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"Today, schools are creating barbarians

Opinion

Today, Schools Are Creating Barbarians

by Jean-Paul Brighelli, teacher and author of La Fabrique des crétins ["The moron factory"], who is publishing a pamphlet on schools

The presidential campaign is underway. To take account of the ideas in debate, our section "Opinion" welcomes iconoclastic, even provocative remarks. We can each make up our own minds. Today: Jean-Paul Brighelli, who is publishing L'Ecole sous influence ["Schools under the influence"], a scathing attack on our school system.
.......................................................

From "morons" in your first book, the students, at least in ghetto areas, are now supposed to have become "barbarians." How?

Jean-Paul Brighelli. We have the school we deserve: that of a weaker and weaker democracy. We are currently paying the last consequences of the Jospin school law of 1989, which puts the pupil at the center of the system and incites him to "build his own knowledge," as the hackneyed educational refrain goes. But after not learning anything solid, many students have been walled up alive behind a terrifying screen of ignorance that leads to the worst excesses. Moron, that was nice. Today, the schools are manufacturing barbarians. The riots in the suburbs, which will happen again, show that I was right. By "respecting" the law of the ghettos and its underlying language, we have let an entire generation degenerate.

Does barbary begin with language?

Jean-Paul Brighelli. The barbarian, in the first sense of the word, is someone who does not speak the language of the city. Those from the projects make do with a rudimentary illiterate slang, reduced to a few hundred words sprinkled with English terms like "gun" or "cop." Bad rap, in a way. We are guilty of having let it happen by amputating by one-third, in twenty years, the number of hours devoted to learning French. With the result that there is a gangrene of the spirit, zero degrees of thought: the students don't even understand the words the teacher is reading.

The effects go even farther, you say....

Jean-Paul Brighelli. The Jospin law opened Pandora's box. It's not an accident that two months later, the first veil affair broke out in Creil (Oise). It was a way of testing the law, which legitimized the right-- without anything asked in return-- to express opinions, especially religious opinions. That is how debates that should have stayed in the private sphere erupted into schools. Today, school is no longer a sanctuary. We can feel the rise of violence, which is the only way barbarians communicate. Into a skull emptied by the absence of knowledge and of culture, you can slip any ready-made extremism. The future makes me uneasy.

"We have ended by tolerating the intolerant."

Then the principal of secularism is in danger?

Jean-Paul Brighelli. You must be joking, it doesn't exist any more! All you have to do is read the Obin report* published in 2004 by a team of inspecteurs généraux. An official, rigorous inquiry... and apparently kept out of sight by the Education department because it was too upsetting. It shows how public schools suffer every day from attempted infiltration by small religious minorities, and ends up by giving way over and over. In the name of the spirit of tolerance and cultural diversity, we end by tolerating the intolerant.

For example?

Jean-Paul Brighelli. Some principals act as if it is normal to have a prayer room for Muslim students in the Paris region; teachers give up teaching Voltaire, for example, or barely mention Darwin; students ask the gym teachers for separate locker rooms [WHOA! does this mean French boys and girls share locker rooms?!?]; the cafeterias prefer to use only Muslim-rule meat; the heads of schools receive veiled mothers [even though the veil is forbidden at schools]... It's certainly only a partial visiton, because these problems are concentrated in certain areas. But twenty years ago, there were no head-scarves in schools, and a lot fewer in the streets.

Since the law on religious signs, two years ago, however, the veil seems to have disappeared from schools. Do you disagree?

Jean-Paul Brighelli
. What we chased out the door by banishing the veil has come back through the window in another form. Look at these boys who challenge girls at recess to force them to lower their eyes. Or that girl beaten up in a junior high school in Lyon for having dared to eat during Ramadan. They are the first victims of intolerance. For antisemitism, it's the same thing: we reassure ourselves by saying that the crimes are diminishing, but in the minds, it is becoming normal.

Do you not refuse, basically, for schools to be the mirror of a multicultural society?

Jean-Paul Brighelli. Society has never been multicultural, or only at the level of regional cultures. Schools have their share of responsibility. By putting all cultures on an equal plane, schools have neglected and even torpedoed our culture and our common language. They have encouraged kids to exalt their differences. Is it an accident that "Céfran" [verlan slang for français, French] has become an insult in the mouths of young Beurs [French of Arab origin] who almost all, however, have French nationality? We have let it happen because we are paralyzed by the post-colonial guilt that puts us in a situation of repentance.

You want to go back to "nos ancêtres les Gaulois"? ["Our ancestors the Gauls," traditional first words in French history class]

Jean-Paul Brighelli. No, no more than I'm nostalgic for the gray smock. It is not a question of creating an aberrant model, but of rediscovering a cement that will allow us to teach the same history, the same culture and to speak the same language from Lille to Bonifacio. School must no longer be the place of diversity, but that of a uniting speech. In order to do that, we must re-think the carte scolaire [which assigns pupils to schools for social-integration reasons], review programs from top to bottom while returning to basic learning, first of all French and math, even learn things "by heart" sometimes. The frame may look strict, but it is the only way to give students a solid base.

        --Interview by Charles de Saint-Sauveur in Le Parisien, 19 October 2006







* Brighelli also contributes to a collective work based on the Obin report (l'Ecole face à l'obscurantisme religieux, Schools and religious obscurantism)

October 20, 2006 in France | Permalink | Comments (2)

From In Memoriam, by Tennyson

In Memoriam

I.
I held it truth...
that men may rise on stepping-stones
of their dead selves to higher things.

But who shall so forecast the years
and find in loss a gain to match?
or reach a hand thro’ time to catch
the far-off interest of tears?

Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown’d...

II
Old Yew, which graspest at the stones
that name the under-lying dead,
thy fibres net the dreamless head,
thy roots are wrapt about the bones....

... in the dusk of thee, the clock
beats out the little lives of men.

III
O Sorrow, cruel fellowship,
O Priestess in the vaults of Death,
O sweet and bitter in a breath,
what whispers from thy lying lip?

"The stars," she whispers, "blindly run;
a web is wov’n across the sky;
from out waste places comes a cry,
and murmurs from the dying sun:

"and all the phantom, Nature, stands--
with all the music in her tone,
a hollow echo of my own,--
a hollow form with empty hands."...

And shall I take a thing so blind,
embrace her as my natural good;
or crush her, like a vice of blood,
upon the threshold of the mind?

IV

To Sleep I give my powers away;
my will is bondsman to the dark;
I sit within a helmless bark...

O heart, how fares it with thee now,
that thou should’st fail from thy desire,
who scarcely darest to inquire,
"What is it makes me beat so low?"

Something it is which thou hast lost,
some pleasure from thine early years.
Break, thou deep vase of chilling tears,
that grief hath shaken into frost!

Such clouds of nameless trouble cross
all night below the darken’d eyes;
with morning wakes the will, and cries,
"Thou shalt not be the fool of loss."

V

I sometimes hold it half a sin
to put in words the grief I feel;
for words, like Nature, half reveal
and half conceal the Soul within.

