April 08, 2007
La Marseillaise - 2007 presidential election remix
We should laugh now, during the presidential campaign, for the results promise not to be funny at all.
Whichever way you take it, France will end up with a socialist president (nothing new here, I'm tempted to add). The only so-called classical liberal candidate (who had no chance at all in France, calling himself and his party classically liberal) rallied "extreme-centrist", wannabe-destroyer of money forces, François Bayrou.
One of the themes of this year's election has been France's national anthem, La Marseillaise.
There was a time when singing La Marseillaise was deemed outright fascist and automatically assimilated you to the French so-called far-right, the Front National.
But Socialist Party's candidate, France's new mom, Ségolène Royal, trying to lure some more voters, decided we had to be proud of our national anthem and we had to have a French flag (not just the white one, the one that is bleu blanc rouge too) in our house. So she decided to sing (or rather have her militants sing) La Marseillaise.
(Here you can actually see her sing - beware your ears though, not all French sing well)
So, other candidates desperate for votes decided that maybe, it wasn't such a bad idea to sing La Marseillaise too. With a twist. Here comes Communist Party's candidate Marie-George Buffet. Be sure to listen until after they finished "singing" (listening to?) La Marseillaise.
And there are those who absolutely refuse to sing this "warmongering", "bloody" anthem (not my words): the trotskyists and other stalinists. Besancenot, Laguiller, Bové, and so on, and so forth (Twelve candidates, at least 5 of them are from the far left). They stick to The Internationale. (Again, sensitive ears may be hurt by those "singing")
I would like to insist: all videos above are of official candidates for the French 2007 presidential elections.
May I offer an alter-Marseillaise alternative that, I'm sure, will suit France best?
Click to start:
According to Wikipedia:
The Internationale (L'Internationale in French) is the most famous socialist (also anarchist, communist and social democratic) song and one of the most widely recognized songs in the world. The original French words were written in 1870 by Eugène Pottier (1816–1887, later a member of the Paris Commune) and were originally intended to be sung to the tune of La Marseillaise.
This "jewel" was recorded on French radio, left as an anonymous message on an answering machine of one of the programs of the radio, back in 1995. The tape used to belong to my very Polish and anti-communist great uncle. I doubt he'd laugh at what France is becoming. He didn't left communist Poland for a communist France.
And for those who still aren't satisfied, well, there still is this version, for a near future, maybe...
We should laugh while we still can.
About to be swallowed up into Franistan, the citizens suddenly recall they are French? Well, some do, the rest still think of themselves as The Oppressed Workers of the World (hence The International). France is a goner.
Posted by: Valerie, Texas at April 11, 2007 04:09 PM
