really my boss,' Gumbel said sniffily. 'I work pretty much independently and am now working on several projects.'
'Oh really,' I said. 'What?'
'Secret projects,' he said. 'Excuse me, I've just got to...' and then he high-tailed it away from me.

Friends assured me later that I didn't make too much of an idiot of myself.
'I was just so impressed to see one of my friends on Taddei's show that I can't really be objective,' said one. 'I was too busy looking at what you were wearing. But you looked natural. You were great!'

Fairness vs Egalite

Fairness versus Egalite: That's how Bill Wells, an expert from the UK Department of Work and Pensions, described the difference between the British and French social security systems. Diplomatic speak during a briefing at the British Embassy in Paris for how the egalite of the French system helps everyone, including a lot of people who don't need it. While the British system focuses help on those who need it most.
'From a UK perspective the French system seems to focus on quite a lot of groups of people who might not need their help,' he said. 'The balance seems towards the advantaged as opposed to the disadvantaged.'
In the English, er uhum, the British system (even civil servants slip up sometimes), he said 'there has been an increasing focus on the most disadvantaged people. There is always a roundabout of jobs. The government sees its role as standing next to the roundabout of jobs and helping people onto it.'
The biggest difference in employment rates between France and the UK is among young people, women, and old people - the most vulnerable groups of the workforce - who find it harder to get a job in France.
The way the welfare system is funded can also have an effect on employment, he said. France, like the U.S., is based on 'social insurance' levying payments from employers and employees. The U.K. funds its benefits from the general tax pool. The OECD says the social insurance model is damaging to employment, Wells said, adding casually that the UK has the highest employment rate of all G7 countries. Insurance payments are regressive, he said. Because they are set at a fixed percentage of income, they punch the biggest hole in the poorest people's pockets. 'This means that people don't go to look for work.'
In response to criticisms that the British employment figures are supported by an abundance of McJobs - low paid, unstable and part-time - Wells said that the British system doesn't make 'value judgements' on different types of jobs. Students, mothers with children, those nearing retirement age, may wish for a job that doesn't come with the restrictive constraints that come from a standard contract. One size doesn't fit all. And less regulation can even lead to better jobs.
'The rules regarding temporary work are the most liberal in the world, yet there is a low level of temporary work,' he said of the UK system. 'Restrictions on permanant work means employers divert their attention to temporary work.'
'We don't have a code de travail,' he said. 'We have employment legislation which you could probably put on one page.'
Still, young people get more help than in France. And they have more security. Villepin's proposed CPE contract 'was less restrictive than the UK system,' he said because the period you can be fired with no reason is longer.

Editorial Lines

Three news weeklies were published early this week giving their take on the first round. All were of the opinion that the second round is Sarkozy's to loose and Segolene's to win, but their presentation was subtly, and perhaps tellingly, different.
Le Point: 'Sarkozy, Can He Loose?'
L'Express: 'Can he be beaten?' imposed over a picture of a pensive Sarkozy.
Le Nouvel Observateur: 'Can she beat Sarkozy?' next to a picture of a smiling Segolene.

Liberation was more outspoken in its political preference. 'Ten Good Reasons Not to Vote Sarkozy' screamed the front page today.

Traitor

Deception totale. Eric Besson, the former economics guru of the Socialist party, yesterday shared a stage with the man he once called a 'neoconservative American with a French passport,' delivering a mea culpa on how he had participated in the diabolisation of Sarkozy. True, his defection shouldn't come as a surprise after he savaged Segolene's competencies in a book 'Who knows Madam Royal,' published a month after he slammed the door shut on the Socialists. Yet colleagues at the Dijon rally said he looked uncomfortable. It must be strange to de fetted by the people you've plotted so long to defeat. Still, he didn't flinch, telling the crowd he believed and hoped that Sarkozy will win.
'I am a man of the left who will support and vote for a man who incarnes the right,' he said to cheers. Introducing the UMP champion, he signed off with: 'Forza Nicolas et allez la France.'

Little memories

Cycling home tonight up the steep Avenue Simon Bolivar, I got beeped at by a scooter.
'Yes, it's hard work on a bike,' I said, smiling.
'You don't remember me,' said my old cavist from when I lived at the bottom of the hill in the 10th.
'But of course,' I replied to his helmet. 'How are you? I live in the 20th now. That's why I've not been in recently.'
"I saw you on the television,' he said. 'You wrote a book.'
'Yes,' I said delighted.
'Congratulations. It's a tough ride up to the 20th. Good luck.'
'Thanks - and buy the book,' I said to him as he blasted away from me up the hill.

That's just one of the wonderful little memories that make writing a book worthwhile.

Sego vs Sarko: The British Choice

Difficult to imagine Segolene or Sarkozy running for election in the U.K. Thankfully, for many British people, they are seeking election in France. Still, here's a sample of Brit voxpops on the French campaign.

The Feminist view?
My money is on Sarkozy. I think a lot of British people are still recovering from Thatcher and there is still a feeling that women can be manipulated whereas Sarkozy seems a bit of a `bully boy,' strong-willed and determined.
Do men fancy having the `soft' option woman to lead them and women want the `strong' man? British people might think France a bit frivolous if they vote in a woman. Don't the French want France to look strong?

Left vs Right:
As a labour voter all my life I now don't know where I stand politically. Blair seems to be a conservative to me and I warm to David Cameron although I have never supported any conservative ever. My husband the Tory and me the Socialist seem to becoming closer in our politics. I'm not sure of the differences any more. We all want to end poverty, stop global warming and live in peace!

Island mentality:
There is an election in France?

Image politics:
We think that the French are more and more imitating Blair's style- all about the personality and not really anything else - it seems a retrograde step - look at Blair!

Sunday's News Bulletin:
I missed the piece on France, but from the news I did see, concern in
Scotland at least was more to do with sewage [in the Firth of Forth] than
Segolene or Sarkozy. Londoners were more up themselves about how they had
organised supplies of water better for the Marathon there than last
weekend's one in Paris.
Factor out Gordon B and the future is all charm - imagine David Cameron and Segolene at the summits ! What a [schmoozy] picture...
Anyhow, thank goodness she's in there for Round 2.

The skeptic:
Here is a nice British view:
I personally couldn't give a shit about any general erection (sic) apart from my own one !!!!!
Nothing against France, same for everywhere. It is just a scramble for power and position and in today's world there is not much anyone can do to make any
changes.
I suppose though it is a necessary mechanism against despotism - important to change the asshole in power for another asshole every five years.

