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Monday, 18 February 2008 |
Dear Editor,
Your December page about French Jewry was very interesting
and informative. However, Jewish leader Joël Mergui is
quoted as saying that the Consistory fights anti-Semitism
“through a campaign of education against racism and anti-
Zionism”. We must not let him get away with that!
Of course, all half-decent members of the human race
oppose racism, including anti-Semitism, in any shape or
form.
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Monday, 18 February 2008 |
Dear Editor,
I feel I must respond to your correspondent in last month’s
FN who finds ‘snuck’ an unfortunate word.
The fact a word is not in a dictionary is no excuse for not
using it. Indeed, if new words were not incorporated into the
dictionary our language would be the poorer.
I dedicate the part of my life not owned by French News
to ensuring that ‘gruntled’ and ‘couth’ will one day be
considered proper words to express the positive of their
negative partners. Apart from anything else, they are very
satisfactory words.
Robin Hicks, Languedoc-Roussillon correspondent
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Monday, 18 February 2008 |
Dear Editor,
Since an interim government cannot sign treaties under
Belgian law or make any other binding commitments, surely
this scuppers all the nonsense over the new EU constitution?
Dr Bernard Juby, Pays de la Loire
Robert Harneis replies:
You have a point but an exception is being made and the
treaty is to be ratified “by parliament by the summer”. A
spokesman for the Belgian branch of the anti-free market
group Attac has, with others, commented: “The legality of a
ratification, in this way, will be very much open to challenge,
bearing in mind the present political situation (in Belgium),
as was the signature of the treaty.”
The Russians are so irritated at constant lectures about
democracy by those who do not always practise it perfectly
themselves, that they are opening a think-tank in the West, the
Institute for Democracy and Cooperation, with a branch in
Paris to study the matter. Perhaps you should send them a
complaint?
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Monday, 18 February 2008 |
I have often referred to Americans in
France as, not expats, but
“immigrants”; after all, legally
speaking, we have more in common
with new arrivals from Morocco than
from the UK.
I had this thought again this month
reading a story about a couple from
Kyrgyzstan struggling to take root here.
The story talked about how they too
have had to learn about the Sécu and
the code de la route.
But the story ended with the wife
declaring proudly that France is their
country now and that they would never
go back—and, happy as we are here,
this is where I stopped identifying.
I think many Americans here end up
in some kind of limbo, between
countries, between cultures, never
completely here, nor any longer
completely there. It’s not like we have
moved abroad to escape war, poverty, or
illiteracy. (One does hear references to
the Bush refugees, but I think this is an
urban legend.) Most of us expend a
great deal of effort—and money—to
preserve some kind of legal and
financial identity in both places and
even more money trying to maintain the
“bond” with those we left behind.
But sometimes it’s like being stuck
in the transporter in an old Star Trek
episode. “Beam me up, Scotty!” “I’m
trying, Cap’n but I dinna have enough
power!”
This sense of limbo was heightened
this year for me by three incidents, two
mildly stinging, and the third,
permanently painful.
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Monday, 18 February 2008 |
An underlying theme of the
Clinton presidential campaign in
the USA has been the idea “buy
one – and get one free”: vote Hillary
and get Billary. By voting Sarkozy, the
French seem to have succeeded in
getting at least two for the price of one.
One moment, he’s in Rome, Carla
tactfully out of sight, being installed as
an Honorary Canon of Saint-Jean-de-
Lateran, stall reserved for any French
president who wishes to occupy it. His
words with the Pope, about a more
tolerant version of French laïcité,
greatly pleased the Archbishop of Paris,
Cardinal 23 (not his rank in the
hierarchy, nor a nom d’église either; his
parents were M. et Mme Vingt-trois).
Next he’s in Egypt (pyramids and a
bit of politics), Jordan (Petra and a bit
of politics), whizz round the Gulf States
to mend his fences with Arab leaders
who fear he is too pro-USA and pro-
Israel… and then Afghanistan to
encourage French troops there, and
reassure President Karzai that France is
prepared to stay as long as it takes to
regain control of the country.
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