/DR

In style and probably in substance, France’s incoming president could not be more different than the country’s outgoing leader.

François Hollande’s political rise to the country’s top post has been slow and steady, with the French media portraying him as “Monsieur Normal” – an easygoing, everyday man. Contrast that with the glamour-struck Nicolas Sarkozy, who earned the nickname “hyper-president” during his five years in office.

If Hollande’s victory has a fabled quality, it surely mirrors Aesop’s “The Hare and The Tortoise”, with the steady, shelled creature finally outpacing the hyperactive hare.

International audiences are probably more familiar with his former partner, Ségolène Royal, who unsuccessfully ran against Sarkozy in the 2007 presidential poll. For those who knew him during the 2012 campaign trail – and that includes his comrades on the left – Hollande was the butt of snide, if good-natured, monikers, including “Flanby” (a wobbly custard) and “capitaine du pedalo,’ or the captain of a pedal boat.

But in the course of his bid for presidency, Hollande emerged as a statesman-like figure, a change that included an image makeover, complete with a 10 kilo weight loss and designer glasses.

In substance, the transformation was apparent during the only televised debate of the 2012 presidential campaign, when the 57-year-old Socialist politician exuded confidence as he sat back and took on a pugnacious, finger-jabbing Sarkozy.

Catholic upbringing, education in prestigious institutions

HOLLANDE: A LIFE IN PICTURES

Hollande’s easy-going nature, however, belies a determination he maintained over a 30-year political career that has seen him serve as Socialist Party boss, a small town mayor and leader of an administrative region in central France.

Born into a middle class family in the northern French city of Rouen, Hollande’s mother, Nicole, was a social worker and his father, Georges, a medical doctor. An authoritative father, Georges was once a far-right candidate in a local election. Hollande was much closer to his mother, a former Socialist militant. While the family name “Hollande” is believed to come from Calvinist ancestors who escaped the Netherlands, Hollande was brought up as a Catholic.

Unlike Sarkzoy, Hollande’s educational background mirrors that of France’s political elites. After graduating from one of the country’s foremost business schools, Hollande won admission to France’s prestigious Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris. Known by its acronym, ENA, the Paris-based school has traditionally supplied France’s political elites.

It was during his time at ENA that Hollande met Ségolène Royal, who would be his partner for the next 30 years. The couple had four children together.

France’s high-flying power couple

Hollande started his political career as a student volunteer for François Mitterrand’s unsuccessful 1974 presidential bid. By the time Mitterrand was elected to the Elysée presidential palace in 1981, Hollande had become a special adviser to the newly-elected Socialist president, before serving as a staffer for the government’s spokesman.

His political stints included representative of the central Corrèze region and mayor of the town of Tulle. Meanwhile, his partner, Royal, went on to serve as Environment Minister in 1992, as the duo turned into the epitome of the high-flying power couple.

While attention was focused on Royal as she entered the national political stage, Hollande chose to climb the Socialist party ranks. In 1997 he became party leader, a position he retained following Lionel Jospin’s 2002 unsuccessful bid for the presidency.

Those were difficult days for the party and Hollande was seen as a quiet, dependable figure taking over the party reins – a role he played during Royal’s 2007 bid for the presidency.

But his partner’s presidential campaign put a noticeable strain on the relationship, and shortly after Royal’s defeat to Sarkozy the couple announced their separation.

Hollande’s girlfriend, Valerie Trierweiler, a political journalist, is widely seen as an asset to the presidential ticket.

But Hollande himself was not viewed as a Socialist presidential candidate until front-runner Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former IMF chief and Socialist frontrunner, was arrested in New York in May 2011 on sexual assault charges, effectively ending Strauss-Kahn’s presidential hopes.

In October 2011, Hollande won the French Socialist primary, becoming the party’s candidate to run against Sarkzoy. The rest, as they say, is history.

This article was taken from: http://www.france24.com/en/20120507-hollande-victory-tortoise-who-beat-hare-sarkozy-french-presidential-election

/DR

PARIS (Reuters) – Nicolas Sarkozy was headed for an election defeat on Sunday that could make him the 11th European leader to be swept from office by the economic crisis and crown Francois Hollande as France’s first Socialist president in 17 years.

Buoyed by a tide of anger over Sarkozy’s inability to rein in rampant unemployment during his five-year term, Hollande was between four and eight points ahead in final opinion polls for a vote that could mean a shift in direction for Europe.