Youth and jobs:
I think it is very exciting to have young, dynamic candidates for a change in the French election and this election appears to be idealogical decision time for france. From our viewpoint here in Dublin, it is time for France to think about employment reform and how to tap into the wasted resource of the unemployed in France. It is not clear to me that the Socialists have any new ideas on this.

From one of the rare Tories in Scotland:
Sarko has all the right, plus half the centre on which to call for the 2ième
tour, whereas Royal has only half the centre in reserve. Ergo Sarko should win.
Big question: why was the 3rd way rejected? Second big question: what can WE do
in UK to achieve a similar turn-out at the polls?

CNBC, LCP

After Segolene's victory rally had petered out, I thought I'd been able to easily grab a cab home. But it was one of those nights. Each time I saw a taxi with its light on, either someone got there before me, or when I said I wanted to go to the 20th, the cab driver shook his head and drove off. Eventually I gave up and called a cab. Waiting my Madeleine for it to arrive, I was offered a lift from a man who obviously thought I was a prostitute.
'Non merci,' I said to him, holding up my computer in an attempt to show him there could be other reasons for girls to hang out alone on street corners at 2 am.
About four hours after I got home, Donato called to get me out of bed for my first appointment of the day. I was booked to talk about my book on CNBC's Squawk Box Europe with Geoff Cutmore at 8h20. Live in front of the Eiffel Tower.
'You were bellisima,' said Donato, who watched from Italy.
Afterwards I walked in beautiful sunshine away from the Champs de Mars across the Esplanade des Invalides to the studios of La Chaine Parliamentaire, right in the heart of the National Assembly. I debated the foreign reaction to last night's results with Ted Stanger, author of Sacres Francais!, a best-selling dissection of French life by a fellow Anglo-Saxon. And more delighted still to hear he'd heard of my book!

A Short Lived Victory Feeling

I spent election night at the Socialist party HQ, next to the Musee d'Orsay on Paris' left bank, waiting to see whether voters would favour Segolene or Bayrou as the second choice to Sarkozy. Victory for Segolene would help her party heal its wounds after their humiliuating defeat in 2002 against Le Pen. Failure could well mean self combustion for the party that still has problems accepting the market economy - or at least admitting that it has.
Luckily for her, and perhaps women politicians in general, she did her party justice, coming second to Sarkozy with around 26 percent of the vote to his 30 percent - a difference of about 2 million voters. With the vote on the far right and left squeezed, the 6.6 million who ticked bayrou's box will determine who becomes France's next president.
By the time I arrived at 6 p.m., polls were already suggesting Segolene had a comfortable lead over Bayrou. Still, at 8 p.m. when the exit polls were announced, crowds engaged in the requisite cheering, screaming and flag waving.
`Victory is possible,' rejoiced Jean-Luc Melenchon, a senator and Fabius supporter, who had briefly flirted with the far-left after Royal's selection last year. He claimed Bayrou supporters would be more inclined to join the anti-Sarkozy movement than vote for the former interior minister's scary ulta-liberal vision for France.
Royal left her supporters to celebrate by themselves for at least 90 minutes, allowing me to chat happily with Mr. X, who made no mention of the relevations in my book of his proposition eight months ago. Had he read the reviews? Or noted my recent absence from the campaign? I didn't ask.
Eventually Madame popped up on television screens to make her victory speech from her rural constituency in Melle. In a stiff white suit, she used her hands to try and squish any jubilation from the crowds which she addressed like a school principal. She called for voters to help her ``make France advance without brutilizing it.''
The immediate question: would she be seeking a deal with Bayrou?
`This is not a Scottish election,' Patrick Menucci, one of her closest aides and a street-savy former car salesman from Marseilles, told me. `There is no proportionality. It's a presidential election. We are not changing our line. We
are not negotiating with anyone.'
For how long I wonder?
Around 10.30 p.m. Hollande and other party grandees began trickling back from the television studios where they'd been defending their vision for France. Outside, Rue Solferino was full of young people, waving flags in line with Segolene's patriotic wishes and being entertained by a DJ. When it began raining around 1 a.m., they transformed the cardboard campaign banners into hats and carried on dancing.
Four hours after her first victory speech, Segolene addressed the Paris crowd in the same white suit, though visibly more relaxed.
`Segolene Presidente,' chanted the beer drinking youngsters.
`Ouiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii, ouiiiiiiiiiiii, ouiiiiiiiiiiii, write it down, ouiiiiiiiiiiiiii,' one screamed behind me as I scribbled on my notepad.
'The battle starts tonight,' she said from the DJ's stage. 'It's time to bring people together, create a dynamic.'
Inside, the team that accompanied her from Melle were less enthusiastic. Having studied the numbers (An Ipsos poll conducted five minutes after polls closed gave sarkozy a clear 54-46 lead) they were worried about their ability to attract the traditionally right-leaning Bayrou supporters after Segolene's campaign from the left.
'We've done better than Jospin,' urged Socialist party officials to boost flagging moral of Segolene's staff. `Mitterrand didn't do any better in 1981.' Segolene's people nodded weakly, picked up their suitcases, and wheeled them into the darkness to catch some valuable sleep before the gruelling second-round campaign trail begins.

Radio bo-bo

Tonight, I was Patrick-Leon Emile's guest on Radio Aligre, which friends explained to me as Radio Bo-Bo.
'Everyone listens to it on Canal Saint Martin,' I was told.
Fantastic. My key audience.
Before the interview, Emile told me he'd been in a bookshop an hour before the show when someone asked for a copy of my book. I was delighted. It help ease the pain when I discovered I was going to be talking on my own for an hour, broken only by two songs.
'Help,' I said to myself. 'I haven't got nearly enough anecdotes prepared.'
In fact, the interview turned out to be nothing like I had experienced before - we covered everything from whether I had plans to write another book, to how I found time to write Schzophrenie Francaise.
'I took my inspiration from your prime minister,' I said. 'If he has time to write for an hour before checking in to run the country, I told myself I can do it.'
For the first time, an interviewer was interested in me, rather than what I had to say. It was quite un-nerving as I was totally unprepared. But very pleasant.
Created in 1981, Radio Aligre claims to be one of the last independent FM radio stations in the Paris region. It spurns advertisements, existing on hand outs from cultural benefactors, including, bien sur, the government (via the swocial affairs ministry). The studios were grotty in a kind of underground sort of way, buried in Montreuil, a corner of the 11th I didn't know. If the cafe-concert going on at the metro station when I visited is a regular event, I'll be back.

