Charlottesville Votes to Sell Lee Statue, Debate Continues

Robert E. Lee statue in Lee Park / Photo: Cville dog / Wikimedia Commons

Charlottesville City Council voted 3-2 on Monday to sell to the highest bidder the Robert E. Lee statue that has been the subject of so much controversy.  In February, Council had voted by the same margin to remove the monument from Lee Park – a controversial vote that spurred a lawsuit against the City Council, limiting its action for now.  WMRA’s Marguerite Gallorini reports.

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3:48

MAYOR MIKE SIGNER: Okay. Good evening everyone. Calling this meeting of Charlottesville City Council to order.

Three main options for disposing of the Lee statue were on the table before City Council on Monday evening: auction; competitive bid; or donating the statue to a government or non-profit entity.

Ben Doherty is a supporter of the removal of the statue. At the beginning of the meeting, he expressed his frustration about how slowly things have moved, in his view.

BEN DOHERTY: You may give excessive weight to the misguided legal arguments presented by the group of Confederate romanticists in their lawsuit against the city. These are all excuses. Respect the 3-2 vote of the City Council and work with your colleagues to move forward as quickly as possible in removing this racist statue from our midst. Thank you.

The lawsuit he refers to was filed in March by the Monument Fund and other plaintiffs, including war veterans, or people related to the statue’s sculptor Henry Schrady, or to Paul McIntire, who granted the statue to the city. The plaintiffs allege that the city violated the Code of Virginia section that protects war memorials, and the terms according to which McIntire granted the parks and memorials to the city. While it might not be liked by removal supporters, the lawsuit has to be taken into account, as City Council member Kathleen Galvin reminded the audience.

KATHLEEN GALVIN: The next step, I believe, will be a public hearing on the plaintiffs’ temporary injunction request. In the meantime, Council cannot remove the statue until a decision is made about the injunction. Council can also not move the statue until the case about moving the statue is decided in court. No one knows what the time frame is.

What they could do for now though was vote on removal and renaming plans. Councilor Kristin Szakos reads the motion, agreed upon in a 3-2 vote:

KRISTIN SZAKOS: The City of Charlottesville will issue a Request For Bids for sale of the statue and will advertise this RFB -- Request For Bids -- widely, including to organizations responsible for sites with historic or academic connection to Robert E. Lee or the Civil War.

Some of the criteria are that…

SZAKOS:  The statue will not be displayed to express support for any particular ideology; the display of the statue will preferably be in an educational, historic or artistic context. If no responsive proposals are received, Council may consider donation of the statue to an appropriate venue.

As for the second motion of the night, they also voted unanimously to hold a contest to select a new name for the park.

Charles Weber is a Charlottesville attorney, a former Republican candidate for the City Council, and a plaintiff in the case. As a military veteran, he has a special interest in preserving war memorials.

CHARLES WEBER: I just think war memorials are very special monuments to those who actually have to go and do the fighting; that they're not necessarily political statements, they're just sort of a tribute to the people who did it. “Stonewall” Jackson and Robert E. Lee were military men and fought the war, they were not the politicians.

In particular, Weber points out that the lawsuit is about keeping elected officials accountable:

WEBER: I think all of us, on both sides of that debate, the political debate, have a vested interest in making sure that our elected officials don't violate the law in pursuing a political agenda, so in that regard I think this lawsuit is fairly universal.

Author and human rights activist David Swanson -- who supports the City Council’s decision -- sees it in a different light.

DAVID SWANSON: Any legal restriction that purports to deny the city that right should be challenged, and should be overturned if necessary. A locality ought to be able to decide what it wants to memorialize in its public spaces. There ought not to be a ban on removing anything related to wars any more than a ban on removing anything related to peace. What a prejudice to put in place!

This article and podcast appeared on WMRA.org. 
Download the podcast on Through Gallo Eyes.

Imagine, Create, Innovate: Tom Tom Festival's 6th Year

Graeme Black Robinson, from The Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia, shows to children how to be a puppeteer. /
Photo: Marguerite Gallorini

It’s billed as a week of innovation and art, with Charlottesville itself as the canvas.  The sixth annual Tom Tom Founders Festival is happening this week in Charlottesville. WMRA’s Marguerite Gallorini has the story.

