Sarkozy makes Holocaust personal to French students

[Ophelia]

For a few days or weeks a wind of panic had been blowing at the Elysee Palace: President Sarkozy was down in opinion polls, and getting lower by the day. For about a week, he had even been markedly lower than his own Prime Minister.

This was not to be borne: in Sarkozy Land it is not enough to know that the people will have to put up with you as president for another 4 years, come what may. You have to be adored, you need to dazzle your countrymen with a new fairy tale, or your latest bright idea.

Yesterday, on February 15th, Sarko ignored his advisers one more time and came up with one bright idea too many.


I voted for his opponent in the last presidential elections ("supported" would be too strong a word) but I wasn't worried about him. Many people said he was dangerous, so I followed the campaign more closely than I usually do, and could find nothing dangerous.

Once he was elected, I watched the circus with everybody else.

I didn't care about his showing off his wealth and his millionaire friends, or his having his first holiday in the States, complete with barbecue with George W, when the Republic already foots the bill for two presidential holiday residences. I didn't care about the Cecilia- Carla Bruni saga.

I did care when one of the first things he did was to invite the press to take photos of him going to church on Sunday, and we were invited to witness what a good Catholic he is.
Our secular history started with the likes of Voltaire; in France, you pray at home, at church or at the mosque or the synagogue, and you don't call the press to witness your private affairs.
We never knew whether his predecessors had a religion, and nobody thought to ask.

Recently, Sarkozy started attacking what is referred to as the " 1905 Law" which establishes the principle of complete separation between church and state.

About yesterday's bright idea, the last straw as far as I'm concerned, there is an excellent article in the New York Times written by Elaine Sciolino. Everything's spot on. (Notice the photo of Sarko in a classroom, which also shows his new helpers in the opinion poll war.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/16/world ... ce.html?hp


The news came at a dinner he had later with representatives of the Jewish Community (naturally, his hosts had not been consulted about anything).

I'll say first that the Shoah is already studied twice in France in the history curriculum: once in junior high school, and once in the twelfth grade. There has never been any suggestion from anybody that this was not being done as it should.

The president announced that this would now be introduced in class to 10 year olds, and his personal touch is that, as 11,000 French children died in concentration camps during World War II, each child in primary school would be given a personal link to one of those children, learn his date of birth and death, and his/her personal history.

Simone Veil, a former Cabinet Minister , a member of the UMP (Sarkozy's party) who supported him in his campaign, and who survived the concentration camps, told journalists that this was " unimaginable, untenable and unfair".

What possible reason could we have to burden a ten-year old with such knowledge? The only consequences this can have on a child is make him feel guilty or make him afraid such things will also happen to him.

http://www.ejpress.org/article/news/france/24300


Of course we need to learn what happened, it's part of the history of mankind, we bear part of the collective guilt as Europeans, as well as French people-- antisemitism was rampant in France many years before the nazi Occupation, and the number of denunciations of Jewish people by the French was staggering.
As an adult I find the burden heavy to bear.


I first heard about concentration camps as a junior high school student, at the age of fourteen when our history teacher showed us a documentary film by Alain Renais, Nuit et Brouillard, ( Night and Fog) , made in 1956.

(At first the Government had censored some pictures which showed involvement of the French police in the hunt for Jewish people).

This is several decades later and I remember the exact circumstances of the lesson and how I felt on watching the film.

Surely no cause can be helped by making a ten year-old face such reality, and especially by creating a link to one particular child.

[jales4]

Hi Ophelia,

I know next to nothing about French politics. Do I understand you correctly that France has both a President and a Prime Minister?

If so, are they both elected? Generally, what are the roles of each?

I agree with you on his holocaust idea - I can see no benefits and some harms from it. Does he have children? Does he have any idea about the minds of 10 year-olds?

Jan.

[Ophelia]

Yes, we have both, but people have been arguing that in the case of Sarkozy the PM is not really necessary, as the president does everything. They're from the same party, the UMP (right wing, but in terms of US politics--I don't know about Canada-- they're probably to the left of Hilary Clinton on most issues).
So at the moment the PM does all the unglamorous work, and Sarko ... cumulates karma every day on TV.

There isn't a clear-cut answer to who is boss. This is the 1958 Constitution, which was created by general de Gaulle.
When the majority in Parliament, the PM and the president all belong to the same party (de Gaulle had not imagined any other scenario), the president is boss.

Sometimes we have elected a Socialist president and a right-wing majority in the House (or the other way round).
In that case, the president has to take the PM chosen by the House; the PM is boss, but the president reigns over foreign affairs; it's called "cohabitation".