What France Wants?

With polling day, tomorrow, I thought I'd share the original 'politic-fiction' ending to my book. On a Republique Francaise plane returning from a NATO summit in Riga last November, I mulled what France wants from its next president....


A low rumbling can be heard along rue du Faubourg St Honore. Deep murmurings reach as far as the Elysee palace. The windows of Prada, Chloe and other chic boutiques have been boarded up and the valet of the Hotel Crillon has been given the day off. The road of the super-rich has been re-claimed by a raggle-taggle mob of farmers, hippies and new-age savers of the planet who fill the pavement as the tractors trundle past. The sweet but distinctive smell of marijuana fills the air.

In the courtyard of the Elysee palace, the Republican guard stand motionless, expectant. Plumes of dark horses hair arch over their shined and buffed helmets then hang down their backs. A red carpet stretches between them from the palace steps all the way down to heavy iron gates on the street. Inside, Chirac sits heavily in his favourite arm-chair, toying nervously with the nuclear button which in a few minutes he will entrust to the newly elected President of the Republic. He brushes the dust absent-mindedly off its leather cover, until an aide tugs his arm.
‘Attention Monsieur le President,’ he says.
Chirac, surprised in the middle of a deep thought, looks up and wordlessly puts the button on the table. A heavy cloud of apprehension matches the humidity in the streets outside.

Slowly, the gates of the Elysee palace are heaved open, dragging on the pebbles as if resisting an unwanted intrusion. The noise from the street becomes louder and louder. Then suddenly, it stops. There is a lull, filled only by the sound of a solo tractor manoeuvring round a tight corner into the palace courtyard. The chunky American tractor scratches the gates as it turns, before churning up the red carpet beneath its wheels. Unperturbed, the tractor grinds its way towards the steps of the Elysee palace where it stops. The cortège of tractors on the street outside remains silent and menacing.

A door opens and out from the tractor strides Jose Bove. He takes a moment to light his pipe, his walrus moustache flickering in the wind. He looks up as the Republican guard raise their instruments and launch into a rendition of the Marseillaise. He jumps down from the tractor and starts singing along to the music.
‘Debout, les damnes de la terre,’ he sings in a deep, throaty voice. Bove is not singing the French National anthem, but the Internationale, a combat song of working classes all over the world. The band continues nervously.
‘Then come comrades rally!
And the last fight let us face,’ sings Bove.

There is a long pause after he has finished. Chirac, waiting silently to greet his successor at the doors of the palace, eventually makes his way down the carpeted steps.
‘Bonjour Monsieur le President,’ he says.
Bove says nothing. He looks around at the stupefied Republican guard.
‘Come on Jacques, let’s get this over with,’ he says, taking the older man’s arm and guiding him back up the steps.
‘What do we do now?’ he asks once the two men are inside.

‘There are some things I need to tell you,’ says Chirac. ‘Top secret things. Like where France’s armed forces are active in the world, and where our secret agents are mobilized.’
‘I am against war,’ said Bove. ‘Tell me where there is fighting and I will put a stop to it.’
‘But..’ says Chirac.
‘No buts,’ says Bove. ‘I am President now.’

At the end of the meeting, Chirac hands him a list of his closest collaborators whose next posting the incoming president traditionally approves.
‘What’s this?’ said Bove.
‘It’s a the list of appointments that I would like you to make.’
Bove looks down at the names. He looks up at Chirac and staring him in the eyes, he crushes the note in his hand and throws it on the floor.
‘But,’ starts Chirac.
‘Be careful,’ warns Bove. ‘Or you will be spending your last days in jail.’

Bove accompanies Chirac out on to the steps of the palace. Chirac turns to shake his hand, but Bove is already on his way back inside. Looking up at the cameras, Chirac walks slowly down the steps, across the courtyard and its crumpled red carpet, and out onto the street. There is no official car waiting to take him away. Only tractors housing hostile looking farmers.
Chirac smiles at them. They look coldly back.
‘But I fought so hard for you,’ Chirac said to a weather-hardened soul hanging out of his green wheat-cutting machine. The farmer looked at him, emotionless. ‘In the European Union, with the common agricultural policy,’ pleads Chirac. ‘At the World Trade Organisation.’ Then slowly, faltering. ‘Did none of it matter?’ The farmer looks away.
The former president of the Republic turns back towards the Republican Guard, who he is relieved to see are still standing by the palace gates.
‘Where is my car?’ he enquired. ‘I thought it would be waiting for me here.’
‘I’ll call you a taxi,’ said a sympathetic officer. ‘Your best bet is to go up to rue de la Boetie to avoid the tractors. Shall I get it to pick you up from the UMP headquarters?’
Chirac shuddered. ‘Not from there,’ he said. ‘It is ok. I will find my way.’
And with that, the seventh president of the Fifth Republic walked alone, his head held high, past the tractors. His strides were regular and calm, in contrast with the raging incomprehension buzzing inside his head. He thought his legs would give way, but somehow he made it to the only refuge he could think of. He knocked at the door of the British Embassy.
‘They didn’t even let me have a car,’ he said simply, when the door was cautiously opened a crack. The doorkeeper called the ambassador who immediately left his lodgings to greet the former president. He heaved the door open himself, and Chirac stumbled inside. The ambassador took Chirac in his arms, where the former president immediately broke down.
‘How did this happen,’ he sobbed.

It happened the day that Philippe Douste-Blazy, the joker persuaded by Chirac to run against Sarkozy, insulted the former partner of his wife, ecologist Nicolas Hulot. On the plane back from a rally in Marseilles, Douste made illusions to journalists about Hulot’s ability to satisfy a woman.
‘There are real men and then there are those who get their kicks out of hugging trees,’ Douste was widely reported to have said.
Hulot immediately aligned himself with Bove, bringing Arlette Laguiller with him to form an alternative ecological movement. The remaining candidates on the far left, Marie-George Buffet and Olivier Besancenot, crumpled after a televised slanging match over who was the best communist. Royal lost her leftist credentials after a British tabloid published photos of her locked in an embrace with Blair, supposedly tutoring her on electoral strategy. Laurent Fabius’ belated bid to supplant her failed when it was revealed he paid wealth tax and lived in a castle. On the centre-right, Francois Bayrou scored marginally more than Sarkozy and Douste who destroyed each other by leaking kinky tales of their rivals’ sexual adventures to political bloggers. As voters turned to the internet, the mainstream press was forced to break its vow of silence surrounding politicians’ private lives. National Front Leader Jean-Marie Le Pen lapped up disaffected voters propelling him into a second round run off with Bove.