But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
a use in measured language lies;
the sad mechanic exercise,
like dull narcotics, numbing pain.

In words, like weeds, I’ll wrap me o’er,
like coarsest clothes against the cold:
but that large grief which these enfold
iIs given in outline and no more.

VI

One writes, that "Other friends remain,"
that "Loss is common to the race"--
and common is the commonplace,
and vacant chaff well meant for grain.

That loss is common would not make
my own less bitter, rather more:
too common! Never morning wore
to evening, but some heart did break.

O father, wheresoe’er thou be,
who pledgest now thy gallant son;
a shot, ere half thy draught be done,
hath still’d the life that beat from thee.

O mother, praying God will save
thy sailor,–while thy head is bow’d,
his heavy-shotted hammock-shroud
drops in his vast and wandering grave.

Ye know no more than I who wrought
at that last hour to please him well;
who mused on all I had to tell,
and something written, something thought;

expecting still his advent home;
and ever met him on his way
with wishes, thinking, "Here today,"
or "here tomorrow will he come."

O somewhere, meek, unconscious dove,
that sittest ranging golden hair;
and glad to find thyself so fair,
poor child, that waitest for thy love!

For now her father’s chimney glows
in expectation of a guest;
and thinking "This will please him best,"
she takes a riband or a rose;

for he will see them on to-night;
and with the thought her colour burns;
and, having left the glass, she turns
once more to set a ringlet right;

and, even when she turn’d, the curse
had fallen, and her future Lord
was drown’d in passing thro’ the ford,
or kill’d in falling from his horse.

O what to her shall be the end?
And what to me remains of good?
To her, perpetual maidenhood,
and unto me no second friend.

VII

Dark house, by which once more I stand
here in the long unlovely street,
doors, where my heart was used to beat
so quickly, waiting for a hand,

a hand that can be clasp’d no more–
behold me, for I cannot sleep,
and like a guilty thing I creep
At earliest morning to the door.

He is not here; but far away
the noise of life begins again,
and ghastly thro’ the drizzling rain
on the bald street breaks the blank day.

VIII

A happy lover who has come
to look on her that loves him well,
who ’lights and rings the gateway bell,
and learns her gone and far from home;

he saddens, all the magic light
dies off at once from bower and hall,
and all the place is dark, and all
the chambers emptied of delight:

So find I every pleasant spot
in which we two were wont to meet,
the field, the chamber and the street,
for all is dark where thou art not.

Yet as that other, wandering there
in those deserted walks, may find
a flower beat with rain and wind,
which once she foster'd up with care;

so seems it in my deep regret,
O my forsaken heart, with thee
and this poor flower of poesy
which little cared for fades not yet.

But since it pleased a vanish’d eye,
I go to plant it on his tomb,
that if it can it there may bloom,
or dying, there at least may die.

IX

Fair ship, that from the Italian shore
sailest the placid ocean-plains
with my lost Arthur’s loved remains,
Spread thy full wings, and waft him o’er.

So draw him home to those that mourn
in vain...

My friend, the brother of my love...

My Arthur, whom I shall not see
till all my widow’d race be run;
dear as the mother to the son,
more than my brothers are to me.

XI

Calm is the morn without a sound,
calm as to suit a calmer grief,
and only thro’ the faded leaf
the chestnut pattering to the ground...

calm and deep peace in this wide air,
these leaves that redden to the fall;
and in my heart, if calm at all,
if any calm, a calm despair:

calm on the seas, and silver sleep,
and waves that sway themselves in rest,
and dead calm in that noble breast
which heaves but with the heaving deep.

XII

Lo, as a dove when up she springs
to bear thro’ Heaven a tale of woe,

...Like her I go; I cannot stay;
I leave this mortal ark behind,
a weight of nerves without a mind,
and leave the cliffs, and haste away

...and reach the glow of southern skies,
and see the sails at distance rise,
and linger weeping on the marge,

and saying; "Comes he thus, my friend?
Is this the end of all my care?"
and circle moaning in the air:
"Is this the end? Is this the end?"

...and back return
to where the body sits, and learn
that I have been an hour away.

XIII

Tears of the widower, when he sees
a late-lost form that sleep reveals,
and moves his doubtful arms, and feels
her place is empty, fall like these;

which weep a loss for ever new,
a void where heart on heart reposed;
and, where warm hands have prest and

closed,
silence, till I be silent too.

Which weeps the comrade of my choice,
  an awful thought, a life removed,
the human-hearted man I loved,
a Spirit, not a breathing voice.

Come Time, and teach me, many years,
I do not suffer in a dream;
for now so strange do these things seem,
mine eyes have leisure for their tears...

XIV

If one should bring me this report,
that thou hadst touch’d the land to-day,
and I went down unto the quay,
and found thee lying in the port;

and standing, muffled round with woe,
should see thy passengers in rank
come stepping lightly down the plank,
and beckoning unto those they know;

and if along with these should come
the man I held as half-divine;
should strike a sudden hand in mine,
and ask a thousand things of home;

and I should tell him all my pain,
and how my life had droop’d of late,
and he should sorrow o’er my state
and marvel what possess’d my brain;

and I perceived no touch of change,
no hint of death in all his frame,
but found him all in all the same,
I should not feel it to be strange.

XVI

What words are these have fall’n from me?
Can calm despair and wild unrest
be tenants of a single breast,
or sorrow such a changeling be?

...    Or has the shock, so harshly given,
confused me like the unhappy bark

that strikes by night a craggy shelf,
and staggers blindly ere she sink?
and stunn’d me from my power to think
and all my knowledge of myself...?

XVII

Thou comest, much wept for: such a breeze
compell’d thy canvas, and my prayer
was as the whisper of an air
to breathe thee over lonely seas...

XVIII

’Tis well; ’tis something; we may stand
where he in English earth is laid,
and from his ashes may be made
the violet of his native land.

’Tis little; but it looks in truth
as if the quiet bones were blest
among familiar names to rest
and in the places of his youth.

Come then, pure hands, and bear the head
that sleeps or wears the mask of sleep,
and come, whatever loves to weep,
and hear the ritual of the dead.

Ah yet, ev’n yet, if this might be,
I, falling on his faithful heart,
would breathing thro’ his lips impart
the life that almost dies in me;

that dies not, but endures with pain,
and slowly forms the the firmer mind,
treasuring the look it cannot find,
the words that are not heard again.

XIX

The Danube to the Severn gave
the darken’d heart that beat no more;
they laid him by the pleasant shore,
and in the hearing of the wave....

The tide flows down, the wave again
is vocal in its wooded walls;
my deeper anguish also falls,
and I can speak a little then.

XX

The lesser griefs that may be said,
that breathe a thousand tender vows,
are but as servants in a house
where lies the master newly dead;

who speak their feeling as it is,
and weep the fulness from the mind:
"It will be hard," they say, "to find
Another service such as this."

