The most beautiful and charming baby in the world, but a baby nonetheless, with all of the challenges and hopeless despair that go with it.
Bug (Eleanor, but I call her Bug, or her Bugship) is nearly five and a half months old and it's been quite a ride so far but things are beginning to slot into place. Food, sleep, play, development, what I didn't realise is that everything needs to be learnt (by the baby and you). There's no plonking the baby down and assuming she will sleep, at least not after the first couple of weeks. Food can be scorned (rarely by mine) or more frighteningly absorbed with unsatiable gusto (growth spurt? starvation?). I breastfeed and do so exclusively and it can turn into a real marathonic nightmare. Babies do not amuse themselves, want constant cuddling and cannot fall asleep alone. All the clichés of the sobbing exhausted parents are true.
So how are we doing? Better now than at the beginning...
Food. So I breastfeed, thanks to the patience of the midwives at the maternity who time after time showed me how to do it. It's not particularly easy at first but it's been worth it and is now the easiest and most natural thing in the world.
I've been doing it on demand till quite recently and have found that as well as feed Bug, it comforts her and has from day one been a way of calming her down and sending her to sleep. The difficulties have been the fact that for the first three months there are extreme growth spurts and feeding on demand becomes living without a t-shirt, stuck in sitting position with a guzzling baby always crying for more.
I remember the three and six week ones with real horror. Thankfully I didn't cave in and switch to formula as the constant sucking is actually what makes the breasts produce more food as the baby grows. Bug is now a fat and healthy baby who breastfeeds at day and has a bottled of expressed milk in the evening as part of her bedtime routine (more about the pump later...). In the last week or so I've added a combo rice/corn/tapioca cereal to her evening bottle, and she has a bit of mashed veg at lunch (carrot and courgette so far) which she loves. I'm lucky that this baby has no food issues apart from wanting to feed all the time, which i am slowly cutting down by having stricter meal times (yeah right). This means:
7AM Breakfast - Breastmilk at source
10.30 Mid-morning snack - Ditto
1PM Lunch - Breastmilk at source and a few teaspoons of mashed veg
4.00 Afternoon tea - Breastmilk at source
6.30 Evening snack - Ditto
8.30-9PM Supper - Bottle of breastmilk with cereal.
OK, I realise this is way too much, she should be on four meals a day but she desn't eat so much at each meal except the night bottle, because...
Sleep. This has been ,and still is to a certain extent, our big challenge. What I didn't realise was how often babies need to sleep. Every couple of hours when they're six months old and more than that when they're smaller (mine should be at about 1h45 at the moment!). For weeks, months, Bug was, unbeknownst to us, exhausted and would just scream and scream for hours driving me insane and all of us desperate. One way of calming her and getting her to sleep was to "titty her up". Let me explain.
For the first four and half months, except for rare occasions in the pushchair or baby-carrier, Bug would only fall asleep mid-feed, on her maternity cushion, on my lap, with a mouth full of nipple which I was sometimes able to slide out without causing her to wake up. And then, if I wanted her to sleep, I was stuck. For day naps I just sat there for an hour or so until my muscles spasmed and she'd wake up, but at night things were complicated. She would fall asleep lying on the cushion which is a long curved thing that wraps around my waist. Once knocked out (code MC - milky coma), I would gently recline and let Gorgeous Chook slide his hands under her, and start to lift her away from me.
Then performing incredible silent acrobatics in slow motion, holding her in exactly the same position she had fallen asleep in, we would glide across the flat to lay the sleeping beauty GENTLY into her cot. Nine times out of ten she would wake up at some point during this delicate procedure and we would be back to square one, having to "titty her up" to get her back to sleep. After a few months of this I decided it was easier to feed her in bed and sleep in sitting position in my own bed, sometimes waking Chook at ungodly hours to settle her (still in silent acrobat style) in her cot next to us. This worked better because she was in super-deep sleep, but not always.
Apart from being uncomfortable and back-deforming (I'm now a hunchback with chronic shoulder pain) it was also incredibly dangerous. SIDS, hellooo? I would wake up in the night, with Eleanor's feet sticking out of the crook in my elbow, her head buried somewhere between my tummy and the cushion. Or disppeared down the side of the cushion. Too much was too much and we decided to try sleep training.
Now, it's important to know that out there online there are websites and forums and blogs and everything dedicated to getting baby to sleep so I have no intention of trying to imitate what is already very well done. If you're really interested try this : how to successfully teach a baby to sleep. It's wonderful. Welcome to the world of CIO, PUPD, NF, BW and all of it.
Basically there are a million ways of getting baby to sleep: from let them cry it out (CIO) alone till they fall asleep, to hugging and cradling and whispering them to sleep, and anything in between.
We went for Ferber which was tough but wonderfully efficient. Ferber was the guy and this was his method: after a bedtime routine full of love and tenderness, checking that baby is fed, dry, tired and loved one leaves the baby to cry to sleep, though with frequent checks that become more few and far between.
We started when Bug was 4 and a half months old, on June 1st. It's not recommended for babies under 4-5 months and we had tried once before but very quickly aborted mission.So after a lovely bedtime routine of bath, change, story, feed, cuddle and night-night, we lay her down and shut the door.
You shut the door and let the baby cry to sleep with only brief checks
every so often to reassure her that she's not being left to the wolves.
It is absolutely awful as it can take up to an hour so Chook and I
would just sit in the other room in silence, nursing triple whiskys and
occasionnally whispering hoarsley "is it time to check on her yet?" (no,
it's been three minutes). Horrible but efficient. She now conks out
after five or ten minutes of slightly high-pitched whingeing. And sleeps till 6.30 usually.
Naps have been less successful; she is resisting and can scream up to an hour so I usually put her down for one nap like that and have another with the old "titty up method" on our bed. Still not ideal but at least nights are free, and one can blog again...
mardi 25 juin 2013
So here we are introducing Eleanor
Wow! So half a year has passed since the Pacs and my last post. I was very pregnant at the time and thankfully haven't been for a while. Since January 16th in fact, the due date, when my beautiful daughter Eleanor was born. She's just turned 5 months and I am completely besotted, and this blog may quickly become an online altar to her glory and education. Oh well.
Having had a nightmare pregnancy it only seemed fair that the birth should go well but that was alas not the case. Of course you want the nitty-gritty so allow me.
The contractions started on the evening of the 15th and I had a sleepless night of shifting and rolling, while Chook filled up empty plastic bottles with hot water for literal if not authentic hot water bottles. The previous few days I had tottered around, climbing stairs and doing the sales but it seems I have a punctual baby and around half past six on the 16th we called my dear friend Jaj who had offered to drive us to the maternity.
Once there, about 7AM, I saw a midwife who was just nearing the end of her shift and who hesitated about sending me home. I didn't want to, so suggested they plunge me into a hot bath instead which they did. Lovely and I dozed a bit. in my labour room I sat on the big bouncy ball a bit, walked around, even went for hot chocolate in the cafetria,crippled by contractions every few minutes.