Bove’s first act as president was to enable high-speed internet access in his Larzac home base, making good a regional inequality that had been driving him crazy for years. His second act was to order his farmer friends into the forests to hunt for wild boar. The animals were served on spits at a giant coronation ceremony in Bove’s village of Montredon a few days later. Bolivian Presiident Evo Morales was invited as guest of honour, together with a delegation of native Indian peasants who presented France’s new Asterix with a platter of guinea pig. Manu Chao and Zebda, the alternative rock band from Toulouse, provided the entertainment while Zapatistas from Mexico kept unwanted urban upper class Bobos out. The event was sponsored by Danone, which supplied unlimited Roquefort cheese. So great were the celebrations that Morales missed his plane home and nothing was heard from Bove for well over a week.

His third act as president was to withdraw France from the World Trade Organisation and revoke all existing trade treaties with every country except for Bolivia. Markets for Roquefort cheese evaporated overnight and even a government edict requiring citizens to consume 50 grams each per day was not enough to keep Bove’s friends in the style to which they had become accustomed. He withdrew France from the euro to allow the national bank to start printing money to keep his mates happy, sending prices spiralling out of control.

Just before everyone in France gave up hope, crackly radio broadcasts began to be picked up from across the Channel. Exiled in England, Chirac urged his citizens to resist in stirring speeches reminding France of a time when it was a great nation.
‘Whatever happens, the flame of French resistance mustn’t be extinguished and will not be extinguished,’ he said on Radio London.
He called upon Gerard Royal, an agent of the French secret services and brother of Segolene who successfully obliterated Greenpeace’s New Zealand operations, to intervene. WTO Director General Pascal Lamy arranged for Bove to be arrested on his arrival in Canada for an environmental conference. Royal led a battalion of soldiers allied with the Republican Guard, and Chirac made a final rousing speech before setting sail for France accompanied by the British navy.

Crowds lined the streets for his triumphal return to Paris, cheering as the presidential carriage made it way to the Hotel de Ville. The old warrior looked around him at the sea of people looking desperately to him for a way out of France’s impasse. He paused for a second, savouring the moment. When he took the microphone, ladies swooned in the hot August sunshine.
‘I promise not to change anything ever again,’ he said to whoops and cheers. ‘France is the greatest nation in the world. Vive la Republique! Vive la France!’

For Line: Sciences Po Students Vote Royal

To satisfy Linaloca, who rejects my assertion that French students are awfully conservative, I bring you a Le Monde report of the vote at Sciences Po organised by student body BDE on April 18. Segolene scored 39.8 percent, Bayrou 26.6 percent, Sarkozy 18.7 percent, and Le Pen 4.8 percent.

Random Fan Mail and French Charm

It seems every time I go into a bookshop, it doesn't stock my book.
Am I doing something wrong? I have tons of messages from friends who've picked up a copy in out of the way places, and importantly at the airport (where normally only big-selling books are stocked, according to my publisher), but I have stopped going in bookshops now to avoid disappoinment.
'They must be all sold out,' said a friend kindly.

Whilst I await the sales numbers from my publisher, I am boosting my confidence with some of lovely moments that come from having written a book. Like the mail I got from a student today, enquiring whether I'd answer some questions for her dissertation. She found my book at the airport and now thinks I am an expert worthy of academic research!
My favourite random fan-mail came after an interview I did with RTL.
Laurent told me he likes my vision of French politics, but told me I was wrong on one thing.
'Non l'Ecosse n'est pas un coin perdu d'une Ile pour les francais, mais une tres jolie region a visiter.'
He signed off with this classic comment. 'Je comprends le politicien qui vous a fait des avances car vous etes
resplendissante de joie et de bonne humeur.' Merci Laurent!

Anti-Sarko

He may be the front-runner for the presidential elections, but his naked ambition has cultivated an enthusiatic anti-Sarkozy movement. Copies of Marianne magazine with the cover story 'Sarkozy: what the big media don't dare or don't want to say' have been flying off the shelves this week. The weekly said it had initially sold 300,000 copies and then put an extra 60,000 copies on sale on Wednesday, which quickly diusappeared. It printed an extra 80,000 copies containing the 12-page dossier on Sarkozy, with the conclusion that he represents a 'serious danger' for France. A punchy persona with a short temper and an apparent inability to accept criticism, Sarkozy has in vain tried to shake the image that makes people afraid. He is now claiming his isn't ashamed to provoke fear, telling TF1 that worries about de Gaulle, Mitterrand and Chirac never stopped them being elected. 'Fundemantally it's s good sign,' he claimed on Monday. Hmmmm....

Press: Liberation

To read about my book in Liberation, click here.
Antoine told me his conclusion, that I end up defending the Anglo-Saxon model involuntarily, was designed to get me going.
E: 'Antoine, have you learnt nothing from our debates these past three years? There is no single Anglo-Saxon model.'
A: 'Gotcha. Hehehehehe.'

