The UK Election from a French Viewpoint

As I write this the negotiations between David Cameron and Nick Clegg are still going on and the one thing that was definitely needed, a strong UK government, looks very unlikely.

On French radio the UK election generally took second place to the financial crisis concerning Greece and the Euro. The coverage intensified a couple of days before polling day when reporters were filing from London, Sheffield and Doncaster. The interviews with “ordinary” people were mostly describing their financial difficulties, their complaints about employment, the economy and their lack of ability to pay their bills. This may well be representative of people in Sheffield and Doncaster, which have for decades been in economic decline as a result of the closure of heavy manufacturing and mining industries. The electoral system was well described but came across as if it was like cricket: only comprehensible to the English. (Personally I find the French system with its lists and its two rounds of voting equally incomprehensible, like the rules of petanque and rugby).

Christiane says that I should not keep comparing how things are done in France with the equivalent in the UK, but I can’t help it! She thinks I am over sensitive, but it always seems to me that when the French media get stuck into UK politics they are always looking for the flaws in the UK “liberal model“ in which they consider that there is very little protection for the individual. I, on the other hand, consider that there is far more opportunity in the UK, for ambitious or bright individuals who, if they start a successful business there, are not going to be overtaxed and over-regulated and then taxed again each year on their total wealth as they would be in France.

There was another report about UK industrial legislation concerning strikes saying that it is the most draconian in Europe. It then went on to describe the strike ballot process, which in the UK is legally required before giving notice of a strike. The implication was that this was an unreasonable constraint on the right to strike.

Of course the French approach is far more revolutionary. Often you strike first to show how much support you have and, if you are strong enough, you might persuade the employers to negotiate. Employers are so used to this way of behaving that they sometimes won’t even start to discuss a claim before there has been a strike, so the employees have a justification for their actions. In a couple of extreme cases workers have rigged up bombs in factories under threat of closure and threatened to blow them up in order to get a negotiation started. http://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2010/04/03/810099-Crepy-en-Valois-Ils-menacent-de-faire-sauter-l-usine.html

http://www.wat.tv/video/ils-menacent-faire-sauter-2e63l_1ezx5_.html

In others, directors and managers have been held hostage in their offices, sometimes for several days.
http://www.latribune.fr/entreprises/services/distribution/20100202trib000470141/deux-dirigeants-de-pier-import-retenus-en-otage-par-leurs-salaries.html
Secondary picketing is still legal in France and even workers from different industries come out in support if the case is sufficiently strong. I think that this confrontational approach has its roots in 1789 and the revolutions which followed right down to the near revolution of 1968.
After watching a performance of two very left wing former workers during the Story Telling Festival I asked my brother- in-law what to be sanctioned, ”être sanctionné”, meant in the context of industrial relations. He explained that it meant having some of your pay deducted. I found this difficult to understand, thinking it was some sort of fine but no, many French workers are paid while they are on strike and occasionally the employers decide to make an example of someone, or of a group, and not pay them while they are not working!
It is true however, as another French commentator said, that the economic growth in the UK over the last decade was fuelled by increased personal and public debt and that, like other countries in Europe, the debt now has to be paid back in terms of cutbacks in the public sector, tax rises and the reduction of personal spending!
As soon as Margaret Thatcher became convinced that the UK could be successful as a service economy, she allowed manufacturing industry to decline. But, following the financial crisis, the concept of a service based economy has been discredited. It was inevitable that de-regulation of the financial sector would lead to an explosion of financial products based on “funny money” and that freely available credit would lead to increased private debt. When you add to that the increased percentage of the gross national product now spent on public services, up from 39% when New Labour took over to 47% now, the diversion of resources away from productive industry becomes clearer.
France, although it is still a world class exporter of luxury goods and specialised food products, also has a declining manufacturing sector but without the service sector to compensate. Only Germany and a handful of other European countries are still competitively producing quality manufactured goods that people outside Europe want to buy.
At the time of writing this, under the UK constitution, it is the government in power which decides when to hold an election. Any coalition government will come under such powerful market pressures to apply stringent measures to control spending and reduce public debt, that it will become extremely unpopular. It will also have so many internal tensions that, in my opinion, it will not last.
I think that there will be another election in less than two years, whoever forms a government this weekend.

