We interrupt our regular scheduled program (which is to post our Morocco trip, now that I am back in Paris with a computer) for this special message:
Sarkozy: C'est Fini!
And I do not have to look at the news, which tells me Socialist candidate Francois Hollande won the French presidential election with 51.9% of the vote, in order to know this. All I have to do is listen at my window. A population which appears from two stories above to be mostly "young adult" marched by our window in a steady stream for about a solid hour, and is still trickling by, heading from the Latin Quarter -- the Sorbonne and other student populations -- on the Left Bank to the Bastille on the Right Bank chanting both "Sarkozy: C'est Fini!" ("Sarkozy, It's Over!") and the more general "On a gagné!" ("We won!"). The chanting, singing, and general merriment are accompanied by cars honking, bullhorns, and noisemakers. It calms down after a couple hours, but I presume they will all be returning home to the Left Bank -- much, much drunker -- around 3am.
For obvious historical reasons, the Bastille is the place to go whenever you either want to overthrow the current regime, or celebrate that you've done just that. There are so many French flags waving on our bridge and beneath our window, I fully expect the music from the finale of Les Misérables to swell in the background.
There is a dark side of any politician, and G tells us soberly that one thing the children fear from Hollande is that he advocates adding back not just Wednesdays but also (gasp!) Saturday mornings to the French school week. Sacré bleu! Or, in honor of today, Sacré bleu, blanc, et rouge!
Sarkozy: C'est Fini!
And I do not have to look at the news, which tells me Socialist candidate Francois Hollande won the French presidential election with 51.9% of the vote, in order to know this. All I have to do is listen at my window. A population which appears from two stories above to be mostly "young adult" marched by our window in a steady stream for about a solid hour, and is still trickling by, heading from the Latin Quarter -- the Sorbonne and other student populations -- on the Left Bank to the Bastille on the Right Bank chanting both "Sarkozy: C'est Fini!" ("Sarkozy, It's Over!") and the more general "On a gagné!" ("We won!"). The chanting, singing, and general merriment are accompanied by cars honking, bullhorns, and noisemakers. It calms down after a couple hours, but I presume they will all be returning home to the Left Bank -- much, much drunker -- around 3am.
For obvious historical reasons, the Bastille is the place to go whenever you either want to overthrow the current regime, or celebrate that you've done just that. There are so many French flags waving on our bridge and beneath our window, I fully expect the music from the finale of Les Misérables to swell in the background.
The girls seize the opportunity to delay getting in bed, during which time we are informed that nearly all the children in G's third grade class, along with several lunch monitors, do not like Sarkozy, and therefore this Hollande win is clearly a good thing. One of the children tried to explain the awfulness of Sarkozy to G by telling her "Sarkozy won't even let your parents vote here!" It's true, of course. I really can't argue with that statement, and yet I have to break it to her that Hollande won't allow us to vote here either, since we are not just non-citizens but non-citizens who have to reapply for the carte de séjour recently stolen from me.
There is a dark side of any politician, and G tells us soberly that one thing the children fear from Hollande is that he advocates adding back not just Wednesdays but also (gasp!) Saturday mornings to the French school week. Sacré bleu! Or, in honor of today, Sacré bleu, blanc, et rouge!
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