All change!

Français : Insigne notaire, France, Beaune (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

                                                                                 
I am most disappointed, Monsieur, and somewhat surprised, that Maitre Plouc could not see me himself.....with a portfolio of interests such as mine I need the most expert advice and I had counted on the personal attentions of Maitre himself now it looks as though the Reds are going to come to power and tax us out of existence.

No one could regret more than Maitre Plouc that he is unavoidably detained, but, my dear lady, one of your character would be the first to understand that some of his more elderly clients are physically unable to come to the office and as the elections loom, time is of the essence.
As his clerk of many years, I am of course, well acquainted with Madame's financial arrangements,but, in any case, Maitre Plouc has left me some notes relating to the management of Madame's portfolio.
Madame...
Madame...?
What is it? You look as though you had seen a ghost!

Call the gendarmerie! There's an armed man in the garden....they are coming for us already...
Call the gendarmerie, Monsieur! I'm going before they cut off the front door! Sauve qui peut!

Victor! For goodness' sake! What the hell are you doing in Plouc's garden with a shotgun?
Here, I'll open the back door...
Claudine!

Yes, Monsieur Clement? What happened? Mme. d'Enculade came rushing out through the waiting room shouting that the Reds were here and all the other women followed her out....

It's this idiot...come in Victor and put down that gun while I lock the door - the old bag saw him in the garden with his shotgun and thought the Red Brigade was coming for her....pity they're not...
Just in case, Claudine, ring the gendarmerie and tell them she saw the man who'd come to shoot the rooks and took fright...don't want them round here poking their noses everywhere while Plouc is out...anyway, they know what she's like by late morning...

Yes, Monsieur Clement.

Oh, and Claudine...

Yes, Monsieur Clement?

Steer well clear of Plouc in the office from now on. The Constitutional Council has just ruled that sexual harassment is no longer a crime in France.....
He probably won't hear about it for months, knowing him, but just keep out of reach, huh?

Yes, Monsieur Clement.

Now, Victor, what the blazes are you playing at?

Well, I'd been shooting rooks down on that piece by the river and as I had to come by here to get to the car I thought I'd drop in and see whether Plouc had got anywhere with that dispute with the English across the way from me.
I was going in the front way when I saw the waiting room full of old bizzoms - looked like a furriers in there it did - so I thought I'd better nip round the back so as not to frighten them - or get bitten by their blasted pug dogs come to that. Nasty vicious things.

The women or the dogs? No, never mind. No, Plouc hasn't done anything - what did you expect with the elections being on? He's got other fish to fry.

So it's down to you. Why haven't you done anything? They're driving me mad, complaining about the state of the stream running through their garden.
If I've told them once I've told them a thousand times, that's the country...it comes off my land, runs under the road and goes through their garden to the river. Always has done. It's natural.

From what I recall they're upset that there are herbicides and whatnot in the water....

Well of course there are! Where else am I going to clean out my tanks after spraying?

No, Victor, I haven't been able to do anything.
I've been too busy fielding the old bizzoms for the last few weeks - once it looked like Hollande would win they've been panicking about being taxed up to the hilt so they're on my back from morning to night wanting to get their money into cash and back into the mattress.

So what's Plouc been doing then? Sitting on his backside as usual?

Far from it, Victor. Plouc's been busy from morning to night. But not with legal work....he's going into politics.

Well, so you said before...but he'll never get Lepalfrenier to give up.

He doesn't have to. He's got the Deputy to give up.

What! How'd he do that?

I don't know if you remember, but the taxman got his hands on a list of people holding undeclared Swiss bank accounts...about eight thousand of them....but only about three thousand were followed up.
Well, Mme. Plouc's cousin's daughter works in the tax HQ at Bercy and she saw the list, and, more importantly, the names that were taken off it. Including our Deputy.
Well, as Plouc pointed out, if Hollande comes to power, some of the five thousand who thought they were in the clear won't be. There'll be a clear out of civil servants and the new ones in post will want to please...so socialists will still be all right, but people on the right won't be. Especially politicians on the right.

So Plouc wants to be Deputy?

Not just now. He wants Lepalfrenier to stand for Deputy because it looks likely that the socialists will take this seat in the elections for the National assembly in June.
So Lepalfrenier will get the blame, and he'll be past it by the time the next elections come round and there is Plouc - dedicated party man - all ready to take his place.

Bit sure of himself, isn't he?

Oh, he's laid plans...that's why he's never here.
He met up with the big cheese of the Front National months ago and they hammered out an agreement. Plouc helps them and they help Plouc.
Didn't you see the article in the local rag? 'Public spirited notaire helps elderly people to exercise their right to vote'.