Panoramas of the Festival of Story Telling

Here are some panoramas which I took on the Randonnee Conte.  For the last ten years a local association called Arcade has been organising a week-long story telling festival in the area around Bretenoux.  On the first Sunday, which this year was the 18th April, they arranged an 8km long circular walk, starting from the 12th century tower at Teyssieu to Estal and back, with stories and music at various locations along the way.

Click on a link below to see each panorama on the swfcabin website, then click the Back button of your browser to return to the blog and select the next link.

These are big files and they take a long time to load on my 512k rural ADSL connection! If you don't have fast broadband be patient!

When the file has loaded you can pan, zoom and tilt with the buttons that pop-up when you mouse-over the bottom of the picture.
Try it, everyone I have shown these to thinks that they are great!

Not working? Get the Flash Player to see these flash movies.

Teyssieu - Le debut

Premier Conte

Jean Marc Derouen en pleine campagne

http://www.swfcabin.com/open/1272550550     Esclat Musiciens

http://www.swfcabin.com/open/1272525423     Michel Galaret - Magnol

Technical Note

The original photos were taken using a handheld Canon 450D with an 18-55mm lens. Each image overlaps generously with the next. The individual jpegs were assembled into one panoramic image using PTGui. http://www.ptgui.com/ and then cropped to a true rectangle in Photoshop Elements. This image was then loaded into Pano2VR http://gardengnomesoftware.com/pano2vr.php to create the swf file, which was then uploaded to swfcabin http://www.swfcabin.com/ .

Chemotherapy Marks you for Life!

I went to see my doctor last week because I have an unusual spot which is not going away. He has referred me to a Dermatologue and I am waiting for the appointment in June.

During the consultation he was looking at my records on his computer (for a French doctor he is unusually up to date with technology) and he asked me if I was still having follow ups after the chemotherapy that I had twenty years ago for a seminoma. I said no, my oncologist had said that after ten years it was my choice and I decided not to continue with them. I added that there was no risk of metastases after twenty years. He then asked me what my profession used to be and it was only later that I realised that I had used a medical term that the general public would not know.

Chemotherapy is such a salient experience it marks you for life! If you are like me, you learn words that you never forget. I can still remember the names of all the cytotoxic drugs, which are poisons really, that were used to treat me. Cisplatin, Methotrexate, Bleomycin, Vincristine, Adriamycin, Cyclophosphamide, Etoposide. All of them make you ill in one way or another. Because their function is to kill rapidly dividing cells they also interrupt the production of blood cells so anaemia and neutrapenia (a lack of production of white blood cells) are common. The latter was worse than normal in my case because I had had radiotherapy on my abdomen before the chemotherapy, and the treatment killed a large proportion of my bone marrow. Luckily I was able to continue being treated even with very low white cell counts without catching infections. Nobody knew why this was and other patients at the Charing Cross Hospital on ward 6W were always having their treatments delayed. There, you see, I can still remember the number of the ward, and actually I can see it in my mind, together with some of the people I met there.

Some drugs have other side effects; Vincristine kills the extremities of the nerves so that after a few months you finish chemotherapy with feet that feel numb and it’s difficult to walk confidently. That takes about a year to go away completely! You lose all your hair and in those days you were always as sick as a dog after a treatment. Loss of appetite could last for days. When I was having chemotherapy various anti-emetics were given and one of the most effective was Lorazepam combined with Dexamethasone. The problem I had with it was that once it has really kicked in, the Lorazepam wipes your memory as well. Some of my fellow patients appreciated that, but I found it profoundly disturbing and refused it after a couple of occasions.

I volunteered to be part of a clinical trial of 5HT3 inhibitors, which are now used regularly, in conjunction with other drugs, to control nausea. They work very well and before he retired Professor Edward Newlands, my oncologist, said that since their introduction the experience of chemotherapy has been transformed. It certainly needed to be! By the end of five months of chemotherapy I was desperate for the treatments to finish so that I could begin to feel well again and get on with my life! I started working again about three weeks after I finished the last treatment. In spite of a short holiday in Morocco I still looked like a ghost, extremely pale, thin and with a few millimetres of soft grey hair. My appearance shocked some of my colleagues but I soon recovered!

So here’s hoping that the spot is nothing serious!

Postscript
I went to the Dermatologue on 9th June and the tiny spot on the bridge of my nose is a cancer but fortunately it is very slow growing type and not one that spreads.  When I go to have it removed in Early September I will ask for the correct name.  Interestingly he would not have used the word cancer if I hadn't asked a direct question.  Perhaps he doesn't want to worry people unnecessarily!
I wonder what the statistics are for having two types of cancer in your life?

