French ministers and votes for foreigners - same hymn sheet but different notes

Ah cohesion and clarity.

Two words so often lacking in French government during Nicolas Sarkozy's time in office when ministers would regularly step out of line and speak their minds.

Sometimes it was refreshing such as Fadela Amara calling the proposal to verify the bloodlines of would-be immigrants with DNA tests "dégueulasse" or Rama Yade criticising the visit to France of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

On other occasions it was clearly an attempt to appeal to the very worst sectors of French society such as former interior minister Claude Guéant saying, "France didn't need foreign bricklayers or waiters" or that, "The number of Moslems in France caused problems".

In fact Guéant was a master of the most inappropriate and oftentimes racist of comments?

Thankfully though François Hollande is now president - just in case you hadn't realised...and you could probably be forgiven for not noticing.

So things are bound to be different.

Um.

Maybe not.

Hollande's 60 election promises (which is surely grounds in itself not to believe) included extending the right to vote in local elections to non-EU citizens resident in France.

On Monday a group of 75 Socialist parliamentarians - with more than an eye on the 2014 local elections - decided to call his bluff, urging Hollande and the government to get the process underway saying, "Proposals for were needed quickly because any reform of the law would require constitutional amendment and that would take time."

The reaction of interior minister Manuel Valls, the most liberal-minded and truly Socialist member of government, was one of which both his immediate predecessors in office, Guéant or Brice Hortefeux, would have been proud.

"Is this reform something which preoccupies the French at the moment and would it be a way of improving integration of foreigners into French society?" he asked.

"No," he emphatically told the French daily Le Monde.

"There isn't the same sort of drive for such a move as there would have been 30 years ago," he continued.

"The challenge today is how best French society can integrate foreigners."

Hang about. What exactly did Hollande say during his presidential campaign?

Well in his typically decisive manner, he "promised" a reform but of course left the timing rather open-ended as many, even within his own party, doubted (and still do) whether it was a "priority".



Such clarity: a promise made is one that's certainly not going to be kept.

Enter stage left housing minister Cécile Duflot, free from the constraints of having to toe the Socialist party line because she's in fact a member of  Europe Écologie – Les Verts or the Greens to the rest of us, and one of that party's two ministers in the government.

Don't ask why they've been included because the Socialist party could quite happily form a government without them. Still there was an electoral pact, and we all know how much politicians believe in sticking to promises made.

Cécile Duflot (screenshot from interview with France Inter)

"It's absolutely a necessity and yes, it was an election promise (made by François Hollande) and it'll be honoured next year," she said on France Inter radio.

"It remains an important element in helping integration into French society," she added, contradicting neatly what Valls had said.

"Reform is such an obvious given, that it's surprising it hasn't been done already."


Cécile Duflot par franceinter

So that's as clear as mud.

It remains government policy, but not just yet - and 2013 is still far enough away for plenty of other things to get in the way and banish the promise to the backburner.

(Don't) watch this space.

Friday's French music break - Claire Denamur, "Bang bang bang"

Friday's French music break this week has more than a hint of the US to it

Claire Denamur's "Bang bang bang" features an hypnotic twanging guitar, a country music-influenced rhythm and a simple, catchy chorus, which should all go a fair way to making it a hit.

Claire Denamur (screenshot from official clip)

Even before its release it had been receiving a fair amount of airplay, and should get something of a boost when the recording Denamur made for the television music show Taratata is broadcast in October.

The 27-year-old apparently spent a chunk of her childhood in the States and that has heavily influenced her music and style described as, "characterised by very text-based gender relations and intimate country folk acoustic music sung with a slightly rough and ready - or 'broken' - voice."


Of the quality of her voice, she's quoted as saying in a recent article about her music in the national daily Libération, "It's that of a heavy smoker who knows the joys of bourbon!"

And that's not too far off the mark.

Distinctive? Yes.

Unpleasant? Most definitely not.