The Angry Postman

Olivier Besancenot, the cherubic postman taking time off from delivering mail to stand for the second time as a presidential candidate for the Revolutionary Communist League, is angry. And guess who makes him screw up his round tanned face with barely contained rage? The capitalists bien sur.
'We are no more stupid than the capitalists,' he told a crowd of 4,000 very young supporters at the Salle de la Mutualite in Paris' chic fifth arondissement last night. With a sarcastic, bitter smile, he continued. 'If they are capable of stealing from us, then we are capable of stealing from them.' Is he talking about raising taxes I wondered? When he mentioned Johnny Hallyday, a friend of Sarkozy who fled to Switzerland to avoid taxes, the crowd booed.
Olivier is campaigning on the slogan 'our lives are worth more than their profits.' To force the message home, he wore a carton of a smiling granny on his tight black t-shirt. Her wrinkles were red. The blood of the worker.
'They try to tell us that it is the capitalists who create riches,' Olivier continued, raising his pasty white arms in the air. 'It's us,' cried the crowd. Olivier told them if he was president, he would outlaw the firing of workers and the shifting of production to cheaper countries.
Most of those who flocked to see Olivier looked just like him. Very, very young. There was barely a streak of grey hair to be seen. Looking in the faces of the teenagers and students as they raised their hands in a clenched fist and sung the revolutionary song of resistance, L'Internationale, I could see why they came. I could just about remember what it felt like to believe in a better world. But why had the old people come?
Jean Michel de Laroche, 53, a psychiatrist from Paris' fourth arondissment, said he supports Olivier because he embodies justice and equality. I admired his expensive-looking watch and beautifully coiffed grey hair, and enquired whether he'd be willing to share his money with some of the poor students around. 'I’d be happy to pay more taxes, much more.' Still, he must be in a minority. Most people rushed past the volunteers collecting campaign funds at the door without reaching into their pockets.
I understood barely a word of what Michel Lopes, 63, was saying as he thrust a leaflet heralding the workers’ occupation of a printing factory where he used to work into my hands. I made out that he belonged to the generation of '68, when students marched for a change in society, and that he despised the 'liberalisme' of Blair's Britain.
Some people had come as part of their civic duty, touring rallies as they try to make up their mind who to vote for. Documentary maker Antoine Dauer, 30, said he likes Olivier's candour, but questioned whether his economic discourse is realistic. Hedi Taleb, 28, agreed. 'It's total demagogy, but then so are the people who say everything will be solved if we cut taxes.' I asked them what they thought of Tony Blair, and suddenly found myself drawn into a debate about the Anglo-Saxon world. 'We are not all horrible capitalists,' I found myself saying as I put my journalist pen into my handbag. Then I recommended they buy my book....

L'AngloSaxonne Rules The Airwaves

Today, dear reader, I rule the French airwaves. At the risk of sounding like it's all gone to my head, I'd like to share with you the delightful fact that l'AngloSaxonne featured on TV, radio and in the newspapers.
It all began very early in the morning on France Info where Mireille Lemaresquier asked me for my views on les petits candidates - CSA rules mean her radio has to give equal attention to all 12 presidentiables and she'd heard more than enough about Sego, Sarko, Francois and Jean-Marie. At work, I discovered that Jacques Hubert-Rodier had reviewed my book in Les Echos .
His favourite phrase « Viens vite, ô plombier polonais ! Paris a besoin de toi ». All because my French plumber screwed me for 700 euros for two hours work and a few plastic pipes. Then this evening, I had the great honour to be invited on Patricia Loison's evening show on i-tele. She was absolutely lovely, and I enjoyed myself enourmously, not least because the hairdresser gave me a fabulous 1980s coiffe and told me I was beautiful. Which made me feel better after Mireille told me people have been mistaking my fat tummy for the beginnings of a wee baby.

Red Noses

Presidential candidates are sporting red noses everywhere in Paris. For some reason they suit women better - Segolene and Marie-George look fantastic. Perhaps because men have a tendancy to take themselves a wee bit too seriously? In any case, the only candidates to be spared by the red-nose brigade on these posters by the Sorbonne was Sarkozy and Le Pen. What does that say about French students.....

For Balance

After a weekend away, I return to France to see Segolene posters are now being defaced. In this picture, taken by the canal Saint Martin at Jaures metro station, she is sporting a Hitler moustache accompanied by the title Demagogie. It's not the funniest, but I thought I should display it for balance. The best Segolene graffitti I saw was again near my house (I live in a creative neighbourhood obviously). La wannabe premiere dame de France was sporting a red nose. I wanted to take a picture.But I was late for work and cycling downhill fast. Maybe tomorrow.

The Big, Wide Blogging World

Tomorrow I'm coming out of hiding. I'm going to go meet other bloggers and find out how this blogging thing works. How I can see if anyone is reading my drivel. How to make sure my drivel is read. See what inspires others to blog. A quick glance at the blogs of the bloggers inscribed to attend, and they all have something to sell. Saving the environment, justifying Segolene, promoting a film script, making folk back home jealous of the ex-pat lifetsyle. They all seem much more technologically savvy than me. But then that wouldn't be hard.

Still there is more to life than blogging. Like getting engaged. Yes really. I still can't believe it.

Sunday, driving to the airport, went something like this.

D (removing a ring he had given me from my middle finger): why don't you get the jeweller to make this smaller to fit here (placing on wedding finger)
E (joking) Are you asking me to marry you?
D Well I thought we had already agreed that
E (shocked) is this a proposal?
D Che?
E You are asking me to marry you?
D You don't want?
E Yes, but you have to ask me in a way that I have a story to tell my girlfriends.

Later, the sun set in an obligingly romantic-ish fashion as we stood outside the airport munching sandwiches and watching D's car, parked in the quick drop space, to make sure he doesn't get a ticket.
D Emma, will you be my fiance?
E Yes

Bombs

I'm a little scared that something really awful is going to happen this election. After the deadly bombs that killed 33 people in Algeria, Sarkozy warned us today that the terrorist threat is 'real.' What happened in London, Spain and New York could happen here, despite France's opposition of the Iraq war, he said in an interview with Europe 1 radio.
Will Al-Qaeda try to leave its ugly fingerprints on this election, traumatising an already slightly paranoid country? It's a frightfully chilling thought. Not just for the people who could be hurt or killed. But also because of which candidates would benefit. And what this would mean for democracy.

Press: La Croix

To see my interview in La Crois, click here.

France's Briget Jones

'France's Briget Jones' is what the i-Tele interviewer called me.
'I hope you gave him hell for that,' said a friend afterwards. 'You are much more together than Briget.'
If only he knew.... Seeing as the interviewer was my friend Jean-Jerome, who enjoys winding me up, I said nothing.
I got a bit lost on the way to the television studios and stopped in a neighbouring building to ask for directions.
'It's over there,' said the helpful lady, before asking timidly. 'And if you don't mind me asking, who are you?'
Wearing a leather jacket makes for instant stardom I suppose.
I smiled. 'Nobody important,' I assured her. Perhaps I should have said 'Briget Jones.'

Ready, Set, Go!

