B: as to sophistication…. I’ve talked with some bilingual [primary] French speakers and maybe I’m wrong, but from it, I took that I don’t think French (the language) has a corollary to things like ‘sophistication’.. sooo, can you understand such a word without it? IM(Anglo-English speaking)Opinion, no… As in, they no have no equivalent to a word like ‘simple’ which has a positive connotation to counter ‘sophisticated’ (the closest was ‘simplistic’… which in both our languages has a negative connotation)… In the end, sophisticated becomes a sort of code word like equality… not meaning what it means… in some minds… (it ends up meaning, ‘without restraints of traditional morality’… not wise… or even.. what it should, sophisticated…).

Please keep in mind that Sarko didn’t win by a large margin, and that he won based on the fact that he could out LePen LePen (seen as something like 12% of the electorate.) Hortefeux and Guy Moquet aside, he’s even p-ssing a lot of the FN types off, based on the affiches I saw last Oct/Nov:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVr06fs1_W8

(FN posters stating that Sarkozy lied about Turkey)

Anyway, he led the better media campaign against lame-o Royal, but that doesn’t mean that he was the best for the job.

***

Something that really bothers me here is how much people (particularly neo and other PJM people) were trumpeting that he was some sort of Agent of Change and that he was actually Reforming France. Anywhere I mention that he’s probably worse than Chirac in a lot of ways, I hear that France was never going to reform, and that I was an idiot to think otherwise. Mind you, I’m only a translator, and not a shrink or a politic, but the hypocrisy kind of hurts. (Especially from PJM, given that I’ve had a comment deleted by Poller when she couldn’t rebut it. Thought that they were supposed to be above that sort of thing.)

con-alt-del

I am doing a side by side comparison for Sarkozy and Bill Clinton. As if that was a true guide to whether a leader is sending people politically off track by his actions or what is brought up in news. It was, and arguably so, believed that Clinton’s public follies and wars were all media events aimed at covering one or another major weakness, political evils, or other such. So, I am saying, if Sarkozy is being so bold and public to hide his own administrative follies, then expect a war with an unlikely receiver. I picked two countries France might actually have some chance at winning, loosely, given no international resistance at least.

Now, it truth, he will never go to war with those countries no matter how bad (or most likely simply unpopular with the “people’s front” types) his policies are. It was satire, a jab at past politicians, and a silly notion. However, I will debate it all day if you insist and still cannot see.

I know how you feel .. last year when the UK show Dispatches did their Undercover Mosque episode, I was looking forward to the media debate.. because I figured something that explicit and obvious and fundamentally frightening couldn’t possibly be ignored… was ignored… becuase some actress on teh show Big Brother called the other from India a name or something.

That was soon followed by Iran taking UK Navy boys and girls hostage and UK doing nothing.

That’s when it hit me.. the UK is finished.

What a depressing year.

http://cf.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/071204/monde/alg__rie_france_diplomatie_prev

Poland makes even less sense.

I consume”a lot of French news when over there. The last cycle (just got back last week) was so frustrating, as I was looking for news on domestic policy issues (what they call “pouvoir d’achat,” DNA testing to repatriate families, university reform, NHS-style policy being imposed on the securite social system as it’s about to tank, judicial reform, prison sentencing reform, etc) but found most space being taken up by Sarko / Bruni and the D@mn American primaries.

“What a maroon”.

If it is a ploy, then certainly, it is tacky. Though getting pregnant is a rather huge sacrifice, in modern parlance, especially if it really is merely a ploy. Bill did not even do that, or at least none survived. As well, when has there been good policy from French leadership? That has been kept better hidden than anything else if it did occur, apparently. Still, you might be correct, if second hand. If France goes to war with Algeria or maybe even Poland, I would be more inclined to buy your story.