Comment du Jour

Memorial Day Weekend 2012

It's the official start of Summer....but first let's remember.

Memorial Day dates to 1868 and the aftermath of America's horrible Civil War between the Union and the Confederacy. Once Known as Decoration Day, the commemoration saw the placing of flowers on the graves of the fallen soldiers from North and South.

Today Memorial Day honors the fallen in all the wars and conflicts we have fought in from the two World Wars,  Korea, Vietnam and more recently Iraq and Afghanistan.

The monument pictured here, the Soldiers and Sailors Monument on New York's Riverside Drive offers a special honor to those who served and fell.  Built and innagurated on Memorial Day 1902, the collonade Beaux Arts monument is a beautiful but often overlooked site on the Upper West Side overlooking the Hudson River. 

And since we are speaking about sailors and the U.S. Navy, it's Fleet Week in New York, the annual military review of the U.S. and various allied navies.  U.S. ,
British, Canadian, and Japanese surface ships are participating in the event as are the famed Tall Ships--the training vessel Sail Ships from a number of navies including France and Spain.

Honor Memorial Day and Remember the Fallen.

Comment du Jour

Rain on President Hollande’s Paris Parade


Francois Hollande has been inaugurated the new French President amid the near- monarchial splendor of the French Republic. Yet after leaving the stately Elysee Palace, the new Socialist president was wisked down the majestic Champs d' Elyses in a rather unassuming Citroen hybrid convertible surrounded by the Garde Republicane Horse Cavalry.

But it rained on his parade!

Shortly thereafter the new president prepared to fly to Berlin to discuss Eurozone economic policies and have his first meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Hollande’s official aircraft was hit by lightning and had to return to base. The new president pressed on to Berlin in a new plane. After an elaborate welcome, Hollande had a cordial meeting with Merkel, but under rainy skies.

On other matters, some readers have been asking while the national election tally favored Hollande with a 52% vote to 48% for Nicolas Sarkozy, how did the French living abroad vote?

Here in New York area, there were a number of polling places for the citizens of the Republic; not just at the Consulate in Manhattan but in Brooklyn and elsewhere. There are 92,000 French citizens in the USA eligible to cast their ballot; 36% did so with 61 percent of the electorate favoring the incumbent Sarkozy and 39 percent going to Hollande.


In Canada among 65,000 eligible to vote, forty percent did so with 56% going to the Socialist candidate and 44% to Sarkozy.

In Brazil among the 15,000 eligible to vote, 31% did so with 53% going to Sarkozy and 47% to Hollande.

Comment du Jour

French Kiss--Adieu Sarkozy


Tone, tenor, and style separate Nicolas Sarkozy from Francois Hollande as much as clear political ideology divided the two contenders for the French presidency. But sentiments like voter discontent, backlash and anti-austerity describe the mood French voters were in when they elected the Socialist candidate.

Francois Hollande’s victory with 52% of the vote compared to 48% for the incumbent, returns the Socialists to the Elysee Palace (White House) for the first time in seventeen years. Sarkozy becomes the latest leader voted out of office resulting from collateral damage from the economic recession.

But the euphoria of Hollande’s victory may soon fade as reality intervenes; first from the yet undecided results of the National Assembly elections in June, and equally from the undertow of recession.

Sarkozy became the energizer bunny of French politics, a peripatetic and dynamic leader who was blindsided by the global economic recession and confronted by the rumbling crisis for the Euro currency. Despite these constraints, Sarkozy enacted some positive economic reforms as well as reorientation of foreign policy.

The president elect, Hollande known as Mr., Normal is a clam, cautious, and near-passionless, speaker who won in the second round of the elections by cobbling together a coalition of his Socialists, and the hard left including the communists. Hollande emerged from elitist schools and shall strive to be a tireless technocrat. His victory was based less on reciting the socialist dogma than being of the anti-Sarko candidate, the anti-bling-bling, anti-austerity man.

Though moderate and less polarizing by standards of the Socialist party, Hollande nonetheless remains in debt to the hard left which got him elected. Hollande’s victory represents less of a lurch to the left as much as the pendulum swing of politics where the Socialists have not held the presidency since 1995.

Markets rumbled, but the danger comes not from fear of nationalizations but of mismanaging and misjudging a deep seated European economic malaise and making it worse through the tempting elixir of massive government spending.

“Francois Hollande to be tested by Power,” argues the headline of the business daily Les Echos. The journal adds that the new president faces major economic challenges including growth, competitiveness, debt unemployment and a new European growth pact.

So what kind of substantial Foreign Policy changes can we expect from Monsieur Hollande?

Nicolas Sarkozy’s instinctive pro-Americanism will be replaced with the more traditional French skepticism. Sarkozy’s public political passion for the USA has stood out as atypical for either the conservative Gaullists or the Left. It has engendered resentment among much of the Left and never sat too well with sectors on the right. .

On Israel, Sarkozy oversaw a profound shift in French policy towards a more balanced and accommodating view of Israel, a major shift from traditional policy. Don’t expect the Hollande government to be as fair and balanced .

In Afghanistan, Sarkozy sent a sizable French military contingent to help with NATO mission. Francois Hollande has stated he will press for an early pullout from Afghanistan.

Equally Sarkozy fully reintegrated the French military back into the Atlantic Alliance.

More importantly, France may go mushy on the issue of Islamic Iran’s nuclear proliferation. Sarkozy’s France, along with Britain and Germany have taken a very tough tact towards Tehran. Will Hollande’s government stay on the same diplomatic page, or offer more creative “third ways” to deal with the aspiring Atomic Ayatollahs in Islamic Iran? Moreover, shall France’s close cooperation with the USA and Britain in the UN Security Council, now become more equivocal?

Economically the new government in Paris will strive for continued close ties with Berlin. Yet close Franco/German ties between politically like-minded leaders Sarkozy and Merkel could now be strained. Hollande has pledged to renegotiate the Europe’s “fiscal compact” painstakingly worked out between Sarkozy and Merkel to control deficits, debt, and profligate spending.


Additionally to the backdrop of the continuing political chaos in Greece, the unexpected collapse of a conservative and fiscally responsible government in the Netherlands, there are few countries expect for Austria and Finland who adhere to Germany’s austerity budget guidelines. France under Hollande may not be one of them.

Financial tremors will likely again rock the Euro currency later this year. 

Left-wing electoral rumblings in Germany itself illustrate deep political and financial fault lines even in Europe’s strongest economy. Throughout Europe the mood is for loosening the purse strings. The bets are down, les jeux sont faits. Only time will reveal the outcome.

Comment du Jour

Feathers Fly in French Presidential Debate

With the second round of the Presidential election just days away, the canditates faced off in one crucial debate.  President Nicolas Sarkozy came out rhetorically swinging and seizing the high ground of most arguments.   Socialist opposition canditate Francois Hollande held firm in pressing home arguments on unemployment, debt, and the issues of globalization. 

While there was no decisive knockout punch, Sarkozy appeared to be the energizer bunny during the three hour slug fest.  Contrary to more rigidly structured American debates, the French faceoff allowed both arguments and and rhetoric to be tossed back passionately to and fro as in a game of tennis.  

National elections are being held Sunday.