At midnight on Sunday, France's official election campaign began meaning all 12 candidates are allocated equal air time, preventing any serious debate and providing a real headache for broadcasters. (The schedule of the France 3 news broadcast to which I was invited in the wee hours of Monday morning was shown just after midnight, granting freedom to the late Sunday night political debate that squeezed in just before the deadline). By putting him on a par with Segolene and Sarkozy, this quaint but arcane law has blasted unknowns such as Gérard Schivardi, a mayor from a south-western village who is backed by Trotskyite Worker's Party into public consiousness. The problem with Schivardi is that thanks to his accent, noone has a clue what he is saying. Still, there is something quite wonderful about the fact that Mr. Nobody (with enough buddies among elected officials) can shoot from obscurity with little or no money and participate in the debate. Each voter they attract is someone who failed to be inspired by the main candidates.

Posters for all 12 contenders went up in front of voting centres Monday. By Monday evening the images of Sarkozy and Le Pen had already been defaced at this school just yards from my home.

Student Politics

When I was at university, no self-respecting student campus would have left election posters for a right-wing party unvandalised for long. It's only when we get older and realise we don't want to share all our money with our compatriots that we are supposed to become conservative. I said it during the CPE protests. French students are middle-aged before their years....

Why Do French Toilets Never Come With a Sink?

This blog was intended as a commentary on the French political campaign, continuing where my book Schizophrenie Francaise left off. So I should really be talking about the growing anti-Sarkozy movement that deprived him of chocolate in Lyon last week after protestors held up banners saying he wasn't welcome. Or Le Pen's cloak-and-dagger excursion to Argenteuil, the Paris suburb where in 2005 Sarkozy promised to rid the neighbourhood of scum, a word (in French 'racaille') which has become emblematic of his menacing tough-love approach. Or the book which cost Equal Opportunities Minister Azouz Begag his job. He reveals his dislike for Sarkozy and the former interior minister's inability to control his temper. 'Will Azouz Begag have the right to the same media promotion as Eric Besson?' asked Marianne magazine after it published serveral extracts from the book, a reference to the supposed pro-Sarko bias in the French media. Not if the anecdotes are anything to go by. Compared with Besson's insiders account of Segolene's campaign, Begag's story appears to be more about his lack of political skills and support in Chirac's government.

All very interesting stuff. But what I want to talk about today is a thought that struck me last night. French toilets, certainly in Paris, are mostly seperate from the bathroom and rarely contain a sink. A habit I had become accustomed to, thinking it reflected the small living space of most Parisiens. When my British visitors complained, I thought they were being British and directed them to the sink in the bathroom or the kitchen. When my Italian visitors expressed surprise, I began to think that perhaps it is the French who are different. And then last night, I started to think about toilet arrangements in Belgium or Spain. In each picture of appartments I have known, there was always a sink next to the toilet. Why then, in France, do you have to make a special trip to wash your hands?

Party

He came! I was signing a copy of my book when I heard a familiar voice in my ear.
'Felicitations!'
And there standing next to me was Jerome Bonnafont, Chirac's spokesman.
'You came!' I exclaimed. 'How wonderful!'
I procured a book and signed it with a mention for Franco-British relations which I classed as 'notre vieux rivalitre qui nous tiens chaud au coeur.' After flicking through a few pages, he promised to let me know his opinion when he's read the book.

I was of course delighted by everyone who showed up. Old friends including my flatmate from when I worked in a Tex Mex restaurant at Montparnasse, and a former partner in crime from Brussels. New friends with flowers and smiles. My neighbour and her daughter. Old Fettesians come to show support for the Edinburgh school which we have in common with Tony Blair. French colleagues from the Association de la Presse Presidentielle and British and American colleagues from the Anglo-American press association were out in force.

I had absolutely no idea how many people would be able to come. I had total faith in Felix, who had organised everything and persuaded his mum to loan us her fabulous art gallery for the event, but I was still nervous. The white space of the Gallerie Nikki Diana Marquardt seemed awfully vast when Donato and I stood alone in the middle.

'Taste this,' said Farid as he and his Nouveaux Traiteurs set up the cocktail they'd prepared for around 200 people. It was the only time I had time to eat any of his delicious nibbles.

The first to arrive were my work colleagues, closely followed by Jean-Claude and the team from Gawsewitch. And suddenly I was in a whirl, greeting people with never enough time to chat. After a little more than an hour, we decided to welcome everyone. Donato filmed my wee speech, which I watched again today. Very Gwyneth Paltrow, though thankfully without the tears and the pink dress. Cringily though, there was lots of hand waving and touching of my heart. And my bra strap decided to jump out from under my dress and decorate my arm.
'Trop mignonne,' said a French friend kindly.

People stayed until around 11 p.m. when we ran out of wine. Donato and I left Farid to clear up, and stolled out into the romantic evening darkness of the Place des Vosges.

Postcript: To hear the Radio France interview of this morning with Dominique Andre, click here.

Anglo-Saxonne Identity Crisis

Patrick Cohen doesn't get it.
'Why don't you like being called an Anglo-Saxon?' he asked me earlier during his evening show on RTL radio.
'Because they aren't very popular in France,' I told him.
Then why do you call yourself an Anglo-Saxon on your blog (someone reads it!) and on the cover of your book? he continued.
'Because I didn't think anyone would care about the opinion of a tiny wee country tacked onto the north of England,' I said.

To be clear, I should perhaps explain. 'Anglo-Saxon' is a French concept which comes with a bunch of assumptions (money-obssesed, wedded to unfettered capitalism). I don't recognise myself nor the country of my birth among them. Nor do I think English-speaking countries have enough ideology in common for them to be lumped together. Plus the word 'Anglo' is never going to be a popular epithet for a Scot. Hence I reject the concept. At the same time, I live in France and I know that for French people, I am an Anglo-Saxon. So I allow myself to be categorised in a way French people understand. And then I tell them they have got it all wrong. Capisce?

Hurray for Fast Trains

'Look at it go!' exclaimed a French colleague as a TGV hurtled across television screens during the lunchtime bulletin, breaking world records with a speed of 574.8 kph.
The express train was showing-off the new Paris-Strasbourg line to its journalist passengers, and Gallic excellence to the world. Across France, people and news commentators beamed with pride and presidential candidates scurried to lap up some of the good feeling. Hang the cost! France is the champion du monde! Hurray for the TGV!!

Sex, Scandal, Sarkozy, Segolene, PMT

Sorry about the misleading title. It's just that I was advised that one way of attracting people to your blog is to use words commonly searched for on google. So let's see what happens.
The PMT part is true. It explains why I am writing this blog from my bed at 8 p.m. while the sun is still shining. And why when Donato told me he has a good chance of getting a job in Paris, I found it impossible to transmit the enthusiasm I felt in my heart into the words that came out of my mouth. So the best thing for me to do now, is to have an (extremely) early night.
Buena notte.