At 12, having casually shrugged it off earlier, I started yelling for epidural, which I got with many subsequent top-ups; very nice and I actually snoozed stonedily most of the afternoon.All this time my contractions were regular (though no longer painful thanks to the wonders of medecine) and strong, and all my and the baby's vitals were bleeping away merrily. But the baby wasn't coming down and I wasn't dilating.
This situation didn't change so by late afternoon, my lovely midwife Nina who had been following me for about ten hours at this point, decided to pierce the water pouch (my waters hadn't broken, a consequence of the baby not pushing down). That happened well out of sight and as much as possible out of imagination, and... nothing. Nina mentioned that at this rate I might have to start thinking about a caesarian. It was about half past six when I told Chook to go and get some newspapers; it looked like a long night.
Hardly five minutes after he had left, about half a dozen people came into the room. All the machines were bleeping crossly this time- the baby was in cardiac arrest and it was caesarian. NOW. It's a bit of a blur from then. I remember people asking me for Chook's phone number. Bloody hell i can barely remember it when I'm sober and calm. Luckily, he came back very quickly. I started to shake uncontrollably, which didn't stop for hours and was rushed to the operation room. I remember very little except for Chook being a star and taking my mind off things by asking me practical questions such as who to send texts to. A few minutes later (I think), they dumped a red squirming squid on my neck and I having said hello, I told them to take it the hell away. I vomited and passed out. Voilà, I was a mother.
I spent five days at the maternity and remember them as five days of warm and cosy paradise as outside it snowed horribly as Paris experienced its most horrible winter for years. I learnt to hold and wash and feed Eleanor, had a procession of family (my parents and mother-in-law, specially over from Thailand) and friends come through, spent cosy time with baby & Chook whio was sleeping on a chair and hardly left our sides. A wonderful team of midwives at the Maternité des Bluets took care of me and the other mothers.
Eleanor was born on the Wednesday and we left on Monday, with difficulty as no friends or ambulances wanted to risk the icy roads home. In the end we took a taxi and, without a car seat, it was the most nerve-wracking ride of my life as I clutched my tiny baby to me without a seatbelt.
We got home and in the blink of an eye, five months have passed. From
to
Having had a nightmare pregnancy it only seemed fair that the birth should go well but that was alas not the case. Of course you want the nitty-gritty so allow me.
The contractions started on the evening of the 15th and I had a sleepless night of shifting and rolling, while Chook filled up empty plastic bottles with hot water for literal if not authentic hot water bottles. The previous few days I had tottered around, climbing stairs and doing the sales but it seems I have a punctual baby and around half past six on the 16th we called my dear friend Jaj who had offered to drive us to the maternity.
Once there, about 7AM, I saw a midwife who was just nearing the end of her shift and who hesitated about sending me home. I didn't want to, so suggested they plunge me into a hot bath instead which they did. Lovely and I dozed a bit. in my labour room I sat on the big bouncy ball a bit, walked around, even went for hot chocolate in the cafetria,crippled by contractions every few minutes.
At 12, having casually shrugged it off earlier, I started yelling for epidural, which I got with many subsequent top-ups; very nice and I actually snoozed stonedily most of the afternoon.All this time my contractions were regular (though no longer painful thanks to the wonders of medecine) and strong, and all my and the baby's vitals were bleeping away merrily. But the baby wasn't coming down and I wasn't dilating.
This situation didn't change so by late afternoon, my lovely midwife Nina who had been following me for about ten hours at this point, decided to pierce the water pouch (my waters hadn't broken, a consequence of the baby not pushing down). That happened well out of sight and as much as possible out of imagination, and... nothing. Nina mentioned that at this rate I might have to start thinking about a caesarian. It was about half past six when I told Chook to go and get some newspapers; it looked like a long night.
Hardly five minutes after he had left, about half a dozen people came into the room. All the machines were bleeping crossly this time- the baby was in cardiac arrest and it was caesarian. NOW. It's a bit of a blur from then. I remember people asking me for Chook's phone number. Bloody hell i can barely remember it when I'm sober and calm. Luckily, he came back very quickly. I started to shake uncontrollably, which didn't stop for hours and was rushed to the operation room. I remember very little except for Chook being a star and taking my mind off things by asking me practical questions such as who to send texts to. A few minutes later (I think), they dumped a red squirming squid on my neck and I having said hello, I told them to take it the hell away. I vomited and passed out. Voilà, I was a mother.
I spent five days at the maternity and remember them as five days of warm and cosy paradise as outside it snowed horribly as Paris experienced its most horrible winter for years. I learnt to hold and wash and feed Eleanor, had a procession of family (my parents and mother-in-law, specially over from Thailand) and friends come through, spent cosy time with baby & Chook whio was sleeping on a chair and hardly left our sides. A wonderful team of midwives at the Maternité des Bluets took care of me and the other mothers.
Eleanor was born on the Wednesday and we left on Monday, with difficulty as no friends or ambulances wanted to risk the icy roads home. In the end we took a taxi and, without a car seat, it was the most nerve-wracking ride of my life as I clutched my tiny baby to me without a seatbelt.
We got home and in the blink of an eye, five months have passed. From
to
mercredi 26 décembre 2012
So here we are getting Pacsed
A week already that I have been swimming in marital bliss, or something. The Gorgeous Chook and I registered our Pacs on the 19th of December, which, considering we've been together for 11+ years, was 'bout bloody time.
For those not familiar with the Pacs (Pacte civil de solidarité), here it is in a nutshell. It is a status for adult couples that dates from 1999 and was put in place by the Socialist Jospin government. The idea was to recognise that couples could benefit from certain rights and advantages without going down the mariage route, and was clearly aimed at same-sex couples though it is open to all couples (except relatives). The Pacs gives couples certain rights and reponsabilities (joint tax declaration mainly) but not others such as right to adopt. For the record this and other reasons are why the Pacs cannot be seen as an adequate alternative to same-sex marriage, but more on that another day.
We decided to get Pacsed for several reasons. In no particular order: we're going to have a baby, we're buying a flat together, we have no plans to get married for the moment and it will lighten our tax bill. It also simplifies certain administrative procedures (never a small deal in France) such as GC putting me on his excellent medical insurance. Symbolically it sounds slightly more serious to say you are Pacsed than just "with somebody".
So, at the beginning of November I called the town hall to set a date. A Pacs is carried out by a court clerk at the local Tribunal de Grande Instance (TGI, i.e. the local courthouse; sexy). A date was set for the 19th december which was the last available day of the year. Why so long? why, the bloody paperwork of course.
There are certain documents necessary to get Pacsed, which are easy-peasy to get hold of if you're French but, yup you guessed it, a little more challenging if you're not.
If you're French you need a recent (under 3 months) copy of your birth certificate which you get from the town hall of your birthplace and a photocopy of some ID. You also need to write a couple of joint-letters with Chosen One, which involve declaring on your honour that you a) live together and are not family b) have some kind of committment and long-term plan together. It can even go into the nitty-gritty detail of tax regime, wealth sharing etc. Pretty straightforward.
