Tag Archives: French politics
May 1st: A Hard Rain on The Parade
May 1st has forever been a big day in France. Long before the invention of trade unions (credited today to the USA by a Paris radio station!) and street demonstrations, it was a day of festivities and magic. Pots and bunches of lilies of the valley are sold on street corners now as centuries ago, […]
when joie-de-vivre turns surreal
ONE RIDER DOWN With at least one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Trump, Putin, Orban, Erdogan, Modi et al.) knocked out of his saddle this morning, the world looks a little less damned. The Amazon can breathe! My intent yesterday was to ignore politics completely in this letter, but the defeat of Boss Bolsonaro […]
WAOU!
At a few minutes past 8 p.m., in Nice, the multiple knots in pointdevue’s tummy are unwinding. Around midday rumors were swirling (fed by Belgian TV) that the race looked too close to call. I wandered around town, restless and anxious, with a real touch of vertigo. Too much at stake to list here at […]
Election Fever–or Election Panic?
Only the speechifiers, with a p.a. system at their disposal, can make themselves heard over the deafening drumbeats and burst of song from hundred of militant throats. These are festive militants enjoying the national tradition of taking to the streets (thank god yesterday’s rain is over!) many in clownish costumes or yellow vests. But all […]
Reading the Results – A Bulletin in Bullet Points on Europe
After days of staggered voting, the results are in today for both France and Europe. With some surprises: – At 50.13% participation in France far exceeded expectations. Hooray! – ‘Rural’, a category assumed to be more Euro-skeptic, turned out more strongly than ‘urban.’ – That said, the pro-European center can be considered to have held […]
The Drama of The Yellow Vests: Act Four
Those talking heads who say they saw the insurrection coming? – in this amplitude, in this form? are lying. Or, at best, kidding themselves. A few facts, as the rain and the sanitation trucks collaborate to try to clean the trashed streets of Paris: Yesterday didn’t quite add up to the apocalypse that some, including […]
The Rites of Spring
In France, the first day of May marries two traditions that have absolutely nothing to do with each another: offering a bouquet of lilies of the valley to one’s nearest and dearest, and celebrating International Labor Day. The noisy parade routes, jammed with union members and sympathizers waving banners, are lined with sausage stands […]
POINT de VUE: PARIS 
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