My lighter moods are like to these,
that out of words a comfort win;
but there are other griefs within,
and tears that at their fountain freeze;

for by the hearth the children sit
cold in that atmosphere of Death,
and scarce endure to draw the breath,
or like to noiseless phantoms flit:

but open converse is there none,
so much the vital spirits sink
to see the vacant chair, and think,
"How good! how kind! and he is gone."

XXI

I sing to him that rests below,
and, since the grasses round me wave,
I take the grasses of the grave,
and make them pipes whereon to blow....

I do but sing because I must,
and pipe but as the linnets sing:

and one is glad; her note is gay,
for now her little ones have ranged;
and one is sad; her note is changed,
because her brood is stol’n away.

XXII

The path by which we twain did go,
...thro’ four sweet years arose and fell,
from flower to flower, from snow to snow...

but where the path we walk’d began
to slant the fifth autumnal slope,
as we descended following Hope,
there sat the Shadow fear’d of man;

who broke our fair companionship,
and spread his mantle dark and cold,
and wrapt thee formless in the fold,
and dull’d the murmur on thy lip,

and bore thee where I could not see
  nor follow, tho’ I walk in haste,
and think, that somewhere in the waste
the Shadow sits and waits for me.

XXIII

Now, sometimes in my sorrow shut,
or breaking into song by fits,
alone, alone, to where he sits,
the Shadow cloak’d from head to foot,

who keeps the keys of all the creeds,
I wander, often falling lame,
and looking back to whence I came...

XXIV

...And is it that the haze of grief
makes former gladness loom so great?
The lowness of the present state,
that sets the past in this relief?

Or that the past will always win
a glory from its being far...?

XXV

I know that this was Life, --the track
whereon with equal feet we fared;
and then, as now, the day prepared
the daily burden for the back...

But this it was that made me move...
I loved the weight I had to bear,
because it needed help of Love...

XXVII

I envy not in any moods
the captive void of noble rage,
the linnet born within the cage,
that never knew the summer woods....

I hold it true, whate’er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
't is better to have loved and lost
than never to have loved at all.

XXVIII

The time draws near the birth of Christ:
the moon is hid; the night is still;
the Christmas bells from hill to hill
answer each other in the mist...

This year I slept and woke with pain,
I almost wish’d no more to wake,
and that my hold on life would break
before I heard those bells again:

but they my troubled spirit rule,
for they controll’d me when a boy;
they bring me sorrow touch’d with joy,
the merry merry bells of Yule.

XXX

With trembling fingers did we weave
the holly round the Christmas hearth;
a rainy cloud possess’d the earth,
and sadly fell our Christmas-eve.

At our old pastimes in the hall
we gambol’d, making vain pretence
of gladness, with an awful sense
of one mute Shadow watching all.

We paused: the winds were in the beech:
we heard them sweep the winter land;
and in a circle hand-in-hand
sat silent, looking each at each.

Then echo-like our voices rang;
we sung, tho’ every eye was dim,
a merry song we sang with him
last year: impetuously we sang:

we ceased: a gentler feeling crept
upon us: surely rest is meet:
"They rest," we said, "their sleep is sweet,"
and silence follow’d, and we wept...

XXXI

When Lazarus left his charnel-cave,
and home to Mary’s house return’d,
was this demanded-- if he yearn’d
To hear her weeping by his grave?

"Where wert thou, brother, those four days?"
There lives no record of reply...

Behold a man raised up by Christ!
The rest remaineth unreveal’d;
he told it not; or something seal’d
the lips of that Evangelist.

XXXIV

My own dim life should teach me this,
that life shall live for evermore,
else earth is darkness at the core,
and dust and ashes all that is;

This round of green, this orb of flame,
fantastic beauty; such as lurks
in some wild Poet, when he works
without a conscience or an aim.

What then were God to such as I?
'Twere hardly worth my while to choose
of things all mortal, or to use
a little patience ere I die;

’twere best at once to sink to peace,
like birds the charming serpent draws,
to drop head-foremost in the jaws
of vacant darkness and to cease.

XXXV

Yet if some voice that man could trust
should murmur from the narrow house,
"The cheeks drop in; the body bows;
Man dies: nor is there hope in dust:"

might I not say? "Yet even here,
but for one hour, O Love, I strive
to keep so sweet a thing alive:"
but I should turn mine ears and hear

the moanings of the homeless sea...

And Love would answer with a sigh,
"The sound of that forgetful shore
will change my sweetness more and more,
half-dead to know that I shall die."...

XXXVIII

With weary steps I loiter on,
tho’ always under alter’d skies
the purple from the distance dies,
my prospect and horizon gone.

No joy the blowing season gives,
the herald melodies of spring,
but in the songs I love to sing
a doubtful gleam of solace lives...

XL

Could we forget the widow’d hour
and look on Spirits breathed away,
as on a maiden in the day
when first she wears her orange-flower!

...And doubtful joys the father move,
and tears are on the mother’s face,
as parting with a long embrace
she enters other realms of love;

Her office there to rear, to teach...
to knit
The generations each with each;

And, doubtless, unto thee is given
a life that bears immortal fruit...

Ay me, the difference I discern!
How often shall her old fireside
be cheer’d with tidings of the bride,
how often she herself return,

and tell them all they would have told,
and bring her babe, and make her boast,
till even those that miss’d her most
shall count new things as dear as old:

but thou and I have shaken hands,
till growing winters lay me low;
my paths are in the fields I know,
and thine in undiscover’d lands.

XLI

...But thou art turn’d to something strange,
and I have lost the links that bound
thy changes; here upon the ground,
no more partaker of thy change.

Deep folly! yet that this could be--
that I could wing my will with might
to leap the grades of life and light,
and flash at once, my friend, to thee.

For tho’ my nature rarely yields
to that vague fear implied in death;
nor shudders at the gulfs beneath...

yet oft when sundown skirts the moor
an inner trouble I behold,
a spectral doubt which makes me cold,
that I shall be thy mate no more,

tho’ following with an upward mind
the wonders that have come to thee,
thro’ all the secular to-be,
but evermore a life behind.

XLII

I vex my heart with fancies dim:
he still outstript me in the race;
it was but unity of place
that made me dream I rank’d with him....

...what delights can equal those
that stir the spirit’s inner deeps,
when one that loves but knows not, reaps
a truth from one that loves and knows?

XLIII

If Sleep and Death be truly one...

So then were nothing lost to man;
so that still garden of the souls
in many a figured leaf enrolls
the total world since life began;

and love will last as pure and whole
as when he loved me here in Time...

XLIV

How fares it with the happy dead?
For here the man is more and more;
but he forgets the days before
God shut the doorways of his head.

The days have vanish’d,...

and in the long harmonious years
(If Death so taste Lethean springs),
may some dim touch of earthly things
surprise thee ranging with thy peers.

If such a dreamy touch should fall,
O turn thee round, resolve the doubt;
my guardian angel will speak out
in that high place, and tell thee all.