If you're not French, in this case British (the EU magically disappears during Pacs procedures) the list is a little longer. Ultimately this is what you need to hand over:
- The two joint-declarations mentioned above
- A copy of your birth certificate (under 6 months), duly translated by a certified translator
- A certificate of non-Pacs that you get using form Cerfa n°12819*04 (don't ask)
- A certificat de coutume delivered by the Embassy or Consulate of country in question and containing all the originals (and translations) of the papers used to get aforementioned certificat.
- An attestation de non-inscription au repertoire civil for those of us who have been living here for over a year.
Crikey. Where to start?
I started with the Embassy to enquire about this whole certificat de coutume thing. For that they need my birth certificate which is somewhere in the UK, So first I must get that.
Ditto for the certificate of Non-Pacs.
And for the attestation I need to the certificat of coutume delivered by the Embassy.
So I start again, with getting a recent copy of my birth certificate. A few phone calls, letters and a couple of weeks later that plops in the letterbox from the UK.
I'm ready to get my little parcel ready for the British Embassy: photocopy of passport, birth certificate and 85€. (For those who have already been married, Pacsed, have changed their name or in any other way fucked with the admin before, the list is longer).
A few days later the certificat de non-coutume arrives. Perfect except they've misspelt my name- Jessell. I call the embassy and, having lived in Paris for so long, am absolutely flabbergasted by how nice and efficient they are. I called during lunch hours and spoke to a very nice woman who took note of my problem. Forty-five minutes later I had a message form the Vice-Consul himself, apologising and saying that the new copy was in that Friday afternoon's post. Jesus, that's efficient. (Actually ... but that's for later).
So by then, a good few weeks down the road, I had a copy of my birth certificate and a certificat de coutume with the wrong name. Time to look into the certificate of non-Pacs.
Form Cerfa n°12819*04 is a horrible form you find online, fill in and send off with a packet of documents, in order to get the certifcate of non-Pacs. When I saw that it was going to have to tour France for a extended holiday i realised the timing might screw our date and so got on the phone to somebody to confirm this was all going to be fine. The person unfortunately confirmed this was actually going to take 4-6 weeks. "Or you could come to our office?". As it was in the north of Paris that sounded fine, as I was 8 months pregnant with contractions and had been more or less bed-ridden for a month it sounded complicated. Fuck it, I took a taxi to Corentin Cariou, a hideous and isolated area of Paris full of tower blocks of grey council housing and anonymous admin buildings. Waddling and clutching my huge belly and pelvis, I staggered to the grim office block. It contained the courthouse with lawyers and their clients milling about looking worried and admin back-offices. In one of these, everyone -the three middle aged women fonctionnaires and the young dude with long hair whom I'd had on the phone- clucked over me and asked why the hell I was there.
For the goddamn certificate of non-Pacs.
They looked at the usual pile of documents. One pointed out that my birth certifcate hadn't been officially translated and was therefore technically not valid and that on another my name was wrong, but as is usually the case, the other fonctionnaires who were obviously pitying this exhausted pregnant woman who was still wearing pyjamas, completely ignored the rules and 45 seconds later I had a fresh and crisp certificat de non-Pacs in my hot little hand. Four to six weeks is for wimps.
Even better, all four of them started giving me advice on how to speed up the following procedures which, it turned out, could take weeks. This was helpful as I learnt that the third and final, and most vital, attestation was a paper that would have to come from the tribunal in Nantes, a 385 km taxi ride away... They gave me a direct fax number for someone and recommended that I write a tear-jerking account of my predicament.
[The taxi I had taken to get there was still in the neighbourhood so a quick call later I was back in the car. Some peculiar things happened to the taxi driver that day. I'll have to tell you about them sometime.]
Progress was being made, though I still didn't have the corrected copy of the Coutume thingy from the British embassy. I decided to get the fax to Nantes together with all documents imaginable: original and recent birth certificates, ID, forms, certifcates of everything and of course the shit-eating letter explaining why nothing had yet been translated and why my name was misspelt (still no news form the bloody Brits at this time). Not having a fax machine at home I asked GC to do it from his office.
The very next day I got a message from a guy called Poulailler (chicken coop) in Nantes telling me that only the first page or so of my epic fax had got through, could I send again. On the phone to GC who duly did. I called him back on the number he had called me on and told him everything was under control. He didn't seem too pleased to be contacted.
He had to get back in touch with me though as once again oinly the first page had got through. He told me to send all the pages as separate documents. And not to call his direct line again or to bug him and how had I got this number, anyway?
I realised the women at the grim office had given me the key to the holy grail: direct access to the paper-stamper supreme who is generally just an imagined and omnipiotent figure hidden far-away and that one just has to have faith in.
I was on the phone to God.
I explained my predicament: pregnant, lame, anxious, in love, British, francophile, sniff, sob.
He seemed pretty unimpressed but told me it was in the pipes.
Two days later a letter arrived- the wonderful, longed-for attestation.
WITH THE WRONG FUCKING MISSPELT NAME ON IT!
By chance I had by now received the corrected version from the Embassy so was all set to go through the rigmarole again when, by magic, in the following post, a corrected attestation arrived, signed by my friend chicken-coop.
I had everything! Just needed to translate the birth certiciate and there we were. Did that with a translation firm in the neighbourhood, a mere 60€ for a page comprising challenging vocabulary such as "Name of father" and "Place of birth".
Nevermind. Our dossier was complete. We turned up on the wednesday at 11.35, ten minutes before our slot. Some other couples were waiting, more straight than gay and clearly the TGI was running late. So we waited about 45 minutes, they took our dossier away (we held our breath) and this very bouncy, plump and camp guy wearing a bright pink pullover and a silk cravat told us to follow him. We sat in a miniscule room furnished with an orangey-shiney wood desk and three chairs and he got us to check the documents. they had got GC middle names wrong and reversed my first and second names. Easily corrected.
And that was that. We signed our paper and it was finished. I asked our Master of Ceremony if he would mind taking a pic, but he got rather huffy saying this was courthouse not a wedding hall and why didn't we get married anyway? He explained he was pissed off with having to run from tribunal to tribuanl dealing with Pacs when the judicial system was understaffed and had more serious things to worry about. He was also dismayed to see that a lot of couples got Pacsed as a kind of engagement party, a few months before the Real Thing. We reassured him this was not the case, that we were doing this for tax and insurance purposes and this seemed to pacify him.
We got our pic in the end, a nice bubbly girl waiting to get Pacsed with her female partner took it. I look huge, and my belly is huger than it looks; but I'm happy. because even though getting it done was the least romantic thing in the world, i'm still very chuffed to be Pacsed to Chook.
For those not familiar with the Pacs (Pacte civil de solidarité), here it is in a nutshell. It is a status for adult couples that dates from 1999 and was put in place by the Socialist Jospin government. The idea was to recognise that couples could benefit from certain rights and advantages without going down the mariage route, and was clearly aimed at same-sex couples though it is open to all couples (except relatives). The Pacs gives couples certain rights and reponsabilities (joint tax declaration mainly) but not others such as right to adopt. For the record this and other reasons are why the Pacs cannot be seen as an adequate alternative to same-sex marriage, but more on that another day.