And very Blues.

Plus she write her own material which has to be the mark of a true "artiste" doesn't it?

"Bang, Bang, Bang" is the first track to be released from her second album "Vagabonde" - also well worth a listen.

Check out a review of that album on the French radio station France Inter and zap over to her official website for concert dates.

In the meantime, here's "Bang, bang, bang".

Cool video.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Da5e1ni2MzE&ob=av2n

Friday's French music break - Ornette, "Crazy"

Friday's French music break this week is "hot off the press" so-to-speak.

It's the single "Crazy" from the yet-to-be-released debut album by Ornette.

Ornette (screenshot from YouTube video of live performance during Disquaire day)

Never heard of her?

Don't be surprised, as she's not exactly a household name here in France - yet.

All the same, the 28-year-old Bettina Kee (her real name) has some pretty impressive credentials and is very much the new darling of the French public radio channel France Inter at the moment.

And with reason.

Because Ornette's "Crazy (sea me)" is quite simply delightful, delicious and different.

She has worked with the likes of the Australian-born singer Micky Green, French musician Arthur H and the late, great Alain Bashung and her sound is...well...unique.

Interviewing Ornette on France Inter, the presenter Augustin Trapenard, who is clearly a fan, described her as, "A musician, pianist and singer with more than one identity and an eclecticism that comes across on the album."

And the woman who apparently likes both Dido and Lady Gaga explained how she chose her stage name.

It's in honour of the American saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter and composer, described as one of the "major innovators of the free jazz movement in the 1960s" Ornette Coleman.

"One of his songs is called 'Lonely woman' and that was what I wanted to call myself when I first started performing alone," she said.

"But I found that a bit 'heavy' and redundant, so instead I plumped for 'Ornette' which I also found a very pretty name and it's also appropriate because even if I don't exactly play the same sort of music, I also like improvising when I play."

Anyway, if you want to catch Ornette at one of her upcoming concerts, scoot along to her official site for a full listing.

In the meantime, kick back those heels and enjoy both the France Inter interview and the single "Crazy" - the teaser...and far too short.


CRAZY SEA ME TEASER par LadyKeettie

And just for the hell of it, the full version performed live during Disquaire day in April 2011

Sarkozy is "Leading the crusade" in Libya says French interior minister

Whatever was France's interior minister Claude Guéant thinking about when he said during an interview on Monday of the French president Nicolas Sarkozy's role in Libya that, "Fortunately, the president has been leading the crusade to mobilise the UN security council, the Arab League and the African Union."

France's interior minister Claude Guéant (screenshot from interview)

Yes "crusade". That's the term he used. Not exactly one lacking historical connotations as many in France have been quick to point out.

Even though he has since admitted that, "With hindsight I should have expressed myself differently and said perhaps that the president had 'mobilised public opinion to present persuading arguments to the security council'," the damage had been done and the word was out there for all to read and hear.

"Scary," is how the leader of the opposition Socialist party Martine Aubry described Guéant's choice of word.

"He would have done better to have kept quiet," said Aubry's predecessor and likely candidate for the party's presidential primaries, François Hollande.

"It was more than unfortunate, it was a word he shouldn't have uttered."

Even some within his party, the governing centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement,UMP) were hard-pressed to defend Guéant's choice of word with the foreign minister Alain Juppé describing it quite clearly as a "blunder" and "one that had nothing to do with what was happening (in Libya)."

But was it really just an "unfortunate" term and an example of a man not used to the political limelight. Or is there something more sinister going on?

At face value Guéant certainly appears to be "like a bull in a china shop," as Le Point journalist Anna Cabana described the interior minister during her piece on national public radio France Inter on Wednesday morning.

Less than a month into the job and he has already managed to tell the country not only that Sarkozy has "led the crusade" but also that the "French don't feel at home in France".