XLVI

...The path we came by, thorn and flower,
is shadow’d by the growing hour...

So be it: there no shade can last
in that deep dawn behind the tomb,   
but clear from marge to marge shall bloom
the eternal landscape of the past;

a lifelong tract of time reveal’d...

XLIX

...Beneath all fancied hopes and fears
ay me, the sorrow deepens down,
whose muffled motions blindly drown
the bases of my life in tears.

L

Be near me when my light is low,
when the blood creeps, and the nerves prick
and tingle; and the heart is sick,
and all the wheels of Being slow.

Be near me when the sensuous frame
is rack’d with pangs that conquer trust;
and Time, a maniac scattering dust,
and Life, a Fury slinging flame.

Be near me when my faith is dry...

be near me when I fade away,
to point the term of human strife,
and on the low dark verge of life
the twilight of eternal day.

LI

Do we indeed desire the dead
should still be near us at our side?
is there no baseness we would hide?
No inner vileness that we dread?

Shall he for whose applause I strove,
I had such reverence for his blame,
see with clear eye some hidden shame
and I be lessen’d in his love?

I wrong the grave with fears untrue:
shall love be blamed for want of faith?
There must be wisdom with great Death:
the dead shall look me thro’ and thro’.

Be near us when we climb or fall:
ye watch, like God, the rolling hours
with larger other eyes than ours,
to make allowance for us all.

LIV

Oh yet we trust that somehow good
will be the final goal of ill...

That nothing walks with aimless feet;
that not one life shall be destroy’d,
or cast as rubbish to the void,
when God hath made the pile complete...

Behold, we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
at last–far off–at last, to all,
and every winter change to spring.

So runs my dream: but what am I?
an infant crying in the night:
an infant crying for the light:
and with no language but a cry.

LV

...Are God and Nature then at strife,
that Nature lends such evil dreams?
So careful of the type she seems,
so careless of the single life;

that I, considering everywhere
her secret meaning in her deeds,
and finding that of fifty seeds
she often brings but one to bear,

I falter where I firmly trod,
and falling with my weight of cares
upon the great world’s altar-stairs
that slope thro’ darkness up to God,

I stretch lame hands of faith,...
and call
to what I feel is Lord of all,
and faintly trust the larger hope.

LVI

"So careful of the type?" but no.
from scarped cliff and quarried stone
she cries, "A thousand types are gone:
I care for nothing, all shall go.

"Thou makest thine appeal to me:
I bring to life, I bring to death:
the spirit does but mean the breath:
I know no more." And he, shall he,

Man, her last work, who seem’d so fair,
such splendid purpose in his eyes...

who trusted God was love indeed
and love Creation’s final law--
tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw
with ravine, shriek’d against his creed--

who loved, who suffer’d countless ills,
who battled for the True, the Just,
be blown about the desert dust,
or seal’d within the iron hills?

...O for thy voice to soothe and bless!
What hope of answer, or redress?
Behind the veil, behind the veil.

LVII

Peace; come away: the song of woe
is after all an earthly song:
peace; come away: we do him wrong
to sing so wildly: let us go.

Come; let us go: your cheeks are pale;
but half my life I leave behind:
methinks my friend is richly shrined;
but I shall pass; my work will fail.

Yet in these ears, till hearing dies,
one set slow bell will seem to toll
the passing of the sweetest soul
that ever look’d with human eyes.

I hear it now, and o’er and o’er,
eternal greetings to the dead;
and "Ave, Ave, Ave," said,
"Adieu, adieu" for evermore.

LVII

In those sad words I took farewell:
like echoes in sepulchral halls,
as drop by drop the water falls
in vaults and catacombs, they fell...

LIX

O Sorrow, wilt thou live with me
no casual mistress, but a wife,
my bosom-friend and half of life;
as I confess it needs must be;

O Sorrow, wilt thou rule my blood,
be sometimes lovely like a bride,
and put thy harsher moods aside,
if thou wilt have me wise and good...

LX

He past; a soul of nobler tone:
my spirit loved and loves him yet,
like some poor girl whose heart is set
on one whose rank exceeds her own.

He mixing with his proper sphere,
she finds the baseness of her lot,
half jealous of she knows not what,
and envying all that meet him there.

The little village looks forlorn;
she sighs amid her narrow days,
moving about the household ways,
in that dark house where she was born.

The foolish neighbours come and go,
and tease her till the day draws by:
at night she weeps, "How vain am I!
How should he love a thing so low?"

LXVII

When on my bed the moonlight falls,
I know that in thy place of rest
by that broad water of the west,
there comes a glory on the walls:

thy marble bright in dark appears,
as slowly steals a silver flame
along the letters of thy name,
and o’er the number of thy years.

The mystic glory swims away;
from off my bed the moonlight dies;
and closing eaves of wearied eyes
I sleep till dusk is dipt in gray:

and then I know the mist is drawn
a lucid veil from coast to coast,
and in the dark church like a ghost
thy tablet glimmers to the dawn.

LXVIII

When in the down I sink my head,
Sleep, Death’s twin-brother, times my breath;
Sleep, Death’s twin-brother, knows not Death,
nor can I dream of thee as dead...

But what is this? I turn about,
I find a trouble in thine eye,
which makes me sad I know not why,
nor can my dream resolve the doubt....

LXIX

I dream’d there would be Spring no more,
that Nature’s ancient power was lost:
the streets were black with smoke and frost...

I wander’d from the noisy town,
I found a wood with thorny boughs:
I took the thorns to bind my brows...

They call’d me in the public squares
the fool that wears a crown of thorns:

they call’d me fool, they call’d me child:
I found an angel of the night;
the voice was low, the look was bright;
he look’d upon my crown and smiled:

he reach’d the glory of a hand,
that seem’d to touch it into leaf:
the voice was not the voice of grief,
the words were hard to understand.

LXX

I cannot see the features right,
when on the gloom I strive to paint
the face I know; the hues are faint
and mix with hollow masks of night...

LXXIII

So many worlds, so much to do,
so little done, such things to be,
how know I what had need of thee,
for thou wert strong as thou wert true?

The fame is quench’d that I foresaw,
the head hath miss’d an earthly wreath:
I curse not nature, no, nor death;
for nothing is that errs from law.

We pass; the path that each man trod
is dim, or will be dim, with weeds:
what fame is left for human deeds
in endless age? It rests with God...

LXXIV

As sometimes in a dead man’s face,
to those that watch it more and more,
a likeness, hardly seen before,
comes out–to some one of his race:

so, dearest, now thy brows are cold,
I see thee what thou art, and know
thy likeness to the wise below,
thy kindred with the great of old.

But there is more than I can see,
and what I see I leave unsaid,
nor speak it, knowing Death has made
his darkness beautiful with thee.

LXXV

I leave thy praises unexpress’d
in verse that brings myself relief,
and by the measure of my grief
I leave thy greatness to be guess’d...

Thy leaf has perish’d in the green,
and, while we breathe beneath the sun,
the world which credits what is done
is cold to all that might have been.