Yes, I did. I didn't know it was Plouc, though....

There was supposed to be a photograph of him surrounded by old age pensioners, but it was cut for lack of space. Plouc was furious.

He's been round every old peoples' home in the area signing papers authorising the grannies and grandads to let someone else vote for them - the someone else being their son or grandson in the Front National - and he's collared Doctor Sangsue to go round giving out medical certificates stating that the grannies living at home aren't fit to go to the polling station and then gone round himself with the voting papers.
I reckon he boosted the FN vote in the first round by a good thirty per cent.

But that's working against his own party!

That's what he wants. He's out now doing the second round papers and his agreement with the big cheese is that they'll all vote socialist this time to boost the socialists before the National Assembly elections when they'll knock out Lepalfrenier.

So what happens when Plouc stands?

Same thing. They vote FN the first time and Plouc the second and Deputy Plouc joins the right wing of his party and co operates with the FN in the assembly.

And what happens to his legal practice?

He reckons his son will be qualified by then and can take over....he's a lot brighter than Plouc and a nasty piece of work to boot.
If they don't put sexual harassment back on the statute book Claudine will have to watch out for that one!

Claudine! What is it?

The gendarmerie on the telephone, Monsieur Clement.

Yes, Clement here.
Adjutant LeBoff, bonjour.
Yes, Maitre Plouc is helping pensioners to sign the procurations in the old peoples' home at St. Ragondin today...that's right.
Yes...you'll be calling here, then....
Well, thank you for letting me know....goodbye.

What did they want?

Apparently a bunch of the grandads have got Plouc holed up in the bathrooms over at St. Ragondin.
The warden told the gendarmerie that they've got him on the hoist and they're ducking him in the bath.

Oh ho! There's a lot of old railway workers over there....old communists....still, I suppose the gendarmerie will get him out sharpish...

Not that sharpish, Victor. They're coming here first to interview you.

Me! What for? I haven't done anything...I've been shooting rooks all morning.

Exactly.

What! Nothing illegal about shooting rooks! Get the young ones just as they leave the nest.

No, agreed, Victor....but it's illegal to shoot at the nests. Endangered species of birds of prey might use them.

How in blazes am I supposed to shoot the rooks and not the nests?

Don't know, Victor.....but it's a two hundred euro fine in any case....

It's a scandal! No wonder people vote Front National!

I shall say this only once! Legs eleven!

Image via Wikipedia

I was living in France when, to the horror of everyone except supporters of the right wing Front National, the PS (so called socialist) candidate Lionel Jospin threw away his party's chances by not campaigning in the first round of the Presidential elections.

I remember the newspaper photographs....a jaunty Jospin in black overcoat and red scarf posing in front of his campaign headquarters, christened 'L'Atelier'...the workshop.
I can remember thinking that it would have been a long time since any of the PS politicians had seen a real workshop.....which might have been one factor accounting for the fact that many voters who were more nearly acquainted with them voted for the FN candidate, Monsieur Le Pen.

In the resulting run off between Chirac (candidate of the not quite so right wing party) and Le Pen, left wing voters felt themselves obliged to vote for the former, indicating their disgust at being so obliged by walking into polling stations holding their noses and, in one case, wearing a deep sea diver's suit and helmet.

Now we are in the build up to the 2012 presidential elections and this year's cantonals (local elections) are receiving a great deal more attention than usual, when they pass with a yawn only slightly smaller than the yawn that greets the elections for the European Parliament.
Why?
Because the Front National are doing rather well, under the leadership of Le Pen II - Marine, daughter of Le Pen I.
Dust off the diving suits, history could be repeating itself.


Not because the PS won't be contesting the first round of the Presidentials.....once the potential candidates have finished mauling and denigrating each other in the process of putting up the last man standing....but because people are just fed up.

All the mainstream parties are tarred with the same brush, their leaders seen as more interested in the spoils than in the welfare of the mass of the French people....

The UMP (ruling right wing party) have not only shot down their leader, Sarkozy, on discovering that he wanted to reform a system that had long reserved the good things of life for the very few to allow a very few more to get their hands on the dibs, but have also managed to shoot themselves in the foot with the same bullet, as having nothing to offer the voters but the discredited system they wish to preserve.
With such talent with a firearm, you feel they must all be dedicated members of la chasse.

One paper...I think Le Point...reports that levels of 'fed upness' are such that people are claiming that they will vote FN because they have been fined for allowing their dog to foul a public footpath!
Given all the wails in blogs about dog turds in Paris I imagine that the Front National stand to win handsomely in every Parisian  arrondissement if that's the case.