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3:42

[Crowd chatting around Irish street music]

Paul Beyer, the festival’s founder, can definitely provide what you might call the elevator pitch for the event.

PAUL BEYER: Tom Tom is a time where I think Charlottesville really shines. We like to celebrate our local entrepreneurs, our local founders, our local civic leaders and we also try to invite the nation – increasingly – the nation to come to Charlottesville and check out what is going on here. There will be 300 hundred speakers at Tom Tom this year, 60 bands, 65 venues, over 150 events – many of them like tonight are completely free.

And what do all these events have in common?  Associate director Celia Castleman explains.

CELIA CASTLEMAN: The goal is to connect collaborators with one another, and to leave legacies, so the collaborations that people find amongst each other, and make and discover, will then turn into something sustainable. We love the idea of having speakers come and really spend time with our community.

This year, some of those speakers include New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker, U.S. Senator Mark Warner, co-founder and CEO of CODE2040 Laura Weidman Powers, and many others from the arts, science, and the environment.

Two key words that capture the essence of Tom Tom -- community and innovation. Steve Plaskon attended a session called “Innovation in Education” on Tuesday night.

STEVE PLASKON: Being associate professor in the Curry School, I am really interested in educational innovation. So I hope to get out of this just some sense of what the youth of America are doing right now, what is happening locally. I hope to be energized by this.

Kristen Jamison, Assistant Professor of Teaching at UVa and Director of The Loop Center for Social and Emotional Development, emphasized the need for more engaging education:

KRISTEN JAMISON: If the instruction is not engaging, and creative, if it does not involve movement, if it does not involve intrigue, then a lot of time is lost and wasted. Really it’s about merging the idea of quality with engagement and interest.

To get younger attendees engaged, Tom Tom showcases workshops including one featuring secrets from the art of puppetry. It was staged at the Paramount Theater by Graeme Black Robinson and Michelle Urbano, from the Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia.

[Extract from a play performed by The Mermaid Theater]

GRAEME BLACK ROBINSON: It’s great for us to not only get the kids to see a professional puppetry at a young age, but for them to actually get their hands on the puppets, and to realize that it’s basically playing with toys, it’s a really great sort of hands-on experience with theater that they get to have at a young age.

[Sound of puppetry workshop]

All this creativity and invention require fuel  -- so food is another important feature. Many of the city’s local restaurants are participating in the 'Farm to Table Restaurant Week' during which they highlight a local ingredient. Citizen Burger Bardecided to highlight more than one:

KATE ELLWOOD: This year we’re doing one called the home town burger. So we are using local cheese from Mountain View Farm, and then mushrooms are out in Nelson County from “a. m. FOG” mushrooms,  and our beef is five miles down the road, from Timbercreek Farm, it’s grass-fed grass-finished.

That’s the venue’s general manager Kate Ellwood, who is also attending some of the music events:

ELLWOOD: I plan on going to Porchella, and Belmont, for all the music acts, so that sounds really fun.

Conveniently, the festival’s website has a 72-hour weekend itinerary for those who could not attend the week days.

The sixth annual Tom Tom Founder's Festival continues through Sunday, April 16.

This article and podcast appeared on WMRA.org.

Why the French Election Looks Like a Joke

Les trois candidats les plus poplaires dans les sondages, Marine Le Pen, Emmanuel Macron et François Fillon
/ Source: Reinformation.tv

Cases of misuse of power keep piling up on major French candidates – and they could not care less.

Fictitious jobs, partiality, hiding of property assets: the unofficial program of the 2017 French presidential election consists of suspicions at best, judicial investigations at worst. The main right-wing leader up until recently, François Fillon, has been found to employ his wife Penelope and his two children as parliamentary assistants – although Penelope told the Sunday Telegraph in 2007 that she had never been her husband’s assistant. He is, as of today, third in the polls with 21% of voting intentions.

The top two candidates also have dirty hands: Marine Le Pen, who is leading in the polls with 26% for the first round, is under scrutiny for misuse of European parliamentary assistants hired to work on her campaign. The National Front is also suspected of setting up a fraudulent system to finance the party’s campaigns of 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2015 – ever since Marine Le Pen became its President. As for the young pro-business candidate Emmanuel Macron, now number two in the polls with 25%, he is suspected of partiality towards the Havas communication counsel company, and conflict of interests with the major Servier laboratory.

