the return of monica's inane political ramblings

...you know you've missed them.

I've cried about 5 times this week about what happened at VA Tech, and i've been reading Noam Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival and am unspeakably horrified at American foreign policy, but neither of those things are what i want to write about today.

Ok, raise your hand if you know that the first round of the French presidential elections is tomorrow (Sunday the 22nd). Hands down. Raise your hand if you can name more than 1 of the 4-8 major candidates competing in the first round. If your hand was raised for either of those, congrats. If not, don't worry, Aunt Monica went all the way to a tiny French possession in the Indian Ocean just to write an edifying blog entry for you.

The Issues: "Quel campagne nul!"
Monday in the teacher's lounge one of the teachers made a political joke and the principal went off: "what a terrible campaign!" she complained, "there's absolutely no social platform whatsoever." And as far as i can tell, she's right. There are a few stabs at actually having issues in this campaign - people babble occasionally about the 35-hour work week or the problem of housing for the homeless, a handfull of green candidates and environmental activists fight valiantly and vainly to keep global warming in the debate - but mostly it's about things like national identity and personality, and, sadly enough, gender. The major center-left candidate, Segolene Royal, is a woman, and i've heard from a frightening number of French people that this will stop her from getting elected. Sadly, there really are major issues to be confronted here. The European Union is near crisis-point, the environment too, France's economy could use some serious help...but none of these things is likely to be really changed...

The Candidates: "Sarko=Le Pen=Fascist"

the major candidates:
Nicholas Sarkozy (UMP): The center-right candidate, the ultimate establishment candidate, and as certain French people of my acquaintance lable him: "Baby Bush." Sarko was interior minister up until last month, when he quit to campaign full time. Which means that those riots in French cities in 2005 - those were his job to deal with. Result: The Sarkozy laws: lots of police presence in problem neighbourhoods, lots of prison for problem kids, not a lot of real solutions to problems. Oh and yeah, he's known for his close ties to everyone's favourite cowboy president. Finally, Sarkozy he's been moving his policies further right to court voters away from Jean-Marie Le Pen (see below). Basically, i can't stand Sarko, and neither can any of my French friends. But he'll probably win.

Segolene Royal (PS): The center-left candidate and, as mentioned, France's first ever serious female candidate for president. Yay. Unfortunately, that's about the only thing she has going for her. The woman doesn't appear to have an unscripted thought in her pretty head, and the media doesn't help by devoting pages and pages of coverage to her offhand suggestion that every French home should fly a flag on on Bastille Day while writing one article on her actual platform - which isn't terrible.

François Bayrou (UDF): The center-center candidate. Bayrou is an establishment politician running on a platform that French voters are sick of the establishment. He proposes himself as a centrist alternative to the bickering between the left and right. It might not actually be the worst idea in the world, and too be honest he has some truly good things to say in his platform, but my opinion of Bayrou is irredeemably influenced by a French satirical news show, "les Guignols d'info," which constantly depicts him as a dithering wussy who can't figure out what tie to wear without consulting a poll.

Jean-Marie Le Pen (FN): It's painful to have to list Le Pen as a major candidate. He's a right-wing racist who's main message is "France for the French." Anti-european cooperation, anti-immigration, oh, and yeah he eats kittens for breakfast and chubby little babies for lunch.

i'm going to have to cut this short because i'm about to be kicked off of the internet. I'm not even going to get to write about my favourite candidate - the green party's Dominique Voynet. Monday or Tuesday i'll blog about the results of the first round, and why they happened.

Love y'all