Saturday - April 14, 2007

The French Are Depressed

I just got back in from another afternoon down at the NRA Annual Meeting and Exhibit. The freezing rain and almost-snow kinda put a damper on things but the Americas Center was crowded both days. I picked up a ton of literature from vendors and got a peek at some new firearms for 2007. Lots of other goodies too for the hunter/sportsman.

I didn’t get any pictures for you wankers. Sorry. I didn’t see anyone else taking pictures so I put the camera back in the Jeep at lunch yesterday. Then I got too busy talking to vendors and even spent some time in a few training sessions. The general feeling I got from the crowd was it was mostly middle-class, well-dressed, polite people just interested in something they like. The questions and comments I overheard at the booths were informed and informative.

Which is why I needed some comic relief when I got home. I got it at AP News a few minutes ago in a news article entitled “France Wrestles With Its Own Decline”. Somehow I couldn’t visualize France joining the WWE so I had to read on.

“It’s a feeling of lost glory,” said Perrossier, sheltering under the arch from a spring squall. “The French have lost the aura they once had, and France—barring a few small exceptions—no longer occupies the place it used to internationally.”

Philippe Souleau, a history teacher shepherding a party of schoolchildren, was gloomier still: “France no longer has military strength worth speaking of. It is no longer economically competitive, and all this means is that it has become a second-tier nation internationally and diplomatically. Its voice is no longer heard by all.”

Chirac sparked a brief uptick in French confidence by going toe-to-toe with President Bush against the war in Iraq. “It was a moment when France looked at itself in the mirror and found itself beautiful,” says Emmanuel Riviere of the TNS-Sofres polling agency.

But the war went ahead, anyway, and some believe that the strain in relations with Washington was too great.

“In France, there is a particular strain of melancholy,” political philosopher Chantal Delsol said in an interview. “The British tell themselves, ‘We are no longer a great power, so we will live as a middling one.’ But the French don’t say that. They say, ‘We are intrinsically a great power, so why isn’t it working in reality?’ For a while we try to shut our eyes, but that doesn’t work for long. When reality truly dawns, then the first phase is extreme sadness, and that is the phase we are in now.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/14/2007 at 05:35 PM   
Filed Under: • EUro-peons •  
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