It does not stop here: the investigative newspaper “Le Canard Enchaîné” recently published that François Fillon had hidden a 50,000 euro loan (52,725 dollars) from the High Authority for transparency in public life (HATVP), a new and independent anti-corruption body. The Le Pen family has also understated their property assets to the HATVP, sometimes up to two-thirds. If these claims are found to be true, Marine Le Pen could risk up to three years in jail, a 45,000-euro fine (47,432 dollars), and 10 years of ineligibility. Macron has also understated his property money for two years, but was smarter about it and managed to get out of tax adjustment by striking a deal with the tax agency and spontaneously sending a corrective statement for the two understated years.

Are candidates worried at all? It does not look like it. Ahead of his indictment on March 15th, François Fillon claimed during a press conference that he had never been treated fairly by the justice system and that he would “continue until the end” in any case. Marine Le Pen also claims – as is her habit – to be prey to the media’s and judges’ bias against her, and that she would answer to police and judicial summons only after the presidential election. As for Macron, he is suspected of partiality, conflict of interest and– only turbid waters which have not yet turned into a typhoon for him.

Satirical TV shows joke about the morality of this whole situation: “Le Petit Journal” – a French spin-off of the Daily Show - posted on Facebook on March 1st “It is official: François Fillon could not care less. Actually, the whole French electoral season entered a new era that we will call “the era of the ‘could not care less.’” 

The satirical “Groland” show also posted a humoristic video two days later, showing actors getting away with larceny or speeding tickets by applying the philosophy of French presidential candidates: if you say “no matter what, I will continue until the end” or “I don’t want to,” according to the Fillon and Le Pen jurisprudence policemen will not be able to force you to comply and will have to wait for you to finish.

This article was written for this blog only.

Paris: My Big Fat Greek Revival

Fresh vegetables from the Greek-French restaurant "Gallika" in Paris / Picture: Gallika

Greeks in the French capital may not be easy to find. But a growing interest in their culture, following the crisis, might change that.

With the Greek crisis going on since 2008, it is hard to think about Greece in any other way. Yet, Greek culture has influenced, if not created, our Western way of life: and it continues up to now. The Greek diaspora abroad is quite a big phenomenon, all the more so now with the financial crisis. In Paris for instance, contemporary Greek culture might not readily meet the eye; but stopping by any local shop selling Greek food in Paris will prove that Greeks are here, and are fond of making us discover their Mediterranean ways. 

Where are the Greeks?

Sebastian is the son of a Cypriot caterer in Paris, Marios Sofocleou. People pass by, sometimes just to chat, in their 'Apollo' food store in the 18th arrondissement. “The customers who come here are mainly French people from the neighborhood,” he admits. “They might have parents or grandparents who are from there, but they don't speak the language. They love Mediterranean food for sure, everything with olive oil, people always love that. But the real Greek customers are less than ten per day.”

His father migrated in the 1980s: “There were several reasons for his departure – the Turkish invasion of Cyprus of 1974, for starters, and economic reasons. My father lived in the mountain town of Kapilio. A lot of people left to find work in Europe at that time, and since his brother had left to study in France, he followed him.” After his military service at 21 years old, he came to France, dropped out of university early and started working. “Together, they had a good bunch of Greek friends with whom they would hang out all the time. Eventually, he married a French girl.” According to Sebastian, the Greek population was more visible at that time, compared to now.

Indeed the “grassroots” Greek community is not very prominent and its presence in the French capital is only felt if one really looks for it. Data released by the Greek Embassy in Paris in 2014 say there are only 15,000 Greek nationals living in the three French cities of Paris, Lyon and Lille combined. In comparison, 285,703 Algerians live in Paris’ larger metropolitan area alone, according to 2011 Insee data.

And for those who find themselves in Paris and seek to learn about the Greek way of life, Greek shops are really the way to go: forget about the Hellenic Cultural Center. As it turns out, while the center has a perfectly decent website, it does not actually have any physical center to welcome you: their only business offices are located in the same building as the Cyprus Consulate, in the 16th arrondissement. One should not try to e-mail them either: they will not respond. If one calls directly, they will tell you to e-mail them: error 404. "Greek style." 

