Showing posts with label Nicolas Sarkozy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nicolas Sarkozy. Show all posts

Monday, May 7, 2012

French political expert James Shields' prescient view of Hollande in charge: The Europe & France of 2012 is very different from Mitterand's of '81, less a French President can do within Europe, therefore expect incrementalism not transformational changes, though this may well disappoint France's most-devout Socialists


Sign of The Times this morning, the day after le second tour de l'élection présidentielle: Left-hand turn ahead, prepare to pay increased toll to appease the professional proletariat class and their laundry list of demands & grievances. 
But we'll always have Paris, right? 
Yes, mes amis, but some of it will be moving to London soon to wait out the coming economic  déluge.



France24english video: Debate, Part 1 of 2. President Hollande: Can "Mr. Normal" lead France in times of crisis? May 7, 2012. http://youtu.be/7MpB7IM_b1g


France24 Debate show host François Picard and his guests discuss what important decisions lies ahead for president-elect François Hollande, using clips from his acceptance speech in Tulle: what factors he may weigh in selecting a Prime Minister, what that choice might suggest about Hollande's future priorities or signals to party faithful; concerns about his economic policies, and how he will deal with Angela Merkel's Germany on the Eurozone debt crisis and why German financial institutions won't like what they hear from his govt., et al.
Guests: Steven Erlanger, Paris bureau chief of the N.Y. Times; Ulrike Koltermann, former Paris bureau chief, Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA); James Shields, French political expert and Head of French Studies, Aston University http://www1.aston.ac.uk/lss/staff/shieldsjg/
Patrick Vignal, Senior correspondent, Reuters/France.


For me, the best takeaway comment was that of Jim Shields, who says, more or less, the Europe and France of 2012 is very different from the one that Socialist François Mitterand strode onto, chiefly because there is more that is beyond the reasonable human control of the Élysée Palace, therefore expect incrementalism, not the transformational changes that his oldest and youngest supporters long for.





France24english video: Debate, Part 2 of 2. President Hollande: Can "Mr. Normal" lead France in times of crisis? May 7, 2012. http://youtu.be/76ZEBgYxCVE 

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Not Breaking News: U.S. cablenets stay with taped programs rather than go LIVE from Paris as official results of 2012 French Presidential election are announced; watch election commentary LIVE from Paris at France24 or BFMTV

Not Breaking News: U.S. cablenets stay with taped programs rather than go LIVE from Paris as official results of 2012 French Presidential election are announced; watch election commentary LIVE from Paris at France24 or BFMTV


Final Ipsos poll via France24 at 8 p.m. in Paris: François Hollande 51.9 %, Nicolas Sarkozy 48.1%.


France24: Overall, 20.1 percent of French voters abstained from casting their ballots.
BFMTV says it was 81% participation.


Here's what the U.S. cable networks ran instead:


CNN - The Next List
MSNBC - Meet the Press (encore of NBC's telecast), which featured Tom Brokaw raising the complaint of voters that U.S. reporters are more than a bit full of themselves, and, that their being so keen on reporting on what George Clooney thinks at the annual White House Correspondents Dinner, rather than DO THEIR JOBS, is one of the reasons.
Yes, the thin wall between serious news and Entertainment Tonight  
Fox News Channel - Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace (encore telecast)


Yes, with all the technology available to them, this is what we get from the Mainstream Media: nothing. C'est la vie!


You can watch the heated commentary LIVE in English via http://www.france24.com/en/aef_player_popup/france24_player#

Once you click the arrow, it'll work, but there's so much demand on the line now that every few minutes it slows down and requires refreshing, just like the LIVE blog.
Click the blue link in the bottom left marked Watch : FRANCE 24 live : SPECIAL

Or you can watch it in French via BFMTV at http://www.bfmtv.com/direct

Already, less than an hour after the official results were announced, many of the Socialist members who have appeared on TV are talking about the victory as something much larger than it is, esp, considering since it was not a legislative election.
(Those elections are next month.)

