Comments on: Elections in France: the results

By: Boosting Your Blog Traffic, pt. 2: A Little Help From France « !anaj ,em s’taht

Sun, 13 May 2007 14:38:34 +0000

[...] I published a little post about the results of the first round of the elections in France, titled Elections in France: the results. It was nothing special, and I do admit that my resolution of coming up with one post per day is [...]

By: anaj

anaj — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 05:38:35 +0000

In Berlin, from the 9th until the 14th of June, i.e. two days in Berlin and then four days in Rheinsberg, Brandenburg (the province surrounding Berlin, in the heartland of the old Prussia)
http://anaj.wordpress.com/2007/04/16/im-going-to-the-women-authors-forum/

By: skunkcabbage

skunkcabbage — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 23:10:59 +0000

No! Wow, congratulations!!! That’s excellent!! When is the workshop?

By: anaj

anaj — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 20:58:40 +0000

Yep – and I should proofread before I submit:-) Hey, did you read that I won in this writing competition? (am so proud that I still need to tell everyone) – not a prize winner, but at least in the selection (and the workshop)

By: skunkcabbage

skunkcabbage — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 20:39:20 +0000

Ugggghhhh. That’s really awful. I’m sorry to hear how perilous you mom’s boyfriend’s employment is. And if there were any justice, the 20 years of experience your brother has absolutely would get him some recognition and pay. I think I should probably stop, here, too–before the full-on rant kicks in.

By: anaj

anaj — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 15:56:29 +0000

One day you will be able to afford a family, being a highly qualified academic. It’s the people who don’t have any higher qualification (like my brother who has the lowest level of a secondary school qualification and almost 20 years of experience as a cleaner, but that’s getting him little recognition) who I am really worried about. Things will never get better for them – in the past, people used to earn more the older they got. These days, before this can even happen, people are fired and rehired for worse conditions over and over again. My brother has been working cleaning the same building complex for six years, and still they do not hire him permanently, but hire him through a cleaning staff agency who takes their share and gives pay rises (if they ever do) of 17 cents per hour. My mom’s boyfriend has been working for a temp agency for more than three years now – and even they fire him and get him rehired through their sister company, which fires him again and has him rehired by the one that fired him first … this is insane. They didn’t even bother to tell him the last time this happened (two weeks ago) that they would fire him, let alone rehire him…. for two days, he thought ‘that was it’.. on top of that, the work they give him is incredible – he really once had to dig a hole, 1,5 metres deep, with someone from the place where he worked looking on… they send him on 9pm to 6am shifts, have him drive 150 kilometres to work and back… and maybe we need to be even more afraid because he IS highly qualified… he studied forestry and later, after they had merged his forest district with another one and sacked him, he obtained a diploma as technical writer/technical editor… I should stop, because it’s only making me angry…

By: skunkcabbage

skunkcabbage — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 13:44:59 +0000

Narkozy, ha!, that’s good. Yeah, the Karcher bit is really shocking. Here the politicians just do it, they don’t talk about it for the most part.

I can’t think too much about Europe going the way of the US. It’s completely depressing. I’m sympathetic to your brother. I can’t really afford a family, either. Maybe someday. I guess the French equivalent of yuppies (bou bou’s a commentator here called them) are voting for Narkozy? It’s really terrible here. I’d like to give them a particular tour of the US before they vote for neo-liberal swine.

By: anaj

anaj — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 16:49:47 +0000

I’m already a bit disenchanted about it. I’m not really happy about the fact that upsetting Narkozy (ha ha!) is the only thing hat Royal might be able to bring about. Still unbelievable how someone how demands to ‘Kärcher’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A4rcher) a certain neighborhood can even be admitted to a presidential election.

In the long run, the same thing as in the US is going to happen everywhere in Europe – situation in Germany is not much better. Inspite of inflation, the wages of workers have not increased for five years (the minute raises they got are all eaten up by inflation), and the less qualified you are, the less you’ll get. My brother makes less than 900 Euros after taxes (I’m afraid it’s even less than 800, but don’t know for sure) and has a full-time job – he can be glad that he doesn’t have a family to support, you might want to say!

By: skunkcabbage

skunkcabbage — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 14:23:42 +0000

I’m still hopeful that Royal may upset Sarkozy. Whatever else is true, at least Le Pen is in the dust. Not that Sarkozy is an enormous improvement. I’ll just have to keep my fingers crossed.

The New York Times today says that:
“The election finds the country in a gloomy mood. There is little confidence that the next president will succeed in reversing the economic decline of the country, whose gross domestic product per person in the past quarter-century has fallen to seventeenth place in the world, from seventh place.

The country suffers from the fastest-growing public debt in Europe, high unemployment, entrenched protectionism, a bloated public sector and concerns about both immigration and the failure to integrate ethnic Arab and African populations.”

Gotta love the right wing slant here. A “bloated” public sector and “entrenched” protectionism? France still attempts to maintain secure employment for its workers, in other words. If France would privatize and gut its bloated public sector, French workers might enjoy the privilege of greater exploitation and unemployment, like their brothers and sisters in the US. True this might raise the GDP, but nevermind the human cost. It’s the economy that the new French president is to care for.

I will now sing the Internationale to the tune of the La Marseillaise.
Arise ye prisoners of starvation!