A small sphere of influence: music and food 

So one can go to the handful of Greek restaurants that survive in the neighborhoods of Saint Michel and Buttes-Chaumont. “I do have a couple of musician friends who play in restaurants here,” says Sebastian. “And my sister has been a part of the 'Parthenon' dance group - a dance academy for Greeks and Serbs - since she was a kid.” Although he was enrolled in a Hellenic school in Buttes-Chaumont for seven years during his childhood, he admits that he has not been keeping up with the cultural trends.

"Parthenon" dancers performing at the Théâtre du Gymnase in Paris, 2008 / Picture: Youtube

Buttes-Chaumont does seem to be a small Greek stronghold. One taverna restaurant in particular, 'Ouzeri', is known for the quality of its cuisine and its lively atmosphere. Coincidentally, the closest metro station is Botzaris, as in Markos Botzaris, one of the heroes of Greece's War of Independence in 1821. “A friend of mine played rebetiko there,” says Giannis, an Erasmus student in musicology from Thessaloniki, the second biggest city after Athens. “But I would not say there is that strong of a Hellenic influence in Paris.”

Julien and Jean-Philippe, two French business partners in their thirties, opened a restaurant last summer called 'Gallika,' which means 'French' in modern Greek. Bt the restaurant is not taverna-style: according to them, this concept would not be successful in France – a preconception that Ouzeri's positive reviews seem to challenge.

Julien had never been particularly interested in visiting Greece at first. Then Jean-Philippe took him there on vacation, where they stayed in his family’s house in the small town of Drepano in the southern Peloponnese region. “I fell in love with the country!” Julien admits. “We both loved the conviviality of the place, the good food, the way of life. That’s when we realized we wanted to set up a business to bring this kind of lifestyle to France.” 

Bringing ‘true’ Greek culture to Paris to break down stereotype 

The two Frenchies wanted to “mix modernity with authenticity,” and they go all the way: “everything, besides our fresh vegetables and meat, comes from Greece – our beer and sodas, our pita bread, our oil, our spices... at some point, we would even like to import Peloponnesian lemons. And our cook, Katerina, is from there. She's actually a dancer but works with us on the side to make a little money. We really want it to be, look, and taste real.” While their customers are mainly French people from the neighborhood, they do have Greeks who come in every day.

"Gyros," a Greek specialty and go-to offered at the Gallika restaurant / Picture: Gallika

Through their restaurant, Julien and Jean-Philippe are striving to change people's definition of the Mediterranean country: going from 'crisis-stricken Greece' to 'beautiful and lovable Greece.' “As far as the crisis goes, I think French people compare it to Italy. However, they view this country in a harsher light. It's represented as the black sheep of Europe, the ones for whom we pay, but I think there are more and more people trying to change that image; that's also what we are trying to do.”

“Compared to last year when the country was all over the news and harshly condemned for its crisis, I think there is now a growing empathy for its citizens, for what they are enduring. It might be silly, but I think Greece is starting to finally ‘come out’ thanks to tourism articles published in Elle Magazine, for instance. There are also a couple of specialized grocery stores now, while there were not so much a few years ago. Things are starting to change.” 

Julien firmly believes that an individual’s knowledge of a foreign country’s culture strongly influences the way they perceive its people. Being familiar with cultural elements such as food and music helps to have a deeper understanding of the country as a whole, rather than painting it in black and white. “We just want to remind people that, yes, Greece is cool.”

 

This article was written as a university assignment.

Chris Botti – Live @ Blue Note Jazz Club

Thursday 23^rd December, New York City
 

Chris Botti's 12^th annual holiday residency at the Blue Note Jazz Club has become its own little tradition over time. “We've been coming here for the past five years!” confirms a man seated in front of me at the end of the concert, a wide smile on his lips and stars in his eyes.

At the historic sit-down venue of the Blue Note in New York City, Chris Botti is wearing the usual black tie and suit. Yet the world-renowned trumpeter interacts constantly with the audience throughout the evening. It is the kind of good-natured vibe that comes with habit: as Botti says himself, “coming to the Blue Note for as many years as I've been is like coming home.” This year's residency runs from December 12, 2016 to January 8, 2017.