Press: Le Parisien

To see my interview in Le Parisien, click here:

Pourquoi j'aime la France

Loving someone is about falling in love with that person again and again. My newest love affair with France began yesterday, the day my book went on sale.
Laurent, a friend who liked my book so much he offered to translate it, picked me up at midday and we took a tour to the Fnac store at Saint Lazare. After a quick look around the politics section, where we failed to locate my book, Laurent asked after Schizophrenie Francaise.
"Nope, nothing by that name,' said the helpful shop assistant.
My heart fell to the floor.
'Are you sure?' enquired Laurent. 'The author's name. It's Emma Vandore.'
'Ah oui,' said the rather surly fellow, indicating with his thumb somewhere behind him. 'Over here.'
I had expected the moment to feel more important. I looked back at the shop assistant expectantly.
'You have before you the author and the translator,' said Laurent helpfully.
'Ah oui,' he said without looking up.
We waited for a bit, but he continued tapping something into his computer. I considered offering to sign some copies because I'd been told the shop can't return signed copies to the publisher. Then I decided against it.
'Come on,' said Laurent. 'Let's find where they are.'
We discovered a pile of my books face upwards on a table next to a book written by another friend of Laurent.
'You are in very good company,' he said. 'What a good position.'
And he was right. I wasn't wedged into some shelf. I was laid out on a table. And I should be happy. But somehow I'd expected to be on display at the front. Dillusions of grandeur obviously. Or maybe I was just tired.

We met up with Jean-Jerome for a celebratory lunch. Then I went back to the office. A few hours later, I was released and headed to the Auld Alliance, a fabulous Scottish pub in the Marais where I'd planned a small celebration. But disaster! My lovely Scottish bar been transformed into an American watering hole, and not only that, but the commercial the re-look was in aid of had over-run by five hours. When I arrived the place looked like a building site. For a wee moment, I felt like crying. But the lovely owners, who had warned me of this eventuality an hour before, took matters in hand and directed me and the steady trickle of close friends to the bar next door. There, the barman was very friendly, even offering to buy a copy. Until he discovered it was about politics.

At such events it is always impossible to speak to everyone you want to, especially when the waitress keeps asking you to get out of the way. My favourite moment was when I showed the thank you card sent by Patrick Poivre d'Arvor around (nine words written in what I presume is his own hand-writing). Or was it talking about the benefits of English tea with Rhino?

Anyway, the night went by in a flash and before I knew it, I was in Friday morning. I hopped on the metro to trek to the other end of Paris for a debate on 'La France peut-elle vraiment changer' at BFM radio, hosted by Vincent Giret. With two appearances on France 24 under my belt, I didn't feel quite so much in awe of the others guests - Time magazine bureau chief James Graff, Jacqueline Henard of the Swiss newspaper Tages Anzeiger and Stefan Braendle of Austria's Der Standard. It still doesn't feel real, but I am learning to enjoy it all.

If I've mastered the technology right (and I probably haven't), you can find the podcast of our debate here.


When I arrived at the office, I had the most wonderful surprise. Paris Match, THE French news-weekly magazine of reference, had written a review of my book. I held my breath as I read what they had to say....




Then I began jumping around the office. And when I didn't think I could be any more excited, a colleague exclaimed: 'Look Emma, your book!' There, on France 2's lunchtime news bulletin, was my friend Jeff Wittenberg, talking about Schizophrenie Francaise (and the other book by my fellow BFM debators). 'Who was the Socialist who tried to pull you,' Jeff texted me after the show. But I ain't no kiss (there was no kissing) and tell (there will be no telling) kinda gall.

Why the French Should Drink Tea

Amid the pandemonium at the Gare du Nord last Tuesday afternoon, when a stand-off between police and French youths degenerated into a pitched battle that lasted well into the evening, an English family sat calmly sipping cups of tea.
‘There seems to be an awful lot of police about,’ remarked my friend Rhino’s step-Mum. ‘Can you pass the milk?’
Below them, in the shopping centre under the Eurostar terminal where Rhino’s parents had arrived for a weekend break in the City of Light, the familiar stench of tear gas filled the air. A reminder of the tensions still simmering after the November 2005 riots that swept across immigrant neighbourhoods.
In contrast to the remarkable British sang-froid displayed by Rhino’s family, the presidential candidates worked themselves up into a pitch of excitement. Socialist candidate Segolene Royal pointed the finger squarely at Nicolas Sarkozy, who had just stepped down from his job as France’s No. 1 cop. She accused the right of failing on crime issues, while centrist candidate Francois Bayrou said Sarkozy’s policies were alienating suburban youth. Sarkozy, ignoring whistles and cat-calls as he took the train from the Gare du Nord the next day, defended the police and claimed the left were siding with hooligans and law-breakers.
France politicians, it seems, are just as excitable as the country’s youth, turning a relatively minor incident, which resulted in the arrest of 13 people, into a campaign issue. It’s a reflection of the collective madness, what I call French Schizophrenia, that is gripping the world’s sixth largest economy. There is no structure to the debate among the presidential candidates about France’s future. The campaign is unpredictable, a whirlwind of emotion, driven by the feeling of the moment rather than a clear political direction. And after five years of growing fear and uncertainty, a clear direction is exactly what France needs.

(For a first-hand account of the therapeutic benefits of tea-drinking during riots, I bring you Rhino and his fabulous Bookpacker blog.) P.S. I did not steal the wallpaper from him. It's just we both have good taste.

Amazon Reality

I just checked out www.amazon.fr and if you search on my name, you can find my book!!!! It is finally finally starting to feel really real. And as my friend Isa just said, definately too late to turn back now. So from tomorrow, get clickety click click-ing! The more books are sold in French, the more my publisher will find it worthwhile to find an English publisher. Which means that my Mum will be able to understand it. Which is in fact my ultimate goal. So go forth and buy! Even if you don't understand you can decorate your coffee table with a book in French which will make you look cosmopolitan, multi-lingual, intellectual and totally au fait with French politics ahead of the most important elections in a very long time.