So it's not really the moment to alienate a large sector of the rural population....the members of the many and varied associations which adorn the pages of the local rags...the chess clubs, the old car clubs, the photography clubs, the sewing bees, the palets players, the ball trappers, the knitting circles, the local history groups...and  for all I know, pole dancing associations.
Membership of these groups alleviates the tedium of rural life, and 'la vie associative' is always hailed as one of the positive features of French society.....so why would someone want to undermine this institution?

Well, one taxman is trying to do so.
His motives are unknown to me....is he a member of the FN anxious to make the gesture that might just tip the scales in his party's favour or is he just doing his job, obeying orders from Paris to rake in every last euro in order to pay for the the Prime Minister to take a private plane between Paris and his home in the Sarthe to avoid the hurly burly of an hour on the TGV?

What is this taxman doing?

These groups frequently support their activities by organising a bingo...a 'loto'. Some organise these themselves, but in the case currently in court, it is clear that some use the services of a bingo organiser...who has a few rounds for his own profit while he is at it.
The taxman claims that this breaks the law.
But if he wins, it won't only be the organiser that will be coughing up....it will be any organisation holding a bingo session that will be in danger.

This is why.

A bingo..or any game of chance....can only escape tax if it is a session confined to a defined group.... and for social, cultural, educational, scientific or what is described as 'animation social' purposes.
Well, I reckon any rural bingo qualifies under any of those latter headings.
It is the defined circle bit that will cause problems.

A village bingo brings in the group organising it and their families, people who just happen to see the notice outside the mairie and the dedicated bingo addicts who will travel distances to take part.
How can this motley assembly ever be described as a 'defined circle'?

Still, as we all know, there is a great French tradition of resistance to oppression and I am sure that the local groups will be organising to meet the threat.

Undercover bingo.

Let us listen in on the secret planning group of the ball trappers.....probably by using the listening devices the gendarmerie have illegally placed on the premises under the pretence that the ball trappers are potential terrorists, on the lines of the Tarnac Nine.

Jules, have you organised the bingo cards?

Yes, no problem...I've printed them off on my son's computer....

And the notices?

Yes, those too....with instructions to bring a torch, a folding chair and a tray to write on.

Right, Didier....have you organised the distribution?

Yes....the postmen are taking them out with the letters the day before. They know which houses to avoid...
I'm meeting them round behind the church so the postmaster doesn't see anything.

What about the venue? Isn't it going to be a bit noticeable, all these people collecting? Suppose we are denounced?

That's exactly why we chose the field behind where the travelling still used to stand before they made it stay in one place.....there are all those lanes through the vines and at least three roads for access to the area...and we'll have sentries with mobile 'phones.

Yes, but getting all these people away safely will be a problem all the same if the gendarmerie make a raid...look at the job we have in the salle de fetes as it is....

Alfred's organising the parking in the fields behind the vines....and at least we won't have anyone trapped in the lavatory...I keep asking for that door to be fixed but they do nothing....They can find money to replace the secretary's typing chair but when it comes to something vital like a lavatory door.....

O.K. Clement....calm down....

Yes, you're right. Have to keep a clear head...
Look, Jean-Pierre, even if the worst comes to the worst and they catch some of us there won't be a problem.

What do you mean, 'won't be a problem'?

Well, I'll just tell them that we're having a rave party for the notaire's son.....and I should know, I'm his clerk.
You watch them slink away......

Sarkozy's idea of culture

Image by Romain [ apictureourselves.org ] via Flickr

I shall have to go to the public library in the nearest big town, and have telephoned the chief librarian, for this is how things are done in France, to find, reserve and sit upon a copy of a book published by Frederic Mitterand, nephew of the late President Mitterand and currently Minister for Culture and outdated treatment of domestic staff. Under no circumstances will I be buying it, but I want to read, not only the excerpt about which so much fuss is being made, but the whole book. My one fear is that, from the style of the excerpt so far quoted, it will be one of those ghastly inch by inch inspections of the navel indulged in by the well connected nonentities who so often crawl to the heights in our society, and I shall be obliged to return the book earlier than planned, thus mucking up my economy shopping schedule.

Now, in French politics it is a given that anything proposed or done by the 'Front National' has to be either ignored or treated as if one had accidentally trodden in something unmentionable. Given this clue, you will have realised that the FN is a right wing party whose policy is that France is for the French. Speaking as an outsider, I think that is the policy of all French political parties, it's just that the rest don't make it so obvious. Whiffs of anti semitism used to emanate from the party, but as they seem also to be against everyone else outside France and anyone inside France who can't show they were descended from Joan of Arc's granny, I don't get too worried about it. I don't know if anyone remembers seeing the First World War cartoon of 'the morning hate', with the Prussian junker family sitting around the breakfast table in glowering unity, but that seems to sum up the attitude of the FN. Whatever it is, they're agin it. However so widespread are their targets that you can't take it to heart.
Except that one of their targets has.

