[BRIEF NOTE] Ah, Ségo?
Apr. 24th, 2007 08:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldLast night, I was surprised to see ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
imomus come out for French presidential candidate Ségolène Royal, not so much because of his support for the Socialist candidate in the 2007 French presidential election as because the post "Votez Cérès, déesse de l'agriculture, des moissons et de la fécondité!" ("Vote for Ceres, goddess of agriculture, harvests, and fertility") was most atypically written in French but, ah, bilingualism and its many benefits.
imomus' post is substantially facetious--an essay referencing the Wickerman and promising that, if Royal was elected, France would "not only benefit sexually, but would have harvests that would make even José Bové green with jealousy," has to be, at least in part--but the author does make the good point that a President Royal would be a major shft, the first Socialist President in a decade since the death of François Mitterand and the first woman president of France ever.
Royal has frequently been identified with the French Republican personification of Marianne, a personnage, obviously because of her gender, perhaps also in part because her candidacy came about as a result of a challenge to the Socialist Party leadership
"When Ségolène-Ceres-Demeter is elected,"imomus concludes, "then--with the help of Zeus--we'll cook those pigs Le Pen and Sarkozy in a great sacrificial fire. He who sows the wind ..." That last is an interesting image, although I don't think that Nicolas Sarkozy is of a piece with Le Pen, not even with his past doubtful statements regarding rioters in the banlieues. A President Royal would outrage American conservatives.
Alas for Royal, A Fistful of Euros' assessment is likely correct in predicting her eventual defeat. Her 25% showing is smaller than Sarkozy's 30%, and although François Bayrou managed to carry only his native department of Pyrénées-Atlantiques his support base is more likely to lean towards Sarkozy than towards Royal. At least she managed to galvanize the Socialist Party and, who knows, maybe she might manage to follow Mitterand's precedent and come back in his second time. In the meantime, Sarkozy's economic policies seem to be somewhat more likely to deal with the problems of the French economy--relatively dynamic by western European standards, but still performing below par with a high rate of unemployment that does much to threaten the very substantial cultural integration of France's immigrant minorities, Muslim included, that has already taken place. Ségo in 2011?
imomus come out for French presidential candidate Ségolène Royal, not so much because of his support for the Socialist candidate in the 2007 French presidential election as because the post "Votez Cérès, déesse de l'agriculture, des moissons et de la fécondité!" ("Vote for Ceres, goddess of agriculture, harvests, and fertility") was most atypically written in French but, ah, bilingualism and its many benefits.imomus' post is substantially facetious--an essay referencing the Wickerman and promising that, if Royal was elected, France would "not only benefit sexually, but would have harvests that would make even José Bové green with jealousy," has to be, at least in part--but the author does make the good point that a President Royal would be a major shft, the first Socialist President in a decade since the death of François Mitterand and the first woman president of France ever.Royal has frequently been identified with the French Republican personification of Marianne, a personnage, obviously because of her gender, perhaps also in part because her candidacy came about as a result of a challenge to the Socialist Party leadership
Why is it a woman and not a man who represents the Republic? To start with, Liberté and République are both feminine nouns in the French language. One could also find the answer to this question in the traditions and mentality of the French, suggests the historian Maurice Agulhon, who in several well-known works set out on a detailed investigation to discover the origins of Marianne. A feminine allegory was also a manner to symbolise the breaking with the monarchical regime headed by men. Note also that even before the French Revolution, France or the Kingdom of France were embodied in masculine figures, as depicted in certain ceilings of Palace of Versailles.
"When Ségolène-Ceres-Demeter is elected,"
imomus concludes, "then--with the help of Zeus--we'll cook those pigs Le Pen and Sarkozy in a great sacrificial fire. He who sows the wind ..." That last is an interesting image, although I don't think that Nicolas Sarkozy is of a piece with Le Pen, not even with his past doubtful statements regarding rioters in the banlieues. A President Royal would outrage American conservatives.Royal continues to snipe from the sidelines about Operation Iraqi Freedom and advocates America's withdrawal from Iraq. She believes that decisions about Iraq's transition should be made solely by the Iraqi government, barely concealing her implicit criticism of American involvement in the region. During her keynote manifesto speech outlining her presidential platform, she not only acknowledged the divisions caused by France's vocal opposition to the war in Iraq, but even pledged to speak "louder and stronger."
She has also made diplomatically crass comments about President Bush. "I do not mix up Bush's America with the American people," she has said. "The American people are our friends."
Alas for Royal, A Fistful of Euros' assessment is likely correct in predicting her eventual defeat. Her 25% showing is smaller than Sarkozy's 30%, and although François Bayrou managed to carry only his native department of Pyrénées-Atlantiques his support base is more likely to lean towards Sarkozy than towards Royal. At least she managed to galvanize the Socialist Party and, who knows, maybe she might manage to follow Mitterand's precedent and come back in his second time. In the meantime, Sarkozy's economic policies seem to be somewhat more likely to deal with the problems of the French economy--relatively dynamic by western European standards, but still performing below par with a high rate of unemployment that does much to threaten the very substantial cultural integration of France's immigrant minorities, Muslim included, that has already taken place. Ségo in 2011?