He starts off smoothly with the quiet 'Gabriel's Oboe', accompanied by the talented Sandy Cameron at the violin, and Ben Stivers giving a string ensemble-like background on the keyboards, reminiscent of 90s Italian pop music. Next comes 'Concierto De Aranjuez' (or 'En Aranjuez Con Tu Amor'), continuing in the same vibe emphasizing atmosphere over technique – with a Latin touch by Ben Butler on the guitar.

Next, their performance of the upbeat 'Regroovable' from the album Midnight Without You, has an electric guitar kick and Geoffrey Keezer on the piano. The band experiments on some more modern jazz elements and deconstructed melodies, before going back to the comfortable happy atmosphere of the beginning. The audience is getting really hyped and starts clapping their hands –

Keezer and drummer Lee Pearson work very well together and daze everyone with their deadly precision, like two perfectly coordinated dancers.

After a break where Chris introduces the musicians, they move on to the quieter, more romantic 'Emmanuel', from his 2009 live album Chris Botti in Boston. Violin take-offs, crescendos and decrescendos, as well as the keyboard background all give that 90s romantic Italian feel again.

'You Don't Know What Love Is' definitely has a more jazz standard sound, with a chilled double bass accompaniment by Richie Goods. Slow changes of moods occur against the album version, a little 'Salt Peanuts' reference makes its way out there, and the drum base becomes a little more fast-paced. Pearson is now definitely the mood-maker here, people gasping at his spectacular gestures like hitting the bass drum from the other side of the drum set.

Then came the time of all-time favourite 'My Funny Valentine', without a clear beat and yet the trumpet and piano always knowing exactly where they are. Then they played 'Hallelujah' in the memory of late composer and interpreter Leonard Cohen, who passed away this year. Botti used the mute on this one, and the whole rendering of this track was very well done, delicate and dreamy, a very good and proper way to say farewell.

After another short break, Pearson gives a 5 to 10-min solo, which is definitely one of the big highlights of the night. It is the kind of improvisation that can appeal even to people who usually don't like drum solos – like myself. He gives such an inspired, varied, original solo, yet structured and always with a regular beat. He slowly works his way back and forth between different styles, different rhythms and different tools – hands, sticks, mallets... Once again, the audience is hypnotized by his performance and energy.

Two singers also made their way to the scene during the second part of the concert: vocalist Sy Smith first enters from the side of the room, joining Botti playing among the audience for 'The Very Thought of You' and 'The Look of Love'. She sings with a laser-like precision, and improvises on jazz as easily as you and I are breathing.

It is Sandy Cameron's turn to shine alone: she begins a solo with dark, almost medieval undertones – she sounds like a devilish bee, and sure enough she ends up quoting Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Flight of the Bumblebee'. Only in her twenties, she has a very strong stage presence. The rest of the band finally joins for a unique rendering of Led Zeppelin's 'Kashmir', spreading quite an intense mood on stage - see video below.

Now, it's time for a change of tone with tenor Rafael Moras from the LA Opera, joining on Francesco Sartori's famous 'Time to Say Goodbye (Con Te Partirò)' ; as well as the classic 'Nessun Dorma' by Giacomo Puccini. This is all ear candy for the audience.

Then comes the grand finale featuring Sy Smith again: Al Green's 1972 'Let's Stay Together', hyping up the room one last time, with electric guitar, dramatic lighting and so on, ending the whole show with a bang. The public is obviously pleased: mission accomplished, they'll all have a merry Christmas.

Setlist:

1. Gabriel's Oboe
2. Concierto De Aranjuez
3. When I Fall in Love
4. Emmanuel
5. You Don't Know What Love is
6. Hallelujah
7. Tango Suite
8. For All We Know
9. The Very Thought of You
10. The Look of Love
11. Kashmir (Violin Solo)
12. Nessun Dorma
13. Time to Say Goodbye
14. Regroovable
15. Let's Stay Together

This article appeared on
AAAmusic.co.uk.

Trump Elected: Time to Learn

Donald Trump speaking at the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. / Wikimedia Commons / Gage Skidmore

After the fiasco of the Democratic National Convention and the attitude of the "establishment" towards many Americans, the Democratic Party has to learn from its mistakes.