So here shall silence guard thy fame;
but somewhere, out of human view,
whate’er thy hands are set to do
is wrought with tumult of acclaim.

LXXVIII

Again at Christmas did we weave
the holly round the Christmas hearth;
the silent snow possess’d the earth,
and calmly fell our Christmas-eve...

The yule-clog sparkled keen with frost...
but over all things brooding slept
the quiet sense of something lost.

As in the winters left behind,
again our ancient games had place...

Who show’d a token of distress?
No single tear, no mark of pain:
O sorrow, then can sorrow wane?
O grief, can grief be changed to less?

O last regret, regret can die!
No--mixed with all this mystic frame,
her deep relations are the same,
but with long use her tears are dry.

LXXXV

This truth came borne with bier and pall,
I felt it, when I sorrow’d most,
'Tis better to have loved and lost,
than never to have loved at all--

...every pulse of wind and wave
recalls, in change of light or gloom,
my old affection of the tomb,
and my prime passion in the grave:

my old affection of the tomb,
a part of stillness, yearns to speak:
"Arise, and get thee forth and seek
A friendship for the years to come.

"Iwatch thee from the quiet shore;
thy spirit up to mine can reach;
but in dear words of human speech
we two communicate no more."

XCVI

You say, but with no touch of scorn,
sweet-hearted, you, whose light-blue eyes
are tender over drowning flies,
you tell me, doubt is Devil-born.

I know not: one indeed I knew
in many a subtle question versed,
who touch’d a jarring lyre at first,
but ever strove to make it true:

perplext in faith, but pure in deeds,
at last he beat his music out.
    There lives more faith in honest doubt,
believe me, than in half the creeds.

He fought his doubts and gather’d strength,
he would not make his judgment blind,
he faced the spectres of the mind
and laid them: thus he came at length

to find a stronger faith his own;
and Power was with him in the night,
which makes the darkness and the light,
and dwells not in the light alone,

but in the darkness and the cloud,
as over Sinaï’s peaks of old,
while Israel made their gods of gold,
altho’ the trumpet blew so loud.

CXXX

Thy voice is on the rolling air;
Ihear thee where the waters run;
thou standest in the rising sun,
and in the setting thou art fair.
...
Far off thou art, but ever nigh;
I have thee still, and I rejoice;
I prosper, circled with thy voice;
I shall not lose thee tho’ I die.

CXXXI

O true and tried, so well and long,
demand not thou a marriage lay;
in that it is thy marriage day
is music more than any song.

Nor have I felt so much of bliss
since first he told me that he loved
a daughter of our house; nor proved
since that dark day a day like this;

tho’ I since then have number’d o’er
some thrice three years: they went and came,
remade the blood and changed the frame,
and yet is love not less, but more,

no longer caring to embalm
in dying songs a dead regret...

Regret is dead, but love is more
than in the summers that are flown,
for I myself with these have grown
to something greater than before;

which makes appear the songs I made
as echoes out of weaker times...

But where is she, the bridal flower,
that must he made a wife ere noon?
She enters, glowing like the moon
of Eden on its bridal bower:

on me she bends her blissful eyes
and then on thee; they meet thy look
and brighten like the star that shook
betwixt the palms of paradise.

O when her life was yet in bud,
he too foretold the perfect rose...

But now set out: the noon is near,
and I must give away the bride;
she fears not, or with thee beside
and me behind her, will not fear.

For I that danced her on my knee,
that watch’d her on her nurse’s arm,
that shielded all her life from harm
at last must part with her to thee;

now waiting to be made a wife,
her feet, my darling, on the dead;
their pensive tablets round her head,
and the most living words of life

breathed in her ear. The ring is on,
the "Wilt thou" answer’d, and again
the "Wilt thou" ask’d, till out of twain
her sweet "I will" has made you one...

O happy hour, behold the bride
with him to whom her hand I gave.
They leave the porch, they pass the grave
that has to-day its sunny side.

To-day the grave is bright for me,
for them the light of life increased,
who stay to share the morning feast,
who rest to-night beside the sea...

...drinking health to bride and groom
we wish them store of happy days.

Nor count me all to blame if I
conjecture of a stiller guest,
perchance, perchance, among the rest,
and, tho’ in silence, wishing joy...

A soul shall draw from out the vast
and strike his being into bounds,

and, moved thro’ life of lower phase,
result in man, be born and think,
and act and love, a closer link
betwixt us and the crowning race

of those that, eye to eye, shall look
on knowledge; under whose command
is Earth and Earth’s, and in their hand
is Nature like an open book;

no longer half-akin to brute,
for all we thought and loved and did,
and hoped, and suffer’d, is but seed
of what in them is flower and fruit;

whereof the man, that with me trod
this planet, was a noble type
appearing ere the times were ripe,
that friend of mine who lives in God,

that God, which ever lives and loves,
one God, one law, one element,
and one far-off divine event,
to which the whole creation moves.

October 12, 2006 in "Les Anglo-Saxons" | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Munich Abendzeitung's guide to Oktoberfest etiquette

Oktoberfest_herzerlThe Abendzeitung's A to Z Oktoberfest Guide

Off to the 173rd Oktoberfest

What is allowed, what isn't. And how a true Bavarian does it.

Flirting means making contacts, or else being a jerk-- according to whether or not you're successful. By the way, please notice the apron bows. Off limits if the knot is on the right! Then the lady is already taken.

Biergarten. True connoisseurs look for a quiet little place before noon. It's friendly and peaceful. Simply gemütlich.

Champagne. The noble stuff is given out only in six tents: Käfer, Weinzelt, Hippodrom, Armbrustschützenzelt, Fischer-Vroni, and Schützen-Festzelt.

Thirst. You must bring it with you-- and better quite a big one. There is no ordering "a half-pint" or "a small Pils."

Faux pas. If you want to avoid this area, do not use expressions like "fair" or "carnival" or anything like them about the Oktoberfest, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

Grumbling. Typical old Bavarian. However: whoever is friendly to the waiter will get his beer quicker than the whiner on the next bench.

Herzerl. [photo above] Watch out, if the "honey" doesn't buy one for his darling while strolling around the Wies'n! Note: The relation between Herzerl and size is the same as with rings and cost. The bigger/more expensive, the deeper/more sincere the love. Completely unacceptable: enough with the "It's over" Herzerl.

Crazy. In the bumper-cars, simply going around in circles is for the boring. True daredevils remember James Dean and set up a chicken race-- driving straight toward each other, and the first one to swerve loses.

Young and Old. If there is ever an event in Munich that suits everyone from the baby to Grandma, it's the Oktoberfest. For Oktoberfest-avoiders there are no excuses, or if there are, they're bad.

Screaming. The noise that brave young women emit while riding the roller-coaster, preferably right in the ear of the next passenger. The rule here is: on no account complain.

Lotteries. Two rules. 1) Buy a ticket spontaneously-- this has sweetened many a visit to the Wies'n. 2) Dear parents, let your dwarves go and get their own winnings-- they have better eyes anyway, and it also spares a lot of argument.