We decided to get Pacsed for several reasons. In no particular order: we're going to have a baby, we're buying a flat together, we have no plans to get married for the moment and it will lighten our tax bill. It also simplifies certain administrative procedures (never a small deal in France) such as GC putting me on his excellent medical insurance. Symbolically it sounds slightly more serious to say you are Pacsed than just "with somebody".
So, at the beginning of November I called the town hall to set a date. A Pacs is carried out by a court clerk at the local Tribunal de Grande Instance (TGI, i.e. the local courthouse; sexy). A date was set for the 19th december which was the last available day of the year. Why so long? why, the bloody paperwork of course.
There are certain documents necessary to get Pacsed, which are easy-peasy to get hold of if you're French but, yup you guessed it, a little more challenging if you're not.
If you're French you need a recent (under 3 months) copy of your birth certificate which you get from the town hall of your birthplace and a photocopy of some ID. You also need to write a couple of joint-letters with Chosen One, which involve declaring on your honour that you a) live together and are not family b) have some kind of committment and long-term plan together. It can even go into the nitty-gritty detail of tax regime, wealth sharing etc. Pretty straightforward.
If you're not French, in this case British (the EU magically disappears during Pacs procedures) the list is a little longer. Ultimately this is what you need to hand over:
- The two joint-declarations mentioned above
- A copy of your birth certificate (under 6 months), duly translated by a certified translator
- A certificate of non-Pacs that you get using form Cerfa n°12819*04 (don't ask)
- A certificat de coutume delivered by the Embassy or Consulate of country in question and containing all the originals (and translations) of the papers used to get aforementioned certificat.
- An attestation de non-inscription au repertoire civil for those of us who have been living here for over a year.
Crikey. Where to start?
I started with the Embassy to enquire about this whole certificat de coutume thing. For that they need my birth certificate which is somewhere in the UK, So first I must get that.
Ditto for the certificate of Non-Pacs.
And for the attestation I need to the certificat of coutume delivered by the Embassy.
So I start again, with getting a recent copy of my birth certificate. A few phone calls, letters and a couple of weeks later that plops in the letterbox from the UK.
I'm ready to get my little parcel ready for the British Embassy: photocopy of passport, birth certificate and 85€. (For those who have already been married, Pacsed, have changed their name or in any other way fucked with the admin before, the list is longer).
A few days later the certificat de non-coutume arrives. Perfect except they've misspelt my name- Jessell. I call the embassy and, having lived in Paris for so long, am absolutely flabbergasted by how nice and efficient they are. I called during lunch hours and spoke to a very nice woman who took note of my problem. Forty-five minutes later I had a message form the Vice-Consul himself, apologising and saying that the new copy was in that Friday afternoon's post. Jesus, that's efficient. (Actually ... but that's for later).
So by then, a good few weeks down the road, I had a copy of my birth certificate and a certificat de coutume with the wrong name. Time to look into the certificate of non-Pacs.
Form Cerfa n°12819*04 is a horrible form you find online, fill in and send off with a packet of documents, in order to get the certifcate of non-Pacs. When I saw that it was going to have to tour France for a extended holiday i realised the timing might screw our date and so got on the phone to somebody to confirm this was all going to be fine. The person unfortunately confirmed this was actually going to take 4-6 weeks. "Or you could come to our office?". As it was in the north of Paris that sounded fine, as I was 8 months pregnant with contractions and had been more or less bed-ridden for a month it sounded complicated. Fuck it, I took a taxi to Corentin Cariou, a hideous and isolated area of Paris full of tower blocks of grey council housing and anonymous admin buildings. Waddling and clutching my huge belly and pelvis, I staggered to the grim office block. It contained the courthouse with lawyers and their clients milling about looking worried and admin back-offices. In one of these, everyone -the three middle aged women fonctionnaires and the young dude with long hair whom I'd had on the phone- clucked over me and asked why the hell I was there.
For the goddamn certificate of non-Pacs.
They looked at the usual pile of documents. One pointed out that my birth certifcate hadn't been officially translated and was therefore technically not valid and that on another my name was wrong, but as is usually the case, the other fonctionnaires who were obviously pitying this exhausted pregnant woman who was still wearing pyjamas, completely ignored the rules and 45 seconds later I had a fresh and crisp certificat de non-Pacs in my hot little hand. Four to six weeks is for wimps.
Even better, all four of them started giving me advice on how to speed up the following procedures which, it turned out, could take weeks. This was helpful as I learnt that the third and final, and most vital, attestation was a paper that would have to come from the tribunal in Nantes, a 385 km taxi ride away... They gave me a direct fax number for someone and recommended that I write a tear-jerking account of my predicament.
[The taxi I had taken to get there was still in the neighbourhood so a quick call later I was back in the car. Some peculiar things happened to the taxi driver that day. I'll have to tell you about them sometime.]
Progress was being made, though I still didn't have the corrected copy of the Coutume thingy from the British embassy. I decided to get the fax to Nantes together with all documents imaginable: original and recent birth certificates, ID, forms, certifcates of everything and of course the shit-eating letter explaining why nothing had yet been translated and why my name was misspelt (still no news form the bloody Brits at this time). Not having a fax machine at home I asked GC to do it from his office.
The very next day I got a message from a guy called Poulailler (chicken coop) in Nantes telling me that only the first page or so of my epic fax had got through, could I send again. On the phone to GC who duly did. I called him back on the number he had called me on and told him everything was under control. He didn't seem too pleased to be contacted.
He had to get back in touch with me though as once again oinly the first page had got through. He told me to send all the pages as separate documents. And not to call his direct line again or to bug him and how had I got this number, anyway?
I realised the women at the grim office had given me the key to the holy grail: direct access to the paper-stamper supreme who is generally just an imagined and omnipiotent figure hidden far-away and that one just has to have faith in.
I was on the phone to God.
I explained my predicament: pregnant, lame, anxious, in love, British, francophile, sniff, sob.
He seemed pretty unimpressed but told me it was in the pipes.
Two days later a letter arrived- the wonderful, longed-for attestation.
WITH THE WRONG FUCKING MISSPELT NAME ON IT!
By chance I had by now received the corrected version from the Embassy so was all set to go through the rigmarole again when, by magic, in the following post, a corrected attestation arrived, signed by my friend chicken-coop.
I had everything! Just needed to translate the birth certiciate and there we were. Did that with a translation firm in the neighbourhood, a mere 60€ for a page comprising challenging vocabulary such as "Name of father" and "Place of birth".
Nevermind. Our dossier was complete. We turned up on the wednesday at 11.35, ten minutes before our slot. Some other couples were waiting, more straight than gay and clearly the TGI was running late. So we waited about 45 minutes, they took our dossier away (we held our breath) and this very bouncy, plump and camp guy wearing a bright pink pullover and a silk cravat told us to follow him. We sat in a miniscule room furnished with an orangey-shiney wood desk and three chairs and he got us to check the documents. they had got GC middle names wrong and reversed my first and second names. Easily corrected.