Guéant though is no political beginner as Cabana makes clear. He has served for the past nine years as one of Sarkozy's closest political advisors and his views and thoughts must be well known to the French president.

Sure he has now stepped out of the shadows and is busy proving himself to be every bit as crass in his statements as his predecessor in the job and another Sarkozy crony, Brice Hortefeux (whose 2009 racial slur against Amine Benalia-Brouch, a young party activist of Algerian origin, still sticks in the craw).

But is this really just inexperience at play or a deliberate strategy by Sarkozy in the run-up to next year's presidential elections.

Has Guéant in fact been placed intentionally in the hot seat to try to appeal to voters who might otherwise drift towards the far-right Front National.

Remember its leader, Marine Le Pen, is currently buoyed by opinion polls that show her as a serious threat to Sarkozy's chances of making it through to the second round of voting in those elections.

Can Guéant really be the fool his statements appear to suggest. Is he just naïve when it comes to being in the public eye?

Watch this space for answers.

At this rate Guéant is not going to leave it blank for very long.

French humorist's dream of Sarkozy plane crash

An aeroplane crashes and all aboard are killed.

In total 41 people die in the accident, including the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and all but three of this country's government ministers.

It's a "dream" the French humorist Stéphane Guillon had earlier this week and one he related during his early morning slot on national public radio, France Inter.

Black humour, supposedly, based of course on the accident that took place last weekend in Smolensk in which the Polish president, Lech Kaczynski, his wife and several of the country's high-ranking officials were killed.

Guillion begins his piece telling listeners how traumatised he had been by Kaczynski's death and how that was the starting point for him to relate a dream he had in which "Sarkozy had been the victim of a similar accident."

The 46-year-old then throws himself into a description of an imagined commentary on national television of those waiting for the arrival of the president's coffin.

He "treats" listeners to an account of the sight of the two former wives of the French president (Marie-Dominique Culioli and Cécilia Ciganer-Albéniz) comforting the current first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy who is "Dressed in black in an outfit made the previous night by designer John Galliano; her face masked as a timely symbol of the country's efforts to pass a law to ban the burqa."

He recounts the arrival of the former prime minister and potential centre-right rival to Sarkozy in the (real) 2012 presidential race, Dominique de Villepin, already "In campaigning mode to succeed the recently deceased" as well as a clutch of possible opposition Socialist party contenders present and waiting for Sarkozy's coffin to be taken off the 'plane.

Among the others who had died in the crash, Guillon tells us, were the interior minister and Sarkozy's long-time friend, Brice Hortefeux (he makes the sign of the cross as he mentions his name), the justice minister, Michèle Alliot-Marie, the industry minister Christian Estrosi and the environment minister Jean-Louis Borloo.

A special mention is made of the "sad loss" of one particular target of Guillon's attacks, the immigration minister Eric Besson (again the humorist makes the sign of the cross).

And then the sombre strains of the Garde républicaine strike up as Sarkozy's coffin - the size of a child's - is taken off the 'plane,

It's at his point that the humorist is awoken from his dream "Screaming and convinced that Sarkozy had a twin brother," he said. "Just as the Polish president had."

Guillon has a reputation for hard-hitting humour and he's definitely not frightened to take aim at prominent political figures no matter what their particular hue.

Certainly his spot drove home the enormity of what happened in Smolensk, and especially its impact on Poles, to listeners in France.

After all when the imaginary list of those aboard includes a number of household names (in this country) it's hard not to feel moved.

But was his commentary, all in the name of entertainment with a political edge, appropriate under the circumstances or did it make light of a real tragedy by creating an imagined one?

You can hear and see the full "performance" in the accompanying video - in French of course.

It brought a number of reactions (from those who left comments on the video) ranging from many who found Guillon's chronicle "amusing" or an "essential part of the freedom of expression" to those who felt that he had "overstepped the mark".

Judge for yourselves whether this was indeed "humour" or "bad taste".


Le crash de Nicolas Sarkozy
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