“It is my high honor and esteemed privilege to introduce to you the President Elect of the United States of America, Donald Trump,” introduced future Vice President Mike Pence in New York in the night of November 8, 2016. Donald Trump himself soon appeared on scene accompanied by ceremonial military-like brass music reminiscent of Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man,” written in 1942, in a time of world war, after Vice President Henry A. Wallace’s speech in which he proclaimed the dawning of the "Century of the Common Man". A fitting entrance scene, for a candidate that has built his whole campaign on war rhetoric and the claim to want to give the power of the United States back to its citizens, its common men and women.

There is much to learn from this victory. This whole electoral season has been covered by the media in a binary way - the 'clown' and the reasonable one, the paranoid one and the open-minded one. It is undeniable that Donald Trump has appealed to some divisive, xenophobic and sexist fears that a great part of the population feel, and in a way more than just clownish. But to solely talk about this is a mistake.

Donald Trump has been out-spoken about his hatred of the media. According to him, the media were only painting a pessimistic and burlesque portrait of him - 'The Donald' - and took sentences he said out of context to confuse people about his actual policies. But only Donald Trump can be held accountable for the words he said, and he should know better when exposing himself to national and international criticism.

But the media also faked ignorance and feigned objectivity, going so far as to say – seeing the great popularity Donald Trump ended up getting for real – that he had cleverly “manipulated the media.” But only the media can be held accountable for the coverage they made of the Republican candidate, and they should know better as well.

What most “liberal establishment” media failed to see is that the common when-she-becomes-President kind of presumptuous attitude would not go unnoticed, nor unpunished. There is only so long you can make fun of such a great part of the population. Liberals – like me – liked to make fun, in an incredulous way, of Trump supporters. How could anyone go for someone saying such trashy things? Denying, lying so often about what he said or did in the past – WRONG! – whether long ago or recently?

And yet, he was not the only one to lie in this electoral season. As the Observer puts it in a nutshell: “Hillary Clinton and the DNC Have Only Themselves to Blame – This is what happens when a major political party rigs the primaries to nominate their preferred candidate.” Following WikiLeaks e-mails showing the dishonesty of the Clinton campaign towards Bernie Sanders, his strategist Cesar Vargas recently wrote an op-ed piece in The Huffington Post recounting the unfairness with which the Vermont Senator’s campaign was met:

"There has been no repudiation, let alone denunciation, of what was said in those emails-just denial, finger pointing, and doublespeak. To appoint the very same folks who carried out many malicious behaviors to tip the scales for Hillary is just as unpardonable. Why reward unethical behavior? It’s mind-boggling."

In a feature focusing on the Clinton years and the internal and ideological struggles of the Democratic Party, The New Yorker's George Packer asked the question “can Hillary win the white working class back?” We now see she narrowly failed to do so. And this social class was indeed the central focus of the whole Trump campaign: he spoke to disillusioned working- and middle-class white people in simple terms that hit home. While he did not propose any clear program – neither did Clinton, although she was more articulate in her views – he focused a great deal on trade, the dark spot of the Democrats’ legacy that left many formerly industrialized regions abandoned, in the face of rising globalization not yet well-mastered, or understood, by the political class.

The “American Dream” slogan does not work so much anymore because globalization has made competition much stronger and mobile, and capitalism crushed the little people with ridiculous living costs - mainly regarding health. This is not specific to the United States only of course, but this 2016 race will certainly have underlined it. On November 9, Bernie Sanders’ Facebook page published the following status, encapsulating what had been at stake:

It is now time for the Democratic Party to face its own demons, and reconcile with its pro-worker tradition. Hillary Clinton might have been just as sincerely passionate as Donald Trump, but the ways in which she "stole" the primaries from Bernie Sanders was too much to bear for many millennials that had been so inspired by the Senator. And while she got more popular vote than Trump, the point remains that even if she had been elected, it would not have been the landslide victory all were expecting: a deep divide exists within the American society, and it is no longer possible to shove it under the rug with terms of "post-racial society", as we were continuously hearing a few years ago.

Finally, such liberal bashing as we have seen, or participated in for some (the other way around was just as true, but the argument of "they did it too" does not stand) was very disrespectful to those many Americans who have true fears of having the control over their lives slipping away from them, and who have a true feeling of betrayal by their federal State. This is a sentiment all the more relevant in a country where self-reliance is a founding philosophy.