They sort of remind me of many of the young female thirty-something Democratic/GOP consultants we see too much of on TV in the U.S. all the time, who you'd really like to know what they've ever actually accomplished besides getting the attention of the show's male producers, because the facts don't seem to ever get in the way of what they say.
As becomes obvious when you listen.

Meanwhile, the Front National Le Pen supporters are crowing that they are the ones who really are responsible for Sarkozy's defeat and angling for more respect,

Sarkozy gave a very classy concession speech but at the beginning of it, one of the female reporters from France24 in Tulle, where Hollande supporters were celebrating, kept talking over Sarkozy for a bit before they killed her microphone.
Hollande has still not spoken as of 3:15 Eastern U.S.

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Sarkozy vs. Hollande: Watch the French Presidential election returns on Sunday LIVE in English online with France24's Élysée 2012 coverage



france24english video: Campaign Chronicles: 
Countdown to Sunday's French presidential elections and other top headlines. 






http://www.bfmtv.com  video: Les candidats à l'élection présidentielle passent la soirée en famille. May 5, 2012. http://youtu.be/MolZvdkfrK4



AFP video: Paris and Berlin set for standoff if Hollande wins. May 4, 2012.
http://youtu.be/W1f7tC1kfw0



From Friday, the last day of campaigning, in this review of the French newspapers and media
http://www.france24.com/en/20120504-french-election-bayrou-hollande-sarkozy-press-review-fran  
Article at: http://www.france24.com/en/20120504-french-election-bayrou-hollande-sarkozy-press-review-fran


Sarkozy vs. Hollande: Watch the French Presidential election returns on Sunday LIVE in English online with France24's Élysée 2012 coverage


http://www.france24.com/en/livefeed
http://www.france24.com/en/aef_player_popup/france24_player#



As many of you may already know, French law actually makes it illegal for the French news media to report any information regarding election results before the polls close at 8 p.m. Paris time. Similarly, because of this law, on almost every French news site you can think of, as well as popular blogs, there are representations of the blue Twitter icon that bears the following:


Présidentielle sur 
Afin de respecter la période de réserve avant l’annonce des résultats, les flux twitter sont désactivés jusqu’au dimanche 6 mai 20h.
Merci de votre compréhension


This even applies to the Twitter accounts of both presidential candidates, which bear the same message as above. 
Which is to say that all Twitter feeds featuring news regarding the Presidential election are disabled until 8 p.m. 


But that won't prevent neighboring news media in Belgium to the northwest and Switzerland to the east from announcing some tallies before that 8 p.m. deadline arrives.
http://www.bfmtv.com/presidentielle-les-medias-suisses-et-belges-actu27253.html



Election returns start at 8 p.m. Paris time, i.e C.E.S.T., which is GMT +2, so for those of us looking keenly towards Paris from the East Coast of the United States, that means 2 p.m.
is when you want to be near your computer to watch the action via France24.



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Over the past few months, as the French presidential election was fast approaching with the spectacle of the European Union  making like Humpty Dumpty over the most promiscuous spenders being in hock, I've been spending more and more time on the French TV, public policy and news websites than usual.


Which has necessarily meant getting used to seeing our old pals at France24, Vanessa Burggraff and Stéphanie Antoine, all over again after all these months apart, which is no problem. They're very smart and very watchable.


As always, and just as was the case when I was closely following the 2007 election between Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royalyou get a real immediate sense of the difference in how party politics is played in France compared to the U.S. when you read the nuances on how and why the various left and Right alliances are assembled from one election to another.


Sometimes, it seems more like a national convention of Favorite Son candidacies or an American Idol or Swedish Idol try-out in a large city like Atlanta or Göteborg that's going to be televised.


The TV producers and show judges know in advance that just as in the U.S., some political parties are held together by commonly-held beliefs on issues that their most reliable supporters will support, regardless of the actual nominee, others will only support it or watch it if there's an abundance of candidates who sing their own favorite genre: rock, pop, Indie, rap, et al.
They actually want to be the choir who is sung to!