And that was that. We signed our paper and it was finished. I asked our Master of Ceremony if he would mind taking a pic, but he got rather huffy saying this was courthouse not a wedding hall and why didn't we get married anyway? He explained he was pissed off with having to run from tribunal to tribuanl dealing with Pacs when the judicial system was understaffed and had more serious things to worry about. He was also dismayed to see that a lot of couples got Pacsed as a kind of engagement party, a few months before the Real Thing. We reassured him this was not the case, that we were doing this for tax and insurance purposes and this seemed to pacify him.
We got our pic in the end, a nice bubbly girl waiting to get Pacsed with her female partner took it. I look huge, and my belly is huger than it looks; but I'm happy. because even though getting it done was the least romantic thing in the world, i'm still very chuffed to be Pacsed to Chook.
mercredi 19 décembre 2012
So here we are in the 56 bus
It's not every day one finds oneself in a surreal comedy sketch so I thought I'd try and share this crazy bus journey with you...
So I was at the maternity in the far east of Paris last Friday for some final blood tests and, unable to find a taxi in the area to carry my huge load back home, decided to take the bus.
I waddled to the bus stop, just in time to see the 56 sail away down the street; checked the digital display board- 15 minute wait- and settled down with my magazine and second breakfast of the day. A middle-aged gentleman came along, saw the board and started telling me that this bloody bus was always late, absolute scandal. Noticing I was pregnant, he started to rant saying that pregant women and elderly folk such as himself really shouldn't have to wait when the weather is so cold. I made polite clucking noises and returned to Paris Match.
A woman with a huge shopping trolley appeared and basically groaned about the same thing. Really! the market won't be around all day you know! Bloody incompetent bus. Then another pregnant lady, clearly coming from the maternity herself, squashed herself down next to us and, looking at the board began to panic about how long the bus was going to take-she was going to be late for work.
This was a little surprising to me, clearly these people have never had to take a bus on a friday late-morning in the suburbs where you can easily wait two hours. Also, having taken this bus before I was pretty certain it was going to be deserted; last time I had even wondered how much it cost the RATP to finance empty buses tootling through Paris.
A few minutes before this clearly longed-for bus appeared, a homeless guy, limping, very skinny and carrying a sleeping bag crawled upto the bus shelter. He was clearly very cold, stank of piss, and had vast amounts of snot flowing around his mouth like a gruesome oral jellyfish attack. Lacking cash but well-stocked up on Kleenex, I took a few out and reached over to him; He took one look at my offering and started whimpering with his eyes shut, rocking slightly on his heels.
"'Leave him', said shopping trolley woman, 'he's always here at this time, he'll be off again in a moment'.
Really? Ok. So, having once more tried to shove the Kleenex in his hand with nothing more than a groan in response, I sat back down. Sure enough, two minutes later he packed up his stuff and shuffled off again. Clearly there is a routine I'm not aware of here.
The 56 bus arrives dead on time to comments of "about bloody time". It's absolutely packed. I get a seat of course, opposite a little birdy woman. Across the aisle from me an elderly skinny man barks. Literally. WOOF!
Birdy woman gets out and a middled-aged woman with a dozen bags of Xmas shopping plonks in front of me. A dozen Xmas shopping bags land on my feet, knees and huge 37 week pregnant bump.
'Don't worry! there's enough room for all of it', she chuckles. 'So when is your baby due?'
'Any time now', I reply, 'but due date in January'.
'Ah! Capricorn!',she says, 'I get on well with Capricorn because I'm Pisces'.
'Right. And she'll be a dragon according to the Chinese zodiac'.
'Oh, I don't know anything about that. I'm Pisces rising sign Pisces, so you know I'm very Pisces. Very emotional, sentimental and trusting. But I don't forgive you know.'
'Right; no'.
'What are you?'
WOOF WOOF! The man started barking intensely. Nobody looked up.
'Sagittarius rising Gemini'
'OOH! the double signs. Interesting. I like Sagittarius. my daughter-in-law is one. And I work with a lot of them. But you'll change you know, when you hit 40 you'll be a real Gemini. A double sign. Interesting.'
I was about to ask what was so interesting about double signs, when the bus stopped at a busy stop. The man started barking again with real gusto. About ten people got on, including a big black lady with a little boy in a vast pushchair that she parked next to me. Some people at the back of the bus began to shout because a guy in a wheelchair needed the little platform to be let down so he could wheel himself up. The driver said it was broken so half a dozen people had to get up, out of the bus and hoist up the huge guy in his massive chair. Bus was well and truly about to explode at this point.
"LET GO OF ME!,' wheelchair guy was yelling, 'PUT ME DOWN!'. People manoeuvred him into the aisle where he blocked the exit. 'DON'T TOUCH ME!', he roared as a couple of people slid past him to get out at the next stop. Everyone squished together to give him space.
'Oh dear', I said, 'I hope he's ok'.
'Nah, he's fine', replied Mrs Astrology, 'he just can't stand being touched. He's always like this. Like the man who barks- he just can't bear it when the bus isn't moving- you know- traffic lights, bus stops and such'.
'I see, so do you often see them?'
'Oh yes'.
At this point two things happened, the little kid in the pushchair next to me released his hands from his mittens and a lady who had been standing behind Mrs Astrology joined our conversation.
'Oh hello, I was listening to your conversation. I'm Taurus rising Taurus you know!'
'Oh wow, so very Taurus!' I said feebly.
'Oh! I'm Pisces rising Pisces!' said Mrs Astrology.
'Yes! and we should get on as from your year of birth I can say you're a monkey for the chinese and I'm a rat and...
At this point the little boy next to me took my fingers and shoved them in his mouth, and started grumbling about something.
'Nicolas! Non!',shouted his nanny. 'Sorry about that but he wants to sleep and he mustn't because it'll screw up his nap times. We need to keep him awake.'
'We?...'
'He likes the plane. Make a plane with your fingers and land on his nose, like this'- Vroooom....
'...And what chinese sign are you, dear...?'
'WOOF WOOF!'
'Er..... vroooooomm.... Rooster....'
'What about the Arab Zodiac?'
'Er, no idea... vrooom'
'GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME!'
'WOOF WOOF!'
'...and dagger in the Arab horoscope, and maple in the Celtic...'
'...no, you have to fly your hand around a bit, like this- No! Nicolas! No biting!...'
'...so if you're born in 1968 or in 1980?...'
'VROOOM'
'DON'T TOUCH ME!'
... Nicolas! NO!'...."
This lasted a good ten minutes, and finally I just staggered to the door, throwing off Xmas presents, Nicolas, Astrology women and slamming into Wheelchair who started to go berserk.
And there I was thinking the bus would be eerily empty like last time. Clearly there's a bit of a party going on every friday around midday on bus 56.
So I was at the maternity in the far east of Paris last Friday for some final blood tests and, unable to find a taxi in the area to carry my huge load back home, decided to take the bus.
I waddled to the bus stop, just in time to see the 56 sail away down the street; checked the digital display board- 15 minute wait- and settled down with my magazine and second breakfast of the day. A middle-aged gentleman came along, saw the board and started telling me that this bloody bus was always late, absolute scandal. Noticing I was pregnant, he started to rant saying that pregant women and elderly folk such as himself really shouldn't have to wait when the weather is so cold. I made polite clucking noises and returned to Paris Match.