Despite shaving a couple of points off Hollande’s lead in the last days of a frenetic campaign, the conservative’s own aides privately admitted it would require a miracle for him to turn the odds in his favour and clinch a second term.

« He’s like a runner – he won’t consider it’s over until the very end, but I’d say he has one chance in six, » a member of Sarkozy’s inner circle told Reuters on condition of anonymity shortly before campaigning drew to a halt on Friday.

« Uncertainty about the outcome of the vote has fallen to an extremely low level, » said BNP Paribas economist Dominique Barbet.

Hollande, a mild-mannered and popular career politician, has held a steady lead for weeks after outlining a comprehensive programme in January based on raising taxes, especially on high earners, to finance spending and keep the public deficit capped.

As much as his own programme, he is benefiting from a tide of anti-Sarkozy sentiment due in part to the incumbent’s showy and occasionally arrogant personal style and in part to anger over the same economic gloom that has felled leaders from Britain to Portugal.

The vote coincides with a Greek election where voters are also expected to punish major parties for economic misery.

« Clearly the voting public is getting fed up with failed policies, » Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman told Reuters TV in New York.

Sarkozy, sometimes called the hare in the race and his rival the tortoise, launched his campaign late and unveiled proposals one by one in high-energy speeches that swerved hard to the right as he sought to win back low-income voters polls show have ditched him for either the radical left or extreme right.

His aggressive rallies and pledges to rein in immigrant numbers, hold policy referendums, crack down on tax exiles and make the unemployed retrain as a condition of getting benefits did not reduce Hollande’s lead. He surprised many by failing to land a knockout punch on his rival in a televised debate.

In two further blows in the last days of the race, both far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who came third in an April first-round vote with 17.9 percent, and centrist Francois Bayrou, who came fifth with 9.1 percent, refused to endorse Sarkozy.

While Sarkozy spent Saturday in the privacy of his home in Paris with former supermodel wife Carla Bruni, Hollande and his journalist partner Valerie Trierweiler were out shaking hands with supporters, signing autographs and sampling cheese and strawberries in rural France.

ECONOMIC CREDENTIALS

Polling stations will be open from 8 a.m. (0600 GMT) on Sunday to 6 p.m. (1600 GMT), and two hours later in big cities.

Reliable projections of the result based on a partial vote count will be published as soon as the last polling stations close. Media that publish exit polls or partial results before that risking fines and legal action.

The election comes at a crucial time for the convalescent euro zone, as France, Europe’s No. 2 economy, is a vital partner for Berlin in safeguarding the single currency bloc’s future.

If Hollande is elected, joining a small minority of left-wing governments in Europe, he wants to challenge Berlin’s focus on austerity policies with a demand for pro-growth elements to be tacked on to the euro zone’s budget responsibility pact.

The Socialist plans to visit centre-right Chancellor Angela Merkel within days of the election to discuss his ideas.

German relations aside, France is grappling with feeble growth and 10 percent unemployment, a gaping trade deficit and over-high state spending that is straining public finances and was a factor in Standard & Poor’s cutting of its triple-A credit rating.

While financial markets are coming around to Hollande’s pro-growth ideas, given growing support for them elsewhere in Europe, Hollande would need to reassure them quickly about his economic plans as fears resurface over the euro zone’s debt woes.

While economists want him to trim over-optimistic official growth forecasts and compensate for that with spending cuts, political analysts fear that would be difficult with no mandate and with left-wing voters hoping instead that he will raise the minimum wage and reverse a recent sales-tax hike.

French 10-year bond yields fell to 2.87 percent on Friday, a level not seen since early October, as initial jitters over a Hollande victory abated.

Yet French debt would remain vulnerable to selling pressure if he wins, as markets and credit rating agencies wait to be convinced of his fiscal credentials.

Little known outside France, Hollande would also have his diplomatic skills put to the test fast if he wins, with a Chicago NATO summit looming in late May and a Group of 20 summit in Mexico in late June.

(Reporting By Catherine Bremer; editing by Andrew Roche)

This article was taken from: http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/news/international/Sarkozy_headed_for_election_defeat.html?cid=32632732

/DR

I belong to this generation of people born just a couple of years before the arrival of the internet. “Is the internet really dangerous?” is the question I am asking myself. To find an answer I decided to do a research on the subject. Here is what I discovered.