Music is there to dance to, fallala...Although it is officially forbidden-- bench-clingers are spiessig [the word implies petty-bourgeois taste but the scorn goes much much further than that].

Noshing. Cotton candy, chocolate bananas, toasted almonds, candied fruit-- for every snacker there's something just right. The dumbest question: "What's actually inside a candied apple?"

Original. The Oktoberfest Wies'n [meadow]. There's nothing else.

Pissoirs are invariably crowded at the Wies'n. Hot tip for girls: deny yourself the urinals-- it doesn't look good.

Fumes. A well-trimmed cigar is, as ever, the ideal last note for a day at the Wies'n. Far off in the front-runners are classics like Cohiba, Montecristo, or Moods. Don't go for cigars with vanilla-, cherry-, or rum-flavor.

Ferris Wheel. You have to have ridden it once. A no-no: Film porn on the Ferris Wheel. Last year a film company tried it-- caught at once.

Schnaps. If you feel crummy, try a Bärwurz at the Schnaps stand.

Technique. "Whack Lucas!" On the Ship-swing or the slide, it depends on technique, not on strength.

Taboo Words. "I am a driver." "It's too loud here." "Tracht is stupid." "I feel sick on rollercoasters." "I DON'T LIKE BEER!"

Prohibitions. Naturally there are some. Dogs and bicycles for example can't come in.

Wild game. In the rollercoaster it can get hot. As a rule for behavior while riding, see Screaming.

X-Chromosomes come to the Oktoberfest in dirndls. They drink the men, jostling in line, under the table. They ride the wildest rides and (almost) never use feminine wiles to get a beer.

Y-Chromosomes have burly calves in their lederhosen, know exactly how much beer they can drink, and are heroes of the Power Tower. Also they charm X-Chromosomes quite romantically on the Ferris Wheel.

Shooting Gallery: Wait until the employees are not in the line of fire. Can-throwing: aim at the bottom middle can. Tip: Drink enough Zielwasser ahead of time-- it can't hurt.

        --by M. Grimm, L. Kaufmann, M. Glas, 23 September 2006

September 25, 2006 in Germany | Permalink | Comments (0)

Police accused of classifying delinquents by ethnic origin in report

In an official complaint lodged by SOS-Racisme on Tuesday in Paris, in which the association claims to have suffered from a crime, the police officers of the General Information Office [Renseignements généraux] are accused of having created a dossier classifying delinquents by their ethnic group, the association announced.

This procedure accuses a report of the General Information Office on January 6, 2005, which identified the ethnic origin "of 436 perpetrators in 24 quartiers sensibles" [touchy neighborhoods], a document published in several press outlets since February.

"Among [the perpetrators], 87% have French nationality, 67% are of North African origin and 17% of African origin. French citizens of non-immigrant origin represent 9% of perpetrators," the report concluded.

SOS-Racisme considers that to arrive at this conclusion, the policemen of the General Information Office must necessarily have created a dossier of delinquents with a racist base.

"No matter what, the statistics of delinquents according to ethnic origin could not have been revealed to the press unless a dossier was put in place in the heart of the General Information Office," writes Samuel Thomas, vice-president of the association, in the complaint, which was given to the press.

These facts constitute, according to the association, the infraction of "creation or conservation in digital memory without the express consent of the concerned party, of data of personal character, which directly or indirectly shows a person's racial or ethnic origins, political, philosophical or religious opinions, or union memberships."

The penal code provides a penalty of up to five years of prison and 300,000 euros in fines for this offense.

SOS-Racisme directly accuses Nicolas Sarkozy by including in its complaint a declaration of the minister to RTL last February, in which he deplored the legal impossibility of mentioning the ethnic origin of delinquents.

"The fact that in France it is not possible to understand the diversity of the population, because the ethnic origin of delinquents is forbidden, is one of the reasons for the wreck of our system of integration," declared the president of the UMP.

The report of the General Information Office was used by several extreme-right internet sites, SOS-Racisme emphasizes in its complaint.

The General Administration of the National Police [DGPN, or Direction générale de la police nationale] declared in a press release that "no specific file of that type was created by any police service."

"The numbers contained in the report...are the result of an evaluation based on data on the état civil*, which are obligatory in the hearing reports of 436 perpetrators who were arrested during acts of urban violence in all the quartiers sensibles [touchy neighborhoods] combined," it explained.

The DGPN explained that it was "the origin of surnames and first names that allowed this study, which uses solely numbers, not names, to be carried out."

*  état civil is an expression hard to explain to us Anglo-Saxons. It basically means your legal identity. You used to have to produce an official fiche d'état civil-- which involved a bureaucratic hassle-- for almost everything in France, from registering for school to getting a driver's license to renting an apartment. It was ridiculous going to the American consulate and getting a piece of paper that  constituted the U.S. equivalent of the fiche d'état civil; the consul would carefully explain that they were happy to give you the scrap of paper the French bureaucracy asked for, but that the U.S. version actually had no legal validity.  A few years ago the French bureaucracy accepted that a fiche d'état civil is pointless when everyone has an I.D. card or a passport, and you rarely need to deal with it any more.

.....................................................

La police accusée d'avoir constitué un fichier raciste

    23/08/2006 - 07h31

PARIS (Reuters) - Les policiers des Renseignements généraux sont accusés d'avoir constitué un fichier de délinquants sur la base de leur origine ethnique dans une plainte avec constitution de partie civile déposée mardi à Paris par SOS-Racisme, annonce l'association.

Cette procédure incrimine un rapport des Renseignements généraux daté du 6 janvier 2005 répertoriant l'origine ethnique "de 436 meneurs recensés dans 24 quartiers sensibles", document publié dans plusieurs organes de presse depuis février.

"Parmi (les meneurs), 87% ont la nationalité française, 67% sont d'origine maghrébine et 17% d'origine africaine. Les Français d'origine non immigrée représentent 9% des meneurs", concluait ce rapport.

SOS-Racisme considère que pour arriver à cette conclusion, les policiers des RG ont nécessairement établi un fichier de délinquants sur une base raciste.

"En tout état de cause, les statistiques des délinquants selon leur origine ethnique n'ont pu être révélées à la presse qu'après qu'un fichier ait été mis en place au sein des Renseignements généraux", écrit Samuel Thomas, vice-président de l'association, dans la plainte transmise à la presse.

Ces faits constituent selon l'association l'infraction de "mise ou conservation en mémoire informatisée sans le consentement exprès de l'intéressé, des données à caractère personnel qui, directement ou indirectement, faisant apparaître les origines raciales ou ethniques, les opinions politiques, philosophiques ou religieuses, ou les appartenances syndicales des personnes".

Le code pénal prévoit une peine maximale de cinq ans d'emprisonnement et de 300.000 euros d'amende pour ce délit.