A woman with a huge shopping trolley appeared and basically groaned about the same thing. Really! the market won't be around all day you know! Bloody incompetent bus. Then another pregnant lady, clearly coming from the maternity herself, squashed herself down next to us and, looking at the board began to panic about how long the bus was going to take-she was going to be late for work.
This was a little surprising to me, clearly these people have never had to take a bus on a friday late-morning in the suburbs where you can easily wait two hours. Also, having taken this bus before I was pretty certain it was going to be deserted; last time I had even wondered how much it cost the RATP to finance empty buses tootling through Paris.
A few minutes before this clearly longed-for bus appeared, a homeless guy, limping, very skinny and carrying a sleeping bag crawled upto the bus shelter. He was clearly very cold, stank of piss, and had vast amounts of snot flowing around his mouth like a gruesome oral jellyfish attack. Lacking cash but well-stocked up on Kleenex, I took a few out and reached over to him; He took one look at my offering and started whimpering with his eyes shut, rocking slightly on his heels.
"'Leave him', said shopping trolley woman, 'he's always here at this time, he'll be off again in a moment'.
Really? Ok. So, having once more tried to shove the Kleenex in his hand with nothing more than a groan in response, I sat back down. Sure enough, two minutes later he packed up his stuff and shuffled off again. Clearly there is a routine I'm not aware of here.
The 56 bus arrives dead on time to comments of "about bloody time". It's absolutely packed. I get a seat of course, opposite a little birdy woman. Across the aisle from me an elderly skinny man barks. Literally. WOOF!
Birdy woman gets out and a middled-aged woman with a dozen bags of Xmas shopping plonks in front of me. A dozen Xmas shopping bags land on my feet, knees and huge 37 week pregnant bump.
'Don't worry! there's enough room for all of it', she chuckles. 'So when is your baby due?'
'Any time now', I reply, 'but due date in January'.
'Ah! Capricorn!',she says, 'I get on well with Capricorn because I'm Pisces'.
'Right. And she'll be a dragon according to the Chinese zodiac'.
'Oh, I don't know anything about that. I'm Pisces rising sign Pisces, so you know I'm very Pisces. Very emotional, sentimental and trusting. But I don't forgive you know.'
'Right; no'.
'What are you?'
WOOF WOOF! The man started barking intensely. Nobody looked up.
'Sagittarius rising Gemini'
'OOH! the double signs. Interesting. I like Sagittarius. my daughter-in-law is one. And I work with a lot of them. But you'll change you know, when you hit 40 you'll be a real Gemini. A double sign. Interesting.'
I was about to ask what was so interesting about double signs, when the bus stopped at a busy stop. The man started barking again with real gusto. About ten people got on, including a big black lady with a little boy in a vast pushchair that she parked next to me. Some people at the back of the bus began to shout because a guy in a wheelchair needed the little platform to be let down so he could wheel himself up. The driver said it was broken so half a dozen people had to get up, out of the bus and hoist up the huge guy in his massive chair. Bus was well and truly about to explode at this point.
"LET GO OF ME!,' wheelchair guy was yelling, 'PUT ME DOWN!'. People manoeuvred him into the aisle where he blocked the exit. 'DON'T TOUCH ME!', he roared as a couple of people slid past him to get out at the next stop. Everyone squished together to give him space.
'Oh dear', I said, 'I hope he's ok'.
'Nah, he's fine', replied Mrs Astrology, 'he just can't stand being touched. He's always like this. Like the man who barks- he just can't bear it when the bus isn't moving- you know- traffic lights, bus stops and such'.
'I see, so do you often see them?'
'Oh yes'.
At this point two things happened, the little kid in the pushchair next to me released his hands from his mittens and a lady who had been standing behind Mrs Astrology joined our conversation.
'Oh hello, I was listening to your conversation. I'm Taurus rising Taurus you know!'
'Oh wow, so very Taurus!' I said feebly.
'Oh! I'm Pisces rising Pisces!' said Mrs Astrology.
'Yes! and we should get on as from your year of birth I can say you're a monkey for the chinese and I'm a rat and...
At this point the little boy next to me took my fingers and shoved them in his mouth, and started grumbling about something.
'Nicolas! Non!',shouted his nanny. 'Sorry about that but he wants to sleep and he mustn't because it'll screw up his nap times. We need to keep him awake.'
'We?...'
'He likes the plane. Make a plane with your fingers and land on his nose, like this'- Vroooom....
'...And what chinese sign are you, dear...?'
'WOOF WOOF!'
'Er..... vroooooomm.... Rooster....'
'What about the Arab Zodiac?'
'Er, no idea... vrooom'
'GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME!'
'WOOF WOOF!'
'...and dagger in the Arab horoscope, and maple in the Celtic...'
'...no, you have to fly your hand around a bit, like this- No! Nicolas! No biting!...'
'...so if you're born in 1968 or in 1980?...'
'VROOOM'
'DON'T TOUCH ME!'
... Nicolas! NO!'...."
This lasted a good ten minutes, and finally I just staggered to the door, throwing off Xmas presents, Nicolas, Astrology women and slamming into Wheelchair who started to go berserk.
And there I was thinking the bus would be eerily empty like last time. Clearly there's a bit of a party going on every friday around midday on bus 56.
samedi 8 décembre 2012
So here we are making pot-au-feu
It's getting chilly out and I'm stuck inside so conditions are met for making Pot-au-feu, a classic French peasant dish of beef and winter vegetables in a lovely beef broth. I made the classic recipe, without potatoes and with a marrow bone, but I'm guessing you could chuck in pretty much what you want.
This is for 6-8 people, and you will need, as well as a long wintry afternoon at home:
Meat:
500 g of paleron (shoulder blade cut)
500g of gite (topside cut of beef)
500g of plat de cotes (brisket?)
N.B. These are the French cuts, and are different in other countries. Ultimately what you're after are three different cuts of beef: a fatty, a lean and a gelatinous. Consult your butcher if in doubt.
1 marrowbone per person
Seasoning
3/4 garlic cloves
1 large onion
4 cloves
6 black peppercorns
sea salt
bouquet garni
Veg:
4 large leeks
2 large celery stalks
5/6 turnips
5/6 carrots
2/3 parsnips
Recipe:
First take meat (not bones) and cut into largish pieces (about 2/3 pieces per person untimately), put in huge casserole and add 2,5 litres cold water. bring very slowly to the boil (it should take at least 15 minutes) and skim all the collagen and crud that will appear on surface every ten minutes or so. Simmer gently for an hour or so.
Second, add your seasoning: peeled onion studded with cloves, peeled and crushed garlic cloves, bouquet garni, peppercorns and a tbsp of sea salt. Bring to the boil, then simmer gently for a couple of hours. Remember to skim away the crud from time to time
Third, add the veg which should by now be peeled/washed and cut into large chunks. (I cut the leeks, carrots etc into 3, the turnips in half etc). Add to the pot and let simmer for about 30 minutes.