A Pacemaker at 104!

My father is 104 years old and he has just been advised to have a pacemaker fitted.

One of the disadvantages of living in France is that I am separated from my family but fortunately my sister looks after my father and he is still living in his own home. He can get up and walk around slowly but recently he has been falling occasionally. The “falls assessment nurse” eventually came and found that he had a heart rate of about 30bpm and low blood pressure when he was standing.

He was born in 1906, he has lived through two world wars and in his lifetime he has seen unimaginable technological change. When he was a boy horses were still being used for transport and the motor car had just been invented. He didn’t own a car until the early sixties and before that he went to work on an autocycle (the forerunner of the moped) and we used to have family holidays on the coast by taking the train.

In the late thirties, after marrying my mother, he took a job as a telephone operator because during the Great Depression he was worried that he would lose his job in the Stock Exchange. This led to him being posted to the Signals Regiment when he was called up and he was safely behind the front lines when in 1944 the Allies landed on the Normandy beaches. Later he was very nearly sent to Burma, but when he took the medical exam the doctor listened to his heart and decided he was not A1, as it said in his records, but C2. He had a heart murmur. He has always had a very low heart rate. Without being particularly fit his normal pulse rate was about 50 beats per minute. He had an infection when he was very young which damaged his heart in some way but it was well compensated and never gave him any trouble.
After the leaving the Army he passed the Civil Service Exam and, throughout my childhood, he worked as a Civil Servant. He retired at the age of 63 when it was discovered that he had cataracts and angina, but neither of these stopped him and my mother from touring all over the UK in their motor caravan. They moved to a bungalow in Wantage to be closer to my sister in the 1980’s.
In his early nineties he was still painting the bungalow, working off a short ladder, while my mother stood below exhorting him to be careful! But soon afterwards he stopped taking an interest in his garden and started to lose his short term memory. When my mother was dying in November 2008 he would come with us to the hospital, and was able to answer the doctor’s questions during the visit, but when we arrived back home he didn’t know where he had been.
A few months ago we tried to get him to wear a heart monitor to record a day’s activity but he removed it overnight, not remembering what it was for. Yesterday my sister took him to see the specialist at the Radcliffe who, after some deliberation, recommended installing a pacemaker. When this was originally suggested I was against the idea, thinking that it is a major operation which would be most likely to kill him. These days, however, it is a procedure which is done under local anaesthetic and requires at most an overnight stay in hospital. The hope is that increasing his heart rate, so that it is pumping more blood to his brain, will keep him more alert, which will in turn make him easier for my sister to manage. We worry whether it is the right decision because we are aware that, after every setback in his health, he tends not to be as good as he was before. The operation is scheduled for later in May, the decision has been made, and we will have to wait and hope for a good result!

Postscripts
15th June
My father had the pacemaker fitted on 11th June and came home on Sunday 12th.  He had a sleepy day on Monday but he has been walking around more confidently since.  Otherwise he is not much different from what he was a few months ago, before he started to fall much too frequently.  He certainly has not suffered a setback after the operation and I am hoping that he will still improve a little more.
28th November
Nearly six months later he has not improved much more, but he is much, much better than he was before the pacemaker! He has still fallen a few times, but that is when he loses his footing and there is nothing that you can do about it.  It has happened to both my sister and I when we were standing next to him and neither of us could stop him ending up on his knees!  Fortunately he has not suffered more than a minor graze so far. 

Elect a Queen

This morning on, France Inter, Jean Pierre Rafarin (ex Premier Ministre under Chirac) and Martine Aubry (Secretary of the Socialist Party) were quoted as calling into question the idea that the President and the assembly are both elected at the same time for five years. This was a recent constitutional change, just before the 2007 Election Presidentielle, because previously the President was elected on a seven year cycle and the Assembly on five years. This often led to “La Cohabitation” with the President belonging to a different party from the Prime Minister, which was thought to be a bad idea because the Government was not able to act in a coherent and concerted way.

With the harmonisation of the two terms of office, and the personality of Sarkozy, we have a different situation. The role of the Prime Minister is reduced, whilst the role of the President is augmented. But the Assembly can’t sack the President, they can only change the Prime Minister, and changing the Prime Minister would make no difference if the President was still the same and was “hyperactif” like Sarkozy. So without proposing a solution, Sarkozy’s critics are expressing the view that “Le Quinquennat” does not work as it was intended.