SOS-Racisme met en cause directement Nicolas Sarkozy en joignant à sa plainte une déclaration du ministre à RTL en février dernier où il déplorait l'impossibilité légale de mentionner l'origine ethnique des délinquants.

"Le fait que l'on ne puisse pas, en France, connaître la diversité de la population parce que l'origine ethnique des délinquants est interdite participe à la panne de notre système d'intégration", déclarait le président de l'UMP.

Le rapport des Renseignements généraux a été exploité par plusieurs sites internets d'extrême droite, souligne SOS-Racisme dans sa plainte.

La Direction générale de la police nationale (DGPN) a déclaré dans un communiqué "qu'aucun fichier spécifique de ce type (n'avait) été créé par un service de police".

"Les chiffres contenus dans le rapport (...) sont le résultat d'une évaluation effectuée sur la base des renseignements d'état civil figurant obligatoirement dans les procès-verbaux d'audition de 436 meneurs interpellés au cours d'actes de violences urbaines dans l'ensemble des quartiers sensibles", explique-t-elle.

La DGPN explique que c'est "l'origine des noms et des prénoms qui a permis d'effectuer cette étude uniquement chiffrée et non nominative".

© Reuters Limited.

August 23, 2006 in France | Permalink | Comments (0)

That sinister word social

The word social always makes a frisson go up my spine when I hear it on the radio. It's up to no good.

action social = strike

plan social = mass layoff

logement social = housing project (also known as HLM-- pronounced AhshellEM)

conflit social = labor dispute

partenaires sociaux= the bosses (always referred to as le patronat) versus the workers, the government and the media

mouvement social =  labor protest, strike

acquis sociaux [plural]= the things we have fought for, e.g. the 35-hour work week; retiring at 55; six-week vacations; the near-impossibility of getting fired for rudeness or incompetence

June 09, 2006 in France, Language | Permalink | Comments (5)

Sedulia test

Link to my test blog.

April 21, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

My French vs English wordlist (on-going)

I love the French and English languages. They are an endless source of pleasure.

[Disclaimer: all these definitions and opinions are my own and cannot be considered authoritative. I realize that you can eventually explain any notion in any language--but not equally easily.]

  

French words with no real English equivalent

les acquis sociaux [means "the things that we have fought for: the 35-hour week, etc." ]

attentat   The French have a word for any kind of terrorist attack

cadre [someone who is not an ordinary employee, part of the elite; but it's fuzzy]

chômer, chômeur [to be unemployed, an unemployed person: but in French, it's somehow active]

dépaysement [the sensation of being in another country]

déroulement [unfolding, how things happen] 

doux [means so many things at once: sweet, tender, soft, gentle]

douleur [means so many things at once: pain, sorrow, grief, sadness, ache, heartache]

encadrer [to be surrounded and taken care of]

la fête, fêter  [we need a word like this in English. "Party" or "feast" are not the same.]

incontournable [something you can’t escape from or get around; not quite the same as inevitable]

le patronat [the class of bosses, as if they're separate from normal people; I find this concept very French]

le regard  It's not exactly a glance, it's a look, the expression on your face as you look; mainly going toward the looker, while English look is mostly from the looker. 

retrouvailles [meeting again after a long time, the happiness]

That sinister word social 

sortable [adjective for someone you can take places without being embarrassed]  

spectacle [a show of any kind]  

surenchère [one-upmanship, upping the ante, increasing your bid]

 

English words with no true French equivalent

block  [as in "Go two blocks"-- the French word is pâté de maisons, but the French never use it. Instead they say "two streets." In fact I don't know how they talk about a city without ever mentioning blocks!]

float  [as in a parade]  In French you call it a char, but as far as I'm concerned, that has way too many other meanings and calls up the wrong image.

friend     [Of course, the French have friends too. But a French ami/amie always has to have a sex, whereas we find it's often so convenient not to have to say.]

gentleman   [in French, seems to be more of a fashion statement than a personal quality.]

kick  [you have to say: "donner un coup de pied" which I find a bit long for a quick kick]

kind  [the French have to say “gentille” or “généreux”; the nuance of this being a deep character trait is missing]

mind  [all senses, from "I don't mind" to "have in mind" to "a beautiful mind"]

miss [as in "missing someone"; you have to say "Tu me manques" which means "You are lacking to me."]

remember  [you have to say je me souviens or je me rappelle, "I recall to myself"-- seems very long for such a basic action]

ride  [as in an amusement park; you have to say "attraction" but that can mean a stationary one]

neighborly   Hahahahah

rude   ["mal poli" does not translate the American sense: aggressively, deliberately impolite.]

tailgating   [as in a car. This is curious because almost all French drivers tailgate. Maybe it's like our not noticing gravity until Isaac Newton pointed it out.]

thorough  [you have to say profond or à fond] 

wonder  [in French you have to say, "I ask myself" to translate "I wonder," but it's not the same thing]

wrong  [you have to say "faux" or "mauvais" as in "the bad direction" instead of "the wrong way"; a nuance of wrongness is missing]


French expressions I find strange

je n’y suis pour rien [literally "I am not there for nothing":  "it’s not my fault"]

passer un savon à quelqu’un
  [literally "pass a soap to someone": scold someone]

tirer les vers du nez   [literally "pull the worms out of the nose": used as in English, "getting him to talk was like pulling teeth"; people actually say this]



French words I like/think sound funny

coup de barre

galipette

gueule


polisson


racaille, pagaille, canaille, gouaille, grisaille; chatouille, rouille, bouille

zozoter [the French have a word for lisp even though en principe they don't have a "th" sound!]

tentative d’attentat
  [attempted terrorist attack; say it out loud!]

trois

Vive le roi! 
[Try to say “roi ” and see if it sounds like a king!]


Common French expressions whose equivalent you don't hear much in English

en principe  ["in theory"; actually means "but in reality, probably not"]

mais puisque je vous le dis   ["but because I'm saying it to you"-- someone who often seems untrustworthy says this when you doubt what they are saying. ]

faut pas vous énerver!   ["(you) must not get annoyed!" Always said by annoying people when you object to their cutting in line/queue-barging]



Common English words and expressions whose equivalent you don't hear much in French

Sorry, but I didn't make the rules!

I don't buy that!

wasting time

April 19, 2006 in "Les Anglo-Saxons", France, Language | Permalink | Comments (19) | TrackBack (0)

Is karchériser French? The UMP says no

First session of Wednesday 12 April 2006
198th session of the ordinary assembly 2005-2006

Presided by M. Jean-Louis Debré
(The session opened at 9h30.)

1. Reminder of the rules.

The President: Mr Jean-Pierre Brard will speak to remind us of the rules.

Mr Brard
: My speech directly concerns how the session takes place. It fits perfectly into article 58 of the rules.

The right to amend is a fundamental right of parliamentary representatives. It allows them to influence the making of the law.