The international Network, began as the ARPANET in 1969, during the cold war and was developed by the US department of defense. Nowadays, the internet covers the globe and it is used by every one of us (doctors, lawyers, students …). But, most of us only see the bad side of this fantastic device. Indeed, the internet is very much criticized by parents (for example) who are very anxious because their children are very exposed to the internet. Also, I found that it tends to make people more antisocial and very addicted.

But here is what I think. The problem doesn’t come from the internet but rather from the rise of individualism. As a student from University located in Paris, I’m very often facing the bad temper/behaviour of people in the French underground for example. No one ever talks to anyone. No, it’s not a myth, people in big cities aren’t very nice! On the contrary, internet allows us to meet people that we would never meet otherwise, or let’s say it; it also allows us to keep in touch with friends who now live far away from us. A study has shown that nowadays most dating start either at the work or on the web. Of course we must differentiate the latter form of dating from that of real life. But globally, internet helps us to be more open towards others.

I totally disagree with the statement that the internet is more dangerous than useful. I think that the web has more advantages than drawbacks. Okay, there are lots of problems with the web and we have to be very careful but, isn’t it like that everywhere? There are dangers all around us. And as to the children, I think their parents should use parental control device and also put a password in the family computers. The web provides the opportunity to find any information or to buy anything in no time and regardless the distance.

We all spend about 10 hours a week on line, which is not surprising since we can do everything using the internet. In France, according to an article that was published in Le Point ( March, 9, 2012), the internet could help the creation of 450 000 jobs by 2015 which represents 129 billion euros. Much more than a hobby, the internet has become a necessity.

Laura Perez is currently studying Law and Politics at Villetaneuse University in Paris

/DR

Multiculturalism: « the positive side of Mali »

Paris 7^th of April, it is four o’clock in the morning and I am just about to go to bed when I receive a message on my IPhone4: “The state of Azawad officially declares its independence from Mali (France24.com)”. Dream or reality? That is the question. I do not know what to answer yet. The long day I had with all its “ponder” and “wonder” is now blurring my mind. Is it that during my life time the country of my ancestors is to be split into two different countries?

On very few occasions, not to say only one, did I take the opportunity to visit my fathers’ land; not that I was not interested in it, but rather the circumstances of life, most often wanted it otherwise. 1993, my first and only trip to Mali, enables me to complete the personal research on my backgrounds started some 5 years ago through the reading of books of African literature. The five successive Empires: the empire of Ghana, the one of Mali and Songhai, the Bambara kingdom of Segou, or again the Pulah Empire of Macina spoke for their time, while my visit on that occasion gave me a true understanding of contemporary Mali.

Different peoples across time had had their moment of glory in the West African country, bringing on each occasion part of their culture while integrating those of others who before them had also known glory and supremacy. The Mali I was discovering in 1993, two years after the military coup against Moussa TRAORE and few weeks after the establishment of the country’s first democracy, partly resulted from this cultural mixture. Multiculturalism was without doubt the key word to describe the country at the time. In the early 18^th century, René Caillé in his work “Voyage to Timbuktu” already illustrated the exceptional and harmonious cohabitation between the different peoples, cultures and languages in that part of the world. What had then happened for my IPhone to broadcast such news in that first week of April 2012?

At this stage I find it important to underline that the kingdom of Mali was first created in the XI century as a response to the devastating slavery trade that ravaged the region at the time. Mansa Soundjiata Keita of the Mandingo ethnic group placed himself on the throne after declaring the Mande Charter also known as “Kurukan Fuga”. He converted to Islam and ordered the replacement of slave trade by that of gold as the basis for the economic system. It is worth noting that most of the new Muslim populations, especially those from the Tuareg ethnic group, continued to rely on the former arrangement for their livelihoods. This continued to be true even after Kangou Musa’s passage to Mecca, where his arrival with massive amounts of gold provoked the collapse of the market for many years, but nevertheless gave the Arab world another image of the black man, other than that of a mere slave.

Corruption: « the negative side of Malian »

However, in terms of organization, today’s Mali has not much to do with that of those days. Colonization and westernization has completely altered Malian realities and principles. The laws and rules of the ancestors have progressively been replaced by that of the imperialists and capitalists. To some extent the country that was first created by Soundiata Keita around 1235, often appears today as being at the forefront in the defense of the European values for the only interest of the Europeans; with the only difference yet, that corruption in Mali has become more obvious than anywhere else on earth. The lack of modern education associated with the loss of the old African traditions and values is without doubt what is plunging many African countries such as Mali in complete chaos today.