Too much of another genre or catering to one issue or sub-group, to the exclusion of their favorite, and it's both a tune-off and a tune-out, and nobody wins when that happens.


After the first round of the election where Socialist and PRG candidate François Hollande narrowly defeated President Sarkozy for first among the many candidates, I went back and looked at many of the French videos I've received at my YouTube Channel since Hollande received the nomination last Fall that I never got around to watching the first time around, so that I could see if there was something I was missing that could explain his popularity besides the straight-out anti-Sarko factor.


No, there really wasn't, which is why the specter of someone like Hollande winning so deeply concerns many of my friends living over there now, or who visit there often from other European countries, because they can't quite wrap their heads around the idea that France will take a giant step backwards after finally breaking with the past and getting someone with common sense pragmatism in French policy like Sarkozy, instead of soft leftist pretentions masquerading as serious public policy, policies that nobody outside of France respected or took seriously, but instead, just laughed at.


In short, they were tired of the sort of parochial economic policies that made France forever seem to them like it was the least dynamic nation in Europe, relative to its size, because it always had to indulge certain domestic interest groups and forces that acted like the 21st Century hadn't yet arrived in France -to say nothing of the 20th!


Groups that used the state's power as a weapon against coming to terms with reality and who  
don't want anything to do with a real competitive marketplace where consumers, not producers, make the choices over what is popular and profitable, not bureaucrats and manifestos.



France24 video: Campaign Chronicles: France in denial over the economy? April 3, 2012.

The thought of Hollande winning and creating hundreds of thousands of subsidized jobs only would further postpone France's coming day of reckoning, where the professional activists, professional misfits and professional students have to leave the warm embrace of Maman et  l'état and grow-up and make something of themselves.
Time to take off the training-wheels, kids!


A country that is so full of so many well-educated people who produce or create nothing that anyone else wants is... well, the slippery slope.
And when you throw in all the myriad problems associated with assimilation of overly-indulged immigrants who think nothing of throwing rocks at ambulances responding to emergency calls... and who expect the same kind of lifestyle as the well-educated without the hard work, well, c'est un déluge pour la France all around, n'est-ce pas?
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Take that! The cut that sears the most: days before French runoff election, Jean-François Copé, Sarkozy's UMP Sec.-Gen., accuses François Hollande of not being a true intellectual. Election Sunday could be beginning of Francs rushing across the Channel to wait out the economic storm under Hollande
So, all that said, for me, the most genuinely interesting and only-in-France moment came this week when I read an interview in Metro where Jean-François Copé, Sarkozy's UMP Secretary.-General, accused Hollande of not being a true intellectual.


Jean-François Copé : "Hollande est une imposture intellectuelle", A quelques heures de la clôture de la campagne. Jean-François Copé a reçu "Metro" au siège de l'UMP.
03-05-2012 22:15


Read the interview at:
http://www.metrofrance.com/presidentielle-2012/jean-francois-cope-hollande-est-une-imposture-intellectuelle/mlec!qUd9TN9yzmlA/


Be sure to see their excellent presidential election webpage: http://www.metrofrance.com/presidentielle-2012/


New York Times 
In French Race, the Tortoise Sets His Own Pace
By Steven Erlanger
Published: May 5, 2012
PARIS — François Hollande, the 57-year-old favored to be elected narrowly on Sunday as France’s president, is no revolutionary. He likes to talk of “harmony” and “pragmatism” and often quotes the poet and politician Aimé Césaire about “lucid hope.”
Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/world/europe/in-race-to-french-presidency-hollande-sets-his-own-pace.html 


After watching the Sunday morning chat shows, I'm heading to the beach for a bit and then stop off and get some French wine and some La vache qui rit and see what happens like the rest of you. 
And hope for the best
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In English: 

In French:

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Thoughts on the modern tradition in France of succumbing to sycophancy and high self-regard. Oui, "Un certain regard."; DeGaulle

French culture discussed by an informed and erudite Englishman!
http://youtu.be/Dmh880HAOZU

Thoughts on the modern tradition in France of succumbing to sycophancy and high self-regard. Oui, "Un certain regard."; DeGaulle

This very interesting audio track about contemporary French cultural and political life -which I came across completely by accident this past weekend while looking for something else dealing with BBC Radio- is the polar opposite of the chestnut I grew-up knowing so well that ends -at least, the version of the old 1940's maxim I often heard- "that France is not great because DeGaulle is in France, France is great because France is in DeGaulle."
C'est vrai!

DE GAULLE TRIUMPHANT

Newsreel video: British Pathe Gazette: The Voice of Britain: DE GAULLE TRIUMPHANT, April 11, 1960

1945 - YOU WERE THERE WHEN HISTORY WAS MADE

Newsreel video: British Pathe Gazette: The Voice of Britain: 1945 - YOU WERE THERE WHEN HISTORY WAS MADE, December 27, 1945.

FRANCE 24

France 24
France 24 broadcasts from Paris 24/7 in English to bring you the French perspective on the world.


France 24 News homepage: http://www.france24.com/en/

Thursday, January 27, 2011

SVT video of Saab's nEUROn fuselage for new UCAV; Will Brazilian President Rousseff ditch French and buy Saab's Gripen or Boeing F-18 instead for $4B?


SVT Rapport - Här är Saabs nya stridsflygplan
Here's Saab's new fighter plane.
http://svtplay.se/v/2307433/har_ar_saabs_nya_stridsflygplan

This video ran on Wednesday night's Swedish TV (SVT) thirty-minute national newscast and has some English but is mostly in Swedish.


This particular video is available on the SVT Play website until January 25, 2012, and if you are curious enough to want to watch the entire newscast, which features an interesting report on security in Moscow -at 10:56- following the Chechen suicide bombing last week at the airport, you can see it at: http://svtplay.se/v/2307476/rapport/25_1_19_30_-_textat?cb,a1366518,1,f,-1/pb,a1366516,1,f,-1/pl,v,,2308531/sb,p103263,1,f,-1

I've selected the version of the newscast that has closed-captioning so that you can see what some of the words you are hearing actually look like, as it's more logical than it sounds.
You can watch the newscast vid until Tuesday February 1st, and as always, I recommend that you hit the Full screen button on the bottom right marked "
Fullskärm."
The story on the fighter plane comes on at 19:39.

Saab delivers nEUROn fuselage to Dassault Aviation

http://www.shephard.co.uk/news/uvonline/saab-delivers-neuron-fuselage-to-dassault-aviation/8187/


Also read this story on the $4 billion sale of 36 fighter jets to Brazil from France that may be on the verge of collapsing under new Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and the possibility that Saab or Boeing will swoop-in and take it from Dassault, lock, stock and lavalier.

"Rousseff has indicated she wants to review the political agreement between the two heads of state and "start over" the evaluation process that pitted the Rafale against Boeing Co.'s (BA) F-18 and the Gripen made by Sweden's Saab AB (SAAB-B.SK)"
Dassault Workers' Bonuses Hinge On Rafale Export Deal
January 25, 2011, 10:29 A.M. ET

By David Pearson of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110125-710700.html



Gripen's current website -in English- at http://www.gripen.com/en/index.htm is moving to http://www.saabgroup.com/gripen

Photos of Gripen is at:
http://www.saabgroup.com/Air/Gripen-Fighter-System/gripen-downloads/Image-bank/

There's a video in Portuguese on Saab's website about their efforts and capabilities there:
http://www.saabgroup.com/gripen-for-brazil

Here's the Saab JAS 39 Gripen in Flight [HD]


Saab JAS 39 Gripen (Griffin) Fighter in Flight [HD]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSJ4i8IExjY