Well, Mr President, you have made one of my amendments disappear. (Exclamations from the UMP benches.) I am surprised at you. You always have protected the rights of the opposition. The amendment went like this: “Article 8 of law number 2006-396 of March 31, 2006, on the equality of opportunity has been karchérisé [fire-hosed down, a reference to UMP leader Nicolas Sarkozy's use of the word during the unrest in November 2005].”

Several deputies of the UMP: It’s not French!

Mr Brard: Even though that amendment was examined by the Social Affairs Committee—in other words under the control of Mr Hénart and Mr Dubernard—you have judged its words to be unacceptable, under the pretext that the verb “karchériser” is not in the Larousse dictionary.

Mr President, I will first say that the Larousse is not an official document; it does not make the law in linguistic matters; it does not even have academic authority. Second, the fact precedes the law. It is not I who first used this word, which is Teutonic, but, and there’s nothing surprising about this, it was a politician who declared in New York that he felt like a foreigner in his own country.

I do not have to teach you, Mr President, since you yourself use that art, that humor is often more useful than boring litanies of legal formalism. On my side, I have found a dictionary that defined “karchériser” as “to clean thoroughly” or in other words to remove what is not clean— in this case, the CPE.

Mr Jean-Michel Dubernard [President of the Cultural, Familial, and Social Affairs Committee]: This is advertising! That’s enough!

Mr President: Finish up, Mr Brard.

Mr Brard: I am finishing, Mr President.

Mr Gérard Larcher [Minister for Employment, Work, and Insertion of Youth into Careers] This is Bricorama! [a large home-repairs store]

Mr Brard: Not at all. That word, which betrays a profound scorn for the youth of poor areas, constitutes a veritable aggression….

Mr Eric Raoult: The company in question is based in Seine-Saint-Denis!

Mr Brard: …against the youth, Mr Raoult, who are already humiliated daily, constantly denigrated in their personal and family life. The minister of the government, whose character of provocateur is known to us, will not go so far as to take responsibility for his past opinions. I remind you of the enthusiastic declarations of the Sarkozyites of this assembly….

Mr President: Thank you, Mr Brard….

Mr Brard: …in favor of the CPE.

Mr President: Mr Brard.

Mr Brard: You will allow me to finish by saying, Mr President, that you are wrong to deprive the assembly of the support of the government minister for the renewal of our language, a government minister who is the friend of Madame Bétancourt and of Tom Cruise!

Mr President: It is true, Mr Brard, that I refused your amendment. But be aware that I intend to submit to the Académie française, first the question of whether this word is French, and secondly your candidacy! (Smiles)

--Noted from the blog Aixtal, post of 16 April 2006.

April 19, 2006 in France | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is a test.

This is a test.
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April 10, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

CPE, the magnificent unanimity

From the newspaper Libération, 17 March 2006
CPE, the magnificent unanimity
Daniel Schneidermann

What a week! Moral is good. Spring is coming. Victory is in sight. The horizon is clear. Each morning the radio tells us that the movement is growing. The enemy has been designated: the infamous Villepin and his CPE. Nothing for improving the morale of the nation like a great unanimous combat. All of France is nothing but a vast resistance movement. In the front line, all the young people. The university students, of course, pulling after them the high school students, who in their turn are soon going after the junior high students. But not alone. The whole country, the polls attest, repeat, trumpet, and the polls cannot be wrong, as we all know, the whole country is in an uproar. Each morning some bastion falls.

The Left, all the Left, is magnificently reunited. Bernard Thibault obviously. Chérèque too, who has just explained that this Villepin, decidedly, is not a man of his word. Hollande, Fabius, Royal, Strauss-Kahn are marching hand in hand. But not alone. One feels that resistance is gaining on the Right. One morning, we learn that the former Giscard minister Hervé de Charrette has joined the rebellion. There he is on all the stages, a hundred microphones stretched toward him, since when has he had such excitement? Without speaking of all those who secretly feel close to the movement. A heartbeat away from taking to the resistance, Laurence Parisot didn't renounce that till the last minute, it is murmured that it is the fault of the Fédération patronale de la métallurgie. That is just a delayed game. A good part of the government encourages us behind the scenes. It seems that Borloo burns to join us. That Sarkozy is thinking about it too. Besides, the television stations have taken a cruel pleasure in showing the spokesman for the UMP, his nose in his socks, obliged to pretend to support the CPE. As for Chirac, one certainly feels that if he were free to express himself, he too....

If all these images, all these rumors come to us, it's because for once the media are on the right side: ours. They are passionate. Those first days of combat are good and forgotten, when the press, caught up in its bird flu and chikungunya [epidemic in La Réunion], superbly ignored the first university strikes. It is good and forgotten, the usual bow at eight p.m. to all the government's wonderful plans. PPDA [Patrick Poivre d'Arvor] is with us, who sent the entire staff of TF1 to the heart of the demonstrations. No connection, of course, with the ostensible silence of Sarkozy. Those who think that TF1 says out loud what Sarkozy is thinking certainly don't understand the independence of the media.

And the sempiternal complaints of the editorialists on the impossibility of reform, that French illness, where has it gone? "You don't reform, you have no courage, you surrender to the street, it's no wonder this country is in such bad shape!"-- where did that line go? Another one, temporarily, is replacing it: "When is he finally going to give in, this Villepin who didn't consult anyone?" In Libération, Alain Duhamel understands that Villepin was a "casting error." On RTL, Jean-Michel Aphatie reads quotations from Villepin, extracts from the latest book by Giesbert, to the spokeswoman of the UMP, Valérie Pécresse:  "France wants one to take her. It's an itch in her pelvis. Whoever wins her at the next election, it won't be a permanent politician, but a seasonal worker, a rascal, a marauder." And Aphatie confides on his blog that Pécresse, coming out of the studio, reacted: "I hate that phrase, that way of speaking." Pécresse with us!

Of course, everything could happen differently. One could discuss it, this CPE. One could ask the employers, and the young employees. One could shine a spotlight on the precariousness which, in the shadow, extends its social and psychological ravages. One could imagine that the CPE could be, in certain cases, an adaptive response, but ineffectual and humiliating in other cases. One could ask what young people with no diplomas think, those who have nothing on the horizon but rejection and unemployment. One won't know anything about that. When cars aren't burning, the suburbs are of little interest.

Alone, at the beginning of the week, Le Parisien went out to meet a handful of youths from the suburbs, in a cafeteria in Mureaux (Yvelines). "Two years trial period? That's not too bad. When you don't have a job, it's still better than nothing," says Moussa, 19.

"We don't have anything. Nothing from nothing. So even if the trial period lasted ten years, it's not a problem: I'd sign right away," adds Malik...who has never worked. And Rachid...: "For a boss, it's more reassuring. He'll be more likely to take the risk of hiring kids like us when he says to himself, 'If it doesn't work out, I can always fire them.'"

Who says these words? In themselves, not much. They obviously don't suffice to legitimize the CPE. No one can know if they are representative. But one doesn't hear this tonality in the concert around us....The hour is one of Unanimous Resistance and all its charms. Let's not disturb it.

March 18, 2006 in France | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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