But what is the answer? If France reverts to the situation as it was before, then the problems that were observed before will recur. If the terms of office of the President and the Assembly are displaced by two or three years, given the French tendency to elect alternately left and right wing governments (La Pendule), there is likely to be a permanent state of “Cohabitation” in which nothing gets done. It was Chirac who said “La France est un pays très conservatif” and perhaps I could forgive myself for thinking that this would suit the many French people who like to resist change at all levels of society and at every opportunity. “Il n’y a pas de petites luttes”!!

But I have found a solution! It is a solution which is at the same time practical, lucrative, European and which would raise the status of France in the eyes of the world. Why not elect a Queen? It would allow France to express its solidarité with the other countries of Europe who have constitutional monarchies such as Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Lichtenstein, Monaco, Norway, Spain, Sweden and of course the UK. It also would solve the difficult problem of how to provide a Head of State, who would not interfere in politics, and who can’t be sacked for political reasons, because they would have no political power!

With all the beautiful French actresses that the world knows well, like Catherine Deneuve, Juliettte Binoche, Sophie Marceau, Audrey Tatou, Isabelle Adjani and others taking part, imagine the world-wide television rights! If you were prepared to take the risk you could even invite Carl Bruni to stand. But in order to preserve the essentially non-political nature of the role, one of the principal Royal candidates, Segolene, would be barred from standing.

The campaign could start with primaries in the autumn; it could have a Christmas special, and then move on to the real election in the spring between three or four candidates. You could add “Queen for a day”, in which “les francaises ordinaires“could have the opportunity to share the lives of the actresses for a day, all ending up with meeting the incumbent President and having a treasure hunt in the Elysée Palace. If France television was given the job, I am sure that the hole in the Social Security budget would be refilled, and there would be enough left over to last for the next five years!

It would have to be made clear to the candidates that the role was purely constitutional, and that it would be a five year contract (CDD Contrat Duré Déterminé) against a defined budget but, with such a high potential return, I am sure that a deal could be struck with the successful candidate which would satisfy all parties.

And then, once she was elected, the tabloid press in all European countries could have a field day digging up stories about past affairs and indiscretions and the paparazzi would make a fortune snapping topless pictures of the Queen whilst she was on holiday. It would be “la fête en permanence”.

This would then, of course, open up the role of Prime Minister to be both the head of the government and the leader of his or her party, and the Assembly would have the right to pass a vote of no confidence and change him or her whenever they wished.

Tony Blair speaks French doesn’t he, what about Helen Mirren?

Francois Morel's Chronicle in English - La Chronique de François Morel (En Anglais)

Following the regional elections in France, which were considered a great failure for the UMP, and especially for President Sarkozy himself, everybody, including members of his own party, have been taking turns to denounce his reforms and to condemn his style of leadership. So during the week of Sarkozy’s visit to the USA, the French press and commentators were all criticising his English, which they thought was the worst amongst the European heads of state. Perhaps that was why Francois Morel decided to do his chronique of Friday 2nd April entirely in highly accented English.

Allo M. Demarrand and everybody. I would like to say zis morning my chronique in English. I am pairfectly bilingual and I think that it is important to be not only frenchy-frenchy but to be open to ze perspectives of ze entire world. Naturally I profited de fait zat Mr Sarkozy has visited Mr Obama for saying ze great friendship who, which, exists between Americans and French people. Like said ze big poet Michael Sardou “if ze ‘Ricains was not coming ‘ere you’ll be all in Germany to speak about I don’t know what, to salute I don’t know woo”. It’s true, it’s complettly true! One morgen in the words of ze poet who illuminates ze way.

 So Mr. Sarkozy and his pretty woman, Carla Bruni, was invited directly in ze White House by Mr and Mrs Obama, not in ze bistro of ze corner but directly in ze White House. It’s a great honoor, a great, great, great honoor, not only for ze French President and ze first lady but for everybody in France because when Mr President and his pretty woman are invited it’s you, it’s me, its Mr Demarrand, it’s Mr Achilly, it’s Mr Lefebure, it’s Mr Legrand, Thomas ze Tall ‘oo are invited.