Finally, once your veg is cooked add the marrow bones for about 20 minutes right at the end. they generally drool fat into the soup which can make it all a bit fatty (personnally I don't see the prob) so you can always fart around by wrapping them in muslin/gauze and then putting them in pot.
Voila! add salt and pepper, and serve with mustard, coarse sea salt and gherkins. It keeps in fridge (possible to remove excess fat once it has formed a hard layer) or freezes, and makes great leftovers.
Bon appetit!
This is for 6-8 people, and you will need, as well as a long wintry afternoon at home:
Meat:
500 g of paleron (shoulder blade cut)
500g of gite (topside cut of beef)
500g of plat de cotes (brisket?)
N.B. These are the French cuts, and are different in other countries. Ultimately what you're after are three different cuts of beef: a fatty, a lean and a gelatinous. Consult your butcher if in doubt.
1 marrowbone per person
Seasoning
3/4 garlic cloves
1 large onion
4 cloves
6 black peppercorns
sea salt
bouquet garni
Veg:
4 large leeks
2 large celery stalks
5/6 turnips
5/6 carrots
2/3 parsnips
Recipe:
First take meat (not bones) and cut into largish pieces (about 2/3 pieces per person untimately), put in huge casserole and add 2,5 litres cold water. bring very slowly to the boil (it should take at least 15 minutes) and skim all the collagen and crud that will appear on surface every ten minutes or so. Simmer gently for an hour or so.
Second, add your seasoning: peeled onion studded with cloves, peeled and crushed garlic cloves, bouquet garni, peppercorns and a tbsp of sea salt. Bring to the boil, then simmer gently for a couple of hours. Remember to skim away the crud from time to time
Third, add the veg which should by now be peeled/washed and cut into large chunks. (I cut the leeks, carrots etc into 3, the turnips in half etc). Add to the pot and let simmer for about 30 minutes.
Finally, once your veg is cooked add the marrow bones for about 20 minutes right at the end. they generally drool fat into the soup which can make it all a bit fatty (personnally I don't see the prob) so you can always fart around by wrapping them in muslin/gauze and then putting them in pot.
Voila! add salt and pepper, and serve with mustard, coarse sea salt and gherkins. It keeps in fridge (possible to remove excess fat once it has formed a hard layer) or freezes, and makes great leftovers.
Bon appetit!
mercredi 21 novembre 2012
So here we are watching the Right fracture
Of course, with a view to being fair and objective I can hardly put "So here we are relishing the appalling spectacle of the UMP making complete dicks of themselves and thus annihilating all crediblity" though this would actually be pretty fair & objective.
So what's new on the French political scene? It's true that with all this Baby Bullshit (BBBS) the political posts have become few and far-between.
Well to start, it turns out that the Socialist party won the presidential election on May 6th; François Hollande has been prez for just over six months and to say that his presidency has started rockily would be the understatement of the millenium. In fact it would be more accurate to say that Sarkozy lost rather than Hollande won, as it was clearly the anti-sarko sentiment and the rise of the far-right party FN that contributed to the PS victory more than Hollande's shining charisma and promises to increase taxes. It'd also be easy to say that Sarko lost because of his personnality and the crisis context, but in fact we have to go back to the French presidential campaign to understand why the right, represented by the UMP, is in the dire straits it is today.
Sarkozy was always shadowed by a bunch of more or less well-known "conseillers" who advised him with more or less success what ideas to put forward in order to be in the air du temps. In the final stretch of the campaign, his main counsellor was Patrick Buisson, a man with a far-right background who advised taking the hard "security, Islam, immigration" line. As a result, during the campaign when Sarko should really have been focusing on unemployment, debt, competitiveness and the euro crisis, he gravely went on about the bad integration of immigrants, Roms, the risk of Islamist revolution and the secular state in peril. These positions, which found their audience in the part of the UMP represented by Jean-François Copé and the "droite poulaire" (read: populist) were undoubtedly meant to drain away votes from the FN ( a well-known Sarko technique, read here for an example) and gather the far-right and the more moderate centre of the UMP- as represented by Prime minister François Fillon- together.
It was pretty much a massive fail. The moderate Gaullists (centre-right) felt alienated and the FN loved that the UMP was recycling their favourite themes. Some of the former voted Hollande and the FN did an amazing score, and in the end, Sarkozy lost.
It could have been the end of it, but the question then arose of who was going to be the UMP's new leader. Sarkozy had the been the natural one: a new generation, with a wish to rehaul the French welfare state and economy and an "décomplexé" ( 'unashamed' is the best translation I can come up with) approach to money. He had managed to reunite all the trends present in the UMP with a clever dosage of microeconomics, labour, international affairs, security and immigration policies.
Now two different candidates had emerged.
On the one hand the current leader (since presidential campaign), Jean-François Copé. MP and mayor of Meaux, a town 50 kilometres from Paris famous for its Brie, he is also from the younger generation (nearly 50), omnipresent in the media, and could be described as a pale imitation of Sarkozy, who you either hated or loved but had to admit was the real spontaneous driven thing. Copé is smooth, has nice eyes but a shark's smile and is really a bit slimy. Wasp's honey to Sarkozy's flintstones. Copé represents the "droite décomplexée" which is conservative and a tad xenophobic and anti-islam.
On the other we have former PM François Fillon, a grave and silent man, who goes about his reforms and shuns interviews and TV appearances. He is the man who oversaw the major reforms of the last half-decade, as he was Sarko's right-hand man during the whole presidency. He represents the more moderate wing of the UMP, which is more liberal and "social gaullist".
An internal election was organised for the 300 000 UMP card-holders to vote on these two candidates. There were some other fleeting candidacies but on D-day only Fillon and Copé remained.
In the polls Fillon was given as the clear winner, 40 points ahead. And then the election happened. At 8pm the voting centres shut but no clear trend was visible. Same at 11. Then at around 11.20pm Copé came out and said he had won, 200 ballots ahead, though this result had not yet been validated by, well, anyone. They'd simply counted up the results as they came through from the various federations.
Twenty minutes later, Fillon made a statement,saying he had won, from tallying up all results from France and overseas, by about 1000 votes. This hadn't been confirmed by anyone either.
The Copé side retaliated saying that there had been evidence of fraud in Nice and Paris in particular, with ballot stuffing and people being turned away.
Chaos. On TV, other UMP figures tried to defend their side, some getting swept away like Christian Estrosi, mayor of Nice, who talked about the 'other party' forgetting that they're all supposed to be on the same ship.
Chaos continues during the next day, and finally JF Copé is declared victor by about 90 votes. He offered Vice-prez to F Fillon, who flatly refused and is now contemplating "his future in politics", clearly meaning he can't work with a populist little squit like Jean-François. And it would seem quite a lot of UMP voters might feel the same.
The belief is that the focus should be on the economy, micro and macro, with reforms to make French companies more competitive, dealing with the deficit and debt, and handling the euro-crisis, not Islam, gay marriage and yet more security. For example, Copé is famous for an anecdote he related on TV to illustrate the rise of an anti-white racism present in the dangerous 'burbs. Here a young French "gaulois-white" had had his pain au chocolat stolen at school by young French "musulmans- arabes" who had told him not to eat during Ramadan. Nevermind that there hasn't been a Ramadan during the school year for years, this was hot news to show that it's the white kids who are being treated badly because of the muslim invasion.