Brigitte

I have just turned the final page of 'J'Habite en bas de chez vous,' the story of Brigitte, who survived on the streets of Paris for two years. Even in her darkest moments, she held herself apart from those with whom she shared a pavement. It wasn't that she thought herself superior, only that she refused to follow them down the path of no return. She avoided the trap of booze, drugs or the dangerous mix of both that most sans abri use to escape their reality for a few moments. She insisted on regular showers and tried to keep herself as clean as possible. She cut her hair short and dressed in dark, heavy cover-alls to make herself unremarkable. When she could, she applied a little makeup.

Two things struck me about her story. The first was her relation with her neighbours in Place des Vosges and other passers by. She recounts many tales of amazing kindness - and others of horrible cruelty. Like the well-known (and unnamed) resident who ordered the police to rid the arches around the square of the homeless who took shelter there. While she understands his fear for his family - the eviction occured after one of them was knifed by a homeless junkie - she beseeches him for not doing more to change the system so people like her can find shelter. 'Dans la rue il y a beaucoupp des gens normaux a qui le ciel est tombe sur la tete.'

The most powerful part of her story though, is how the street transformed her. You can see it in her green eyes that peer out from the cover of her book. Passively strong without being agressive. Overcoming her situation required enormous strength. She lost the soft part of her - perhaps forever. Though she has escaped the street, it has not escaped her. She likes to sleep with the windows open, and often suffers nightmares. She says she wants to forget, but not completely. The memory keeps her on her toes, reminding her that she - like you or me - could end up in the dirt, under the stars.

Reality Check from Scotland

Before my little sondage, I thought that all the world was talking about the French elections. Then I got this little mail....

'Really i have no idea about the election. I presumed one was happening since Chirac's step down, but without radio or tv, we are in the dark.'

Flag Waving and all that...

As voters become increasingly disillusioned by the election race, presidential candidates are trying to give their electorate a boost by telling them that they should simply feel great about being French. From a country whose self introspection and depression (among many other things) inspired me to write a book, the sudden emergence of Gallic pride is a tad unsettling.

It all began with Sarkozy who sought to reap some National Front voters by promising a Ministry of Immigration and National Identity. Oo la la! Everyone immediately began accusing the son of a Hungarian immigrant of pandering to the far-right. And then suddenly Segolene plucked the flag right out from underneath him. At a March 18 rally for 4,000 local elected officials she played the French national anthem, La Marseillaise, and urged all French people to display a flag at home.
The guns from the far left came out. José Bové, the anti-capitalist farmer, accused Royal of 'trying to Americanise our country,' a sentiment echoed by the centrist Bayrou.
I could get distracted here and warble into a long rant about flags. (To be brief: football hooligans in the U.K. destroyed any pride we may have had in out Union Jack flag which is rarely seen on public buildings in the U.K. As a teenager I was taken aback by the prevelance of the French flag, and as a 20-something equally taken aback by the fondness for the American flag in the U.S.). But I'd rather focus on the important things. Why is there suddenly this renewed call for patriotism? Often when people reach out for symbols of strength, it is because they are feeling awfully insecure.

France 24

I was sipping champagne at a reception for the new British Ambassador to France, Sir Peter Westmacott, when my phone rang. It nearly tipped my glass over as I fished my phone out from the inner darkness of my Mulberry bag.
'What are you doing right now?' said F.
'I'm sipping champagne at the British Embassy,' I said, hoping to impress him.
'Great. And what are you doing in the next half an hour?'
'Er,' I said.
'Right, give me the adress and I'm sending a taxi round. France 24 want to interview you about your book.'
'But, wait, stop, um...' I bumbled. But F was insistent. He knows that I need a bit of bullying when it comes to getting around my last minute nerves. 'Great, fine, super thanks,' I said. Then went in search of some nibbles to line my stomach.
And so it was, totally unprepared and a little bit tipsy, that I did my first ever TV interview. Interviews plural I should say. In English and in French. No matter that I was filling in at the very last minute for somebody more important who dropped out. I got 30 full minutes of air time to talk about my baby in French and in English.

TV Reject

I am a TV reject. Sigh, sniffle. After two telehone interviews on my book and my views on the presidential campaign, I was invited to air my views on France 2's Sunday lunchtime show 'Un Dimanche de Campagne.' The journalist told me he liked my book, loved my accent, and would send a taxi round to pick me up. Would I mind being filmed during the make-up session? No problemo. And could I speak about the British perspective on the French campaign? Mais bien sur.... I dispatched my uncle and various friends out to the pub Friday night for sample surveys....

And then Saturday, I receieved an unintelligible call on my mobile. I called back to find out that France 2 don't want me after all. They must have found someone more important with a better accent. Sniff.
After being consoled bu Donato, I got another call from the France 2 assistant informing me that my taxi had been booked.
'But I've just been told you don't want me anymore,' I said, much to the poor man's embarassement.

So France 2 may not want me. But having gone to the trouble of doing a random UK-census of the campaign, I wouldn't want my respondents efforts to go to waste.

From The Plough pub in Appleton, near Oxford.

'From a bloke-ish perspective it has to be Segolene; add the Royal name to the good looks and she's the must-win choice. Benchmarked against Angela Merkel at the Euro-summits, she looks a winner to me. She'd charm the socks off the likes of Gordon Brown, and George Bush; on the other hand if she has to handle Hilary [Clinton], that might be tougher... Didn't Nicolas Sarkozy let slip some dodgy remarks about immigrants ? '

From a proprietaire:

'I'm certainly interested in the French political scene, partly because of our property but also because it is so different from our system. I find it astonishing that they have stuck with Chirac for so long and still allow him to behave like he's untouchable.
'I also find the constant comparisons with Blair quite amusing. Blair is now very unpopular in the UK and, whilst he's trying very hard to establish his legacy, most people don't think he's got one apart from Iraq. The French seems to have difficulty in hiding their secret admiration of our system and our national character, however hard they try.'

From a Chirac admirer:

'We are happy that the French are recognising the fact that they are no longer the centre of the universe. The Brits suffered the same fate some forty years ago.
'We will miss Chirac because it is the end of supremely confident and arrogant presidents (in the style of De Gaulle) and fear that everything which comes after will be focussed on public relations rather than clear and coherent policies.'

From Scotland:

'Here all attention is on the Scottish election, the leadership battle between Blair and Brown and the possible breaking up of UK if the SNP wins which is looking like a real possibility. i haven't seen much in the British papers at all about the French elections.'