Chiswickite - formerly The Croydonian

Is wished to all my French readers, not that I appear to have very many - judging from the server log. Meanwhile I will also extend it to any other Francophiles present.

Rather than a fresh post, more on the 'ferrets in the sack' business that constitutes those running or thinking of running for the Presidency next year. Latest declaree is Christiane Taubira of the Parti Radicale de Gauche, a woman from French Guiana who is giving it another shot: "I want to represent the values of radicalism …so that these values radiate across the whole of society".


Arlette Laguiller, Trotskyite and former bank clerk will doubtless represent Lutte Ouvriere (Workers Struggle). She won around 6 % of the vote last time round. Here's a profile in The Guardian. Her platform declares "the aim of all workers must be to destroy the apparatus of the bourgeois state, its government and its parliament, its courts, its police and its army, and seize power themselves directly because ballots do not change lives". A French satirical radio programme has her as one of its favourite people to lampoon, and always has her starting up with "Travailleuses, travailleurs - mettez vous en greve" (Female workers, male workers - go on strike). I imagine Le Pen will be giving it another go to.

Wikipedia has the 2002 results, and it is frightening to consider that almost half of the population voted for extreme or otherwise unconventional political parties in the first round.

Labels: France

This entry was posted on Friday, July 14, 2006 at 11:33 am. You can skip to the end and leave a response.