As my friend Marc Cogan commented in the previous post, the recent general strike had as its unofficial slogan Sarkozy’s comment, although this time directed back at him, “Casse-toi, pauv’ con” – “Bugger off, you sorry asshole.” Around two-thirds of the marchers were wearing this slogan in some form, and Marc managed to get a photo of one of them, wearing it stuck to her hair.

Statistics I heard on Radio France this week may help to put this in some context: over two million (7.8% of the population) are now unemployed in France, with youth being the hardest-hit demographic. This is much higher than in Australia, where we have over half a million, or 4.8%, unemployed.

(by guest blogger Marc Cogan)

Last Thursday’s general strike and supporting march were big successes, both from an organizational perspective, and as spectacle. Even the weather had already chosen sides, as the newspaper Libération, said, and it was sunny and warm throughout France. The weather swelled the crowds and buoyed their spirits.

The parade was much longer than at the equivalent march in support of the January strike. The organizers were a little cannier, too. There’d be a lull in the marchers, and you’d think, “Ah, that must be the end of it.” But no, all of a sudden new marchers would appear, in large numbers and dense ranks. Parade marshalls were stopping marching groups and holding them while others turned up, concentrating their numbers, and giving a new impetus to the line.

There were groups of every sort, and for every interest and taste, from the always present Lycée Darius Milhaud, to the Cinémathèque nationale, which may not have had the best sign, simply a hand-scrawled ‘Cinemateque francaise en grève!’, but had its own marching band.

There were marchers from Radio France International, protesting cutbacks and ministerial incomprehension of their mission of teaching languages, and especially of spreading France throughout the world.

And then there was a most unlikely labor unit, the public statisticians. Energy levels were high, and I was struck by how much these young people reminded me of the revolutionaries in Delacroix’ Liberty Leading the People as young marchers swept through the Place de la Bastille passing in front of the July Column commemorating that very revolution. Over it all, the Genie of Liberty seemed a benign inspiration, accompanied by this cheerfully low-tech balloon leaflet distribution system.

But behind the public display, there was an edge to this manifestation that had been missing from the January strike and demonstration. The world economy has worsened, and France is coming to recognize that as budget cuts hit home. The unofficial slogan of the January march—worn as a sticker by a good two-thirds of the marchers—was the punning and almost hippy-ish “Rêve générale.” At Thursday the 19th’s march the all-but-official slogan (it appeared on full-size posters as well as on stickers worn by the marchers) had a new, bitter edge. It was Sarkozy’s comment from last year’s agricultural salon to the man who said, when Sarko was working the crowd and extended his hand to be shaken, “Don’t touch me.” Sarko replied, without any hesitation: “Casse-toi, pauv’ con”—“Bugger off, you sorry asshole.”

I was interested to read in Liberation that Segolene Royal has won the Socialist Party’s endorsement of her policies. In the voting, Royal received 29%, with Aubry and Delanoe following with 25% each, and Hamon with 19%. Bertrand Delanoe, who has the support of Royal’s ex-partner Francois Hollande, is also mayor of Paris.

I’ve always liked Royal, and thought she conducted a reasonable campaign back in 2007. Stylish and assertive, she even wears heels when visiting remote farms! A good debater, she was a match for Sarkozy in their final debate, perhaps too much so, since as Adam Gopnik remarked in his article, ‘this allowed Sarkozy to look wistfully harried and play the one part that he’d never had the chance to play before–a sympathetic, erring, middle-class French husband being blasted by a furious wife.’

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I don’t think I know anyone who is not elated about Obama’s win. A friend and I watched the election results on his i-phone during an all-day meeting in Melbourne today and held our breath until the votes moved beyond the point of no return.

Obama should, however, watch out for anyone phoning with a French accent. The Masked Avengers like calling the newly-elected (as well as the too-idiotic-to-ever-be-elected) and Chirac and Sarkozy have both been pranked. See the clip below, in which Sarkozy takes a call from the ‘Canadian President’…

‘SARAH PALIN piégée par un faux SARKOZY’ screamed Le Monde’s headline. But I’d already listened to the ‘interview’ myself, and read the story online, thanks to the Melbourne Age newspaper. It can also be found on YouTube.

Devised by Canadian comedy duo Les Justiciers Masques (the Masked Avengers), the fake Sarkozy was played by MARC-ANTOINE AUDETTE, with the ‘interview’ aired on a Quebec radio station.

Trust me, SARAH PALIN was completely taken in. How she could be so gullible is beyond belief, especially given the fake SARKOZY’S fluency in English, including his use of idiom (describing his wife as ‘so hot in bed’), and several clues, such as his ‘special adviser to the United States—JOHNNY HALLYDAY’.

When PALIN says at the end ‘Oh, have we been pranked’, there should have been no question mark after ‘pranked’ as inserted in the story in The Age. From my listening, her oral inflection was unmistakably on the ‘have we’, meaning ‘Oh dear, we have really been taken in’.

’Meanwhile, according to the report in The Age, AUDETTE is saying he hopes he won’t be given ‘a one-way ticket to Guantanamo Bay’.