Marine Le Pen, leader of the Front national is rubbing her hands in glee. And it seems she might be the real winner of the UMP election, which has simply shown the fracture that exists in the French right. She and Jean-Louis Borloo who has just founded the centre-right party Union des démocrates et des indépendants.
The Socialists however are having a tough enough time with their own cock-ups, controversies and U-turns to milk anything out of this. They also have to remain very silent as they went through pretty much exactly the same thing, accusations and fratricide included, in 2008. It's worth noting that neither of the two candidates to the 2008 PS leader election were selected to run for President in 2012.
So what's new on the French political scene? It's true that with all this Baby Bullshit (BBBS) the political posts have become few and far-between.
Well to start, it turns out that the Socialist party won the presidential election on May 6th; François Hollande has been prez for just over six months and to say that his presidency has started rockily would be the understatement of the millenium. In fact it would be more accurate to say that Sarkozy lost rather than Hollande won, as it was clearly the anti-sarko sentiment and the rise of the far-right party FN that contributed to the PS victory more than Hollande's shining charisma and promises to increase taxes. It'd also be easy to say that Sarko lost because of his personnality and the crisis context, but in fact we have to go back to the French presidential campaign to understand why the right, represented by the UMP, is in the dire straits it is today.
Sarkozy was always shadowed by a bunch of more or less well-known "conseillers" who advised him with more or less success what ideas to put forward in order to be in the air du temps. In the final stretch of the campaign, his main counsellor was Patrick Buisson, a man with a far-right background who advised taking the hard "security, Islam, immigration" line. As a result, during the campaign when Sarko should really have been focusing on unemployment, debt, competitiveness and the euro crisis, he gravely went on about the bad integration of immigrants, Roms, the risk of Islamist revolution and the secular state in peril. These positions, which found their audience in the part of the UMP represented by Jean-François Copé and the "droite poulaire" (read: populist) were undoubtedly meant to drain away votes from the FN ( a well-known Sarko technique, read here for an example) and gather the far-right and the more moderate centre of the UMP- as represented by Prime minister François Fillon- together.
It was pretty much a massive fail. The moderate Gaullists (centre-right) felt alienated and the FN loved that the UMP was recycling their favourite themes. Some of the former voted Hollande and the FN did an amazing score, and in the end, Sarkozy lost.
It could have been the end of it, but the question then arose of who was going to be the UMP's new leader. Sarkozy had the been the natural one: a new generation, with a wish to rehaul the French welfare state and economy and an "décomplexé" ( 'unashamed' is the best translation I can come up with) approach to money. He had managed to reunite all the trends present in the UMP with a clever dosage of microeconomics, labour, international affairs, security and immigration policies.
Now two different candidates had emerged.
On the one hand the current leader (since presidential campaign), Jean-François Copé. MP and mayor of Meaux, a town 50 kilometres from Paris famous for its Brie, he is also from the younger generation (nearly 50), omnipresent in the media, and could be described as a pale imitation of Sarkozy, who you either hated or loved but had to admit was the real spontaneous driven thing. Copé is smooth, has nice eyes but a shark's smile and is really a bit slimy. Wasp's honey to Sarkozy's flintstones. Copé represents the "droite décomplexée" which is conservative and a tad xenophobic and anti-islam.
On the other we have former PM François Fillon, a grave and silent man, who goes about his reforms and shuns interviews and TV appearances. He is the man who oversaw the major reforms of the last half-decade, as he was Sarko's right-hand man during the whole presidency. He represents the more moderate wing of the UMP, which is more liberal and "social gaullist".
An internal election was organised for the 300 000 UMP card-holders to vote on these two candidates. There were some other fleeting candidacies but on D-day only Fillon and Copé remained.
In the polls Fillon was given as the clear winner, 40 points ahead. And then the election happened. At 8pm the voting centres shut but no clear trend was visible. Same at 11. Then at around 11.20pm Copé came out and said he had won, 200 ballots ahead, though this result had not yet been validated by, well, anyone. They'd simply counted up the results as they came through from the various federations.
Twenty minutes later, Fillon made a statement,saying he had won, from tallying up all results from France and overseas, by about 1000 votes. This hadn't been confirmed by anyone either.
The Copé side retaliated saying that there had been evidence of fraud in Nice and Paris in particular, with ballot stuffing and people being turned away.
Chaos. On TV, other UMP figures tried to defend their side, some getting swept away like Christian Estrosi, mayor of Nice, who talked about the 'other party' forgetting that they're all supposed to be on the same ship.
Chaos continues during the next day, and finally JF Copé is declared victor by about 90 votes. He offered Vice-prez to F Fillon, who flatly refused and is now contemplating "his future in politics", clearly meaning he can't work with a populist little squit like Jean-François. And it would seem quite a lot of UMP voters might feel the same.
The belief is that the focus should be on the economy, micro and macro, with reforms to make French companies more competitive, dealing with the deficit and debt, and handling the euro-crisis, not Islam, gay marriage and yet more security. For example, Copé is famous for an anecdote he related on TV to illustrate the rise of an anti-white racism present in the dangerous 'burbs. Here a young French "gaulois-white" had had his pain au chocolat stolen at school by young French "musulmans- arabes" who had told him not to eat during Ramadan. Nevermind that there hasn't been a Ramadan during the school year for years, this was hot news to show that it's the white kids who are being treated badly because of the muslim invasion.
Marine Le Pen, leader of the Front national is rubbing her hands in glee. And it seems she might be the real winner of the UMP election, which has simply shown the fracture that exists in the French right. She and Jean-Louis Borloo who has just founded the centre-right party Union des démocrates et des indépendants.
The Socialists however are having a tough enough time with their own cock-ups, controversies and U-turns to milk anything out of this. They also have to remain very silent as they went through pretty much exactly the same thing, accusations and fratricide included, in 2008. It's worth noting that neither of the two candidates to the 2008 PS leader election were selected to run for President in 2012.
lundi 12 novembre 2012
So here we are being logical
I love these, especially when they're in text form without the handy little pre-prepared tables! Thanks Fergus.
There are 5 adjacent houses. Each house has
a unique color, and each owner has a different nationality. Each owner keeps a
different pet, drinks a different type of beverage, and has a different
occupation. The Brit lives in the red house, the Swede keeps a dog, and the
Dane drinks tea. The green house is on the immediate left of the white house. In
the green house they drink coffee. The postman has birds. The fireman lives in
the yellow house. In the middle house they drink milk. The Norwegian lives in
the leftmost house. The baker lives in the house next to the house with the
cats. The fireman lives in the house next to the house with the horse. The bus
driver drinks beer. The German is plumber. The Norwegian lives next to the blue
house. They drink water in the house that lies next to the house where the
baker lives. One of the owners keeps a zebra.
Who
owns the zebra?
Inscription à :
Articles (Atom)