Frederic Mitterand.

When the film director Roman Polanski was copped in Switzerland on a warrant from the Americans concerning sex with an underage girl, Mitterand blew his top. Polanski, after all, had French citizenship. Polanski was an artist. Polanski had suffered enough. He had lost family in the Nazi death camps. His wife had been murdered by the Manson gang. As Minister for Culture, Mitterand aligned himself firmly with all the artists and celebrities who seem to think that one's talent exempts one from punishment for unlawful acts.
It didn't go down too well in the country at large, and in the supporters of the ruling right wing UMP party in particular. You could see them thinking
'Well, the next time someone comes to court for touching up little girls in the swimming baths, he'll be claiming that he has been punished enough....his grandfather did forced labour in Germany....and he paints pictures that the council, with no sense of artistic discrimination, wash off the walls.'
The UMP is against touching up little girls, let alone what Polanski is supposed to have done to one. I think most people anywhere are against it and want it stopped. As they do the child sex trade in Thailand. France has in fact prosecuted people guilty of participating in this filthy business on their return to France.

Now we return to the book, 'La Mauvaise Vie'. Published in 2005, part of it deals, apparently, with Mitterand's sexual preferences and practices, including his experiences in Thailand, and would appear to make him as guilty as those whom France has already punished for such activities. They are punished, but he is in power.

The leader of the FN, Marine Le Pen, read an excerpt from the book on national television and called for Mitterand's dismissal. I shouldn't think most people even knew that the book existed up until that moment and, casting my mind back, I can't say that I recall reading any reviews, either, but I do tend to cut out whole areas of stuff that doesn't appeal to me when I go through the papers. It might have made a stir in 'precious' circles, but clearly not in the nation at large, although ignorance of the literary reviews is no excuse for appointing such a person a minister.

The first reaction in high circles? Well, as always, where the FN is concerned, ignore it...it will go away. No reporting in the Figaro.
Questioned by journalists, Mitterand shrugged it off

'It's an honour to have your name dragged through the mud by the FN.'

Then, it seems, the Socialist Party - PS - decided to break ranks. Their spokesperson, while uttering the phrases of revulsion obligatory when mentioning the FN, concurred with them that Mitterand should be held to account for his activities. Now, the PS has always claimed some intellectuals in its' ranks, and certainly has plenty of campaigners against exploitation of children, so why is it that Mitterand's proclivities and activities passed them by?

Only the cynical would observe that he was a member of the PS.
Only the cynical would observe that he broke ranks with the PS when he accepted Sarkozy's offer of a job in government.
Only the cynical would observe that the PS suddenly wakes up to all this when it has a chance of a bit of political infighting.


I don't care for the witch hunt which will surely start up. Mitterand's proclivities were known when he was appointed, but he will inevitably be thrown to the wolves.
The responsibility lies with the main political parties, the PS and the UMP. The former should never have allowed him to come to his somewhat limited prominence and the latter should never have allowed him to be appointed to government. Weasel words about the law not having been in effect when he was enjoying himself in Thailand excuse nothing.

The worrying thing is that it has to be left to the 'outcast' party, the FN, to bring the matter to public attention. They have been agitating since he was appointed, and while one cannot exclude political infighting from their motivation either, at least they did something while main stream politics sat on its' hands.
I would be happier with the state of our society and government if the newspapers would turn their attention to just how divorced the ruling caste have become from the people they rule, as evidenced by this man's rise to prominence, rather than turning the spotlight on the man himself, but, as always, uncomfortable questions are never addressed. If it were the child of one of our rulers being abused, no stone would be left unturned to find and punish the perpetrator...but if it is one of their own abusing a child of the caste they rule, then it can be passed off with a shrug. A child is a child, wherever or whoever they are, but our rulers don't appear to understand this.

So why am I ordering the book from the library? Well, to see whether there is any basis at all for the claim that he is describing what took place in his imagination, though from the excerpts I've seen in the press that would be a very long shot indeed, but also rather in the same spirit that, as a child in my aunt's house, I used to read the sheets of 'The News of the World' spread over the floor when it had been washed. Horrified fascination with the unknown. However, I have a feeling that the book will produce the same effect as that of the lurid revelations of activity in turkish bath houses used to do... distaste followed by boredom. I shall probably be echoing the words of that immortal journal's investigators
'I made an excuse and left.....'

Pity Mitterand didn't.