Perhaps not exactly everybody, by example not Mr Guillon. Mr Stephane Guillon, I don’t know if you know ‘im, I don’t know if you have ‘ear speak of ‘im. ‘e begins to be very famous in France, ‘e makes some chroniques at ze beginning of ze week. Amusing chroniques, but REALLY aggressive chroniques and I think zat for ze moment it is better, zat he doesn’t go inside in any presidential palace where he is not very “in smell of holiness”, in “odeur de sanctité”. I think that today it is difficult for Mr Guillon. Mr Besson said zat Mr Guillon was racist, lache, I am sorry I do not know what is the traduction of lache in English, coward, OK, of coward and Mr Frederic Mitterrand, ze French minister of culture, it is not “n’importe qui”, has said recently that he detested ze remarks of Stephane Guillon. “I don’t succist where Guillon” he said (???) and he has added,” in France humorist people go too far”. All ze ministers now in France ‘ave to speak about Stephane Guillon, many declarations, many assertions, many speech, and during zis time ze works of ze various ministers are not done! Are not done! So I propose, not necessary to make a minister only consecrated to Stephane Guillon, but pir’aps a special cellule, “cellule speciale” in French, for e- tu-die every chronique of o’r friendly and talentuous colleague.
 So I come back to my subject, Mr Sarkozy was very sad about Mr Obama because he was not the first to be invited in ze White House. Before ‘im eight ‘eads of state of Europe was invited, eight, not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, EIGHT! Eight ‘eads of states of Europe was invited. It was fini-shed by becoming hurted, humiliated, the Greek, the Sweden, the Dootch and ‘im, Nicholas Sarkozy, the great head of state of the France NO invitation! He said what’s happened, I stink the party or what? But now all is back to normal, so much ze better. I think zat it is very profitable for the American President to listen all ze advice from ze French President, who success nowhere but who has an idée –a, un id’ – an id-ea, (c’est juste ce mot la j’ai du mal à le dire c’est dommage), from ze French President, who success nowhere but who has an idea on all. And now we sing all together “if ze ‘Ricains was not coming ‘ere you’ll be all in Germany to speak about I don’t know what, to salute I don’t know who”!

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xcsw9e_francois-morel-in-english_fun

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xowmg_michel-sardou-les-ricains_music

The Wire - Expletives Deleted!

Yo Lisa! What up gal?
Down here in da south we all out’ta yellow top. We be waitin’ on a re-up coming down from da north but there a problem wi da package, cos da bagman was holed up at San Michel waitin’ for da white stuff to melt, and now he got trouble in da family he cain’t fix so he don’t be wantin’ no bother wid no brown stuff. So now we be getting da fix from da red top but it don’t got da same kick.


Stringer Bell alias Idris Elba



Stinkum bin got las’ nigh and dat bad c*ck s*cker Omar he done the gettin’. Bey got one in the leg. The five-o know what bin goin’ down but they protectin’ him cos he their witness.

Avon he heavy, but dat Stringer, he gonna ring his bell one day, he da man. Macroeeeconomics an’ eeelasticity, whad is all dat sh*t?



Down here in da South we bin hearin’ ‘bout da brothers on da east coast done bin organisin’ a Tee party. I say’d ta ma shorty, “Tee whad is dat stuff “? How come dem brothers don’ get dusty usin’ coke like us normal ni***rs. But she don’t know nuttin’, so when I crossed dat Stringer yesterday I done put him da question, dat Stringer, he smart man, wi’ da college an’all. He say’d I ain’t heard it righ’ an’ it don’t be no brothers havin’ no Tee party but a bunch o’ white dudes from Boston ‘bout 200 years ago. I say’d “sh*t man! Who care about all dat stuff now’a days”? He say’d some white shorty name o’ S*r*h P*l*n bin tryin’ ter stir up dem East Coast whiteys fo’ da next elecshun an’ it all be “symbolic”. I don’ get dat “symbolic” sh*t but String’ he say’d dat if dat S*r*h P*l*n get elected it all goin’ get ver’ heavy fo’ us brothers in da game an’ dat we all gotta know about dat stuff.

 So las’ nigh’, after a day slingin’in the Pit, I was catchin’ a bit o’ whitey news on dat Foxey channel when ma shorty done gone asked me if I want’d some Tee. Man I dain’t know what ter say! I started gettin’ to thinkin’ if she ain’t bin seein’ dat Stringer on da side!
 See y’all

Jay Jay
Apologies to David Simon and the writers of "The Wire".  All five seasons are excellent!

http://www.hbo.com/the-wire/index.html