For them, what was more reassuring than finding a community of fellow-disillusioned that has more or less the same perspective, giving them a sense of belonging they certainly did not get from the disconnected political elite? Both Sanders and Trump found that vacuum, and the latter filled it up with populist and hopeful promises while the former got silenced too soon.

This article was written for this blog only.

French Perspectives on the American Election

Presidential candidates Donald J. Trump and Hillary R. Clinton / Image: Rich Girard / Flickr

During her summer internship at WMRA Marguerite Gallorini, who is from France, has been exploring the differences, and similarities, between the ways that Americans and the French approach today’s world.  In the last few weeks, that’s included the global refugee crisis, and how we view work and vacation time.  Today, Marguerite has some insight on how the American presidential election campaign is being viewed from the French perspective.

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4:39

Julia Brown, a graduate student at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, a top research and public administration school, discusses the focus on personal background versus political background:

JULIA BROWN: Apparently everybody hates Hillary Clinton, which I really can't understand why at this point; and not everybody hates Trump, which I really can't understand why either. The thing is with this election there hasn't really been any debate regarding ideas. It's all been about personalities.

Mathieu Perrot, a French teacher and Ph.D. student in literature at UVa, agrees:

MATHIEU PERROT: Yeah the persona, the charisma is probably more important here than in France, I would say. French people might be more interested in... maybe not the program itself, probably not, but at least, maybe more fascinated by the career or the studies that the person would have made.

French people tend to make analogies between Donald Trump and some French politicians, like former right-wing President Nicolas Sarkozy, or Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right party National Front. But French observers see some differences.

PIERRE GERVAIS: I wouldn't compare Trump to Marine Le Pen. I mean I'm no fan of Marine Le Pen, but she's a professional politician and she knows what she's doing.

That's Professor Pierre Gervais, who specializes in American politics and economy at the Sorbonne University in Paris. For the record, the National Front was once led by Jean-Marie Le Pen, the father of current leader Marine Le Pen.

GERVAIS: Actually they got rid of Jean-Marie Le Pen, who in terms of behavior, was actually close to Trump. It became clear that they couldn't function efficiently in the French system with somebody who's not at least serious-looking.

Gervais also points out that the French party system makes for a government less dominated by the two main left and right parties, and relying more on coalitions.  That way it allows for more representation and party diversity. Also, the election of party leaders is internal to parties in France, not up for popular election as in the U.S. primary system. So for both historical and sociological reasons, the possibility for a politician like Trump to become the national leader is  less likely in France. Now, would the outcome of this election influence the French one?

PERROT: The election in the U.S. is important for the entire world, that's for sure. Because of the partnership we have with this country, because of the trade we have with the country... And I'm pretty sure politicians in France are watching very closely the debates and how it goes here. I don't know about the coming election if Sarkozy will try to imitate Trump in some ways. Hopefully not!

But according to Professor Gervais and Serena Albert, a marine biologist graduate from the Sorbonne University, this interest in U.S. elections is not that influential:

SERENA ALBERT: I wouldn't say that they influence really... What I hear in the media, or from people that I talked to, they're much more concerned about French problems.

GERVAIS: The French are fairly insular. The little I've read, there's a mixture of sort of fear to a certain extent, amusement, and very little understanding of what's going on. There is this apprehension of... “what would happen if they actually elected Trump?” but since at this point the election of Trump is very highly unlikely. You do get coverage, but not that much.

BROWN: What I'm hoping is, if Trump does get elected, maybe French people will be afraid of voting for our own extreme right party... I'm hoping he's giving us an example of what not to do.

French elections are less than a year away, with the first round coming up in April 2017.  Chloe Bertholon, a French-American business student at UVa, is excited because it is the first year she will be able to vote in both elections.

CHLOE BERTHOLON: I think it is interesting though that the American process is drawn out to be so, so, so long, whereas the French process seems to be much shorter. I told my grandma in France that I was going to be in Lyon for their elections, and she was like “oh yeah, that is coming up, huh,” whereas for us it’s like... the past year, we've been talking about it.

Whatever the American election outcome may be, they all said they were going to miss Barack Obama.

ALBERT: Well, I'm not really really not convinced by Trump, but I'm not really convinced by Hillary Clinton either, so … I think that in any case, it won't be for a better change.

This story appeared on WMRA.org
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