A nap or a rather a quick sleep, and three hours later I am ready to start a new day again.  Later in the morning, in front of a coffee mug, I spend a couple of hours investigating and trying to collect information on what is currently happening in the country. My sources of information and contacts are unanimous; the last government was so corrupt that the money that should have been invested in armament for the defense and protection of the nation has strangely disappeared with no clue as to where. In other words before he was ousted from power, the last president was sending the young soldiers, totally empty handed and with no weapon, to the front, to fight against the secessionist Tuaregs. While the co-opted soldiers, at the top rank in the Malian military force were drinking their teas all day long, many soldiers from poor families with no connection or relation in the administrations were getting killed. For many families in Bamako, this irresponsibility from the government is a crime hence the support of the population in general for the military coup carried out by few low ranked soldiers against the government and establishment.

My conclusion: “Mali is one and indivisible” I often hear these days; however my research of the morning shows that the first source of division in the country is corruption, which creates individualism, opportunism and favoritism. In other words, Azawad and the partition of Mali is nothing else but the mere reflexion of a nation mismanaged through corruption. It is also indeed hard to expect much from an African nation that dropped its values and principles to adopt that of the Europeans. The first enemy of the Malian integrity is without doubt briberies anarchy which came with the loss of African values and principles. And it is clear that no matter how good the monkey is at imitating human beings, he will never better or replace the latter…

/DR

Next week, by about the same time some of us may wake up with the hangover, after the first round of the presidential elections. Will I be one of those? Who knows? I am not sure yet who I am going to vote for. Not that I am the type of guy who never votes but rather I sometimes have the feeling that my concerns are very often ignored by the politicians.

I know that I am not the only one who thinks this way. I even know that compared to most of my friends, not only in the neighborhood but also those living in the « Bobo » districts of Paris, I am more interested in politics. As a matter of fact, I would even say, I have always been doing politics but in a different manner.

For example, on Thursday with some French and British colleagues, I am organizing a discussion around the housing issue in the 19^th district of Paris. The initiative is part of the Paris 19^th project: a photography project we started in 2010. Our aim was then to collect the memory of youngsters of the 19^th district via the use of photographies of the neighbourhood. The work was a success that we presented in many academic centers in the UK but also in cities like Istanbul (Turkey), or Berlin (Germany). It resulted in the bringing together of different people from different fields to discuss on the changes occurring in some of the districts of Paris.

Three days before the first round of the presidential elections this year, we decide to organize a similar meeting in the place where the whole project started months ago. At number 07 rue Mathis (75019 Paris) on Thursday 19^th April, at 07 pm, we will be holding an event that could be the last opportunity for some elected politicians of the district to clarify their position on some of the issues affecting the everyday life of many inhabitants in the district, just before the elections. The questions we are planning to raise or discuss on involve, among others, the notion of social cohesion in the neighbourhood, gentrification, and access to Social housing for people who were born and grew up in the district. As a matter of fact, it appears, according to our investigation, that people who were born in the 19^th district of Paris, and whose parents most often still live there, find it difficult to obtain apartments within the district. Is it a lack of knowledge of the required administrative procedure or because of the skyrocketing prices in housing that forces those with the lowest revenues to find accommodation outside the capital city? Are there some alternatives for younger people?

These are questions to which we hope to find answers or suggestions through the discussion. If national politics often appears as remote, not to say irrelevant to most people living in the 19^th district of Paris, let’s hope that this way of doing politics will reconcile some with their political representatives.

……………….

The event is part of the ongoing project, Paris 19: Mobility, Memory & Migration: (http://www.openvizor.com/Content/Index/472 )

Paris 19: Mobility, Memory & Migration is collaboration between Abbas Nokhasteh (Openvizor), Dr. Moustafa Traoré (AnOpen Eye), David Kendall (CUCR, Goldsmiths, University of London), Bakary Sakho (BGA) and filmmaker Andrés Borda-González.

/DR

Barely had Mohammed Merah leapt from his bathroom widow in Toulouse yesterday, still blasting away with his gun, than politicians and experts were analysing just what it might mean for the President and the other candidates in the coming election.

/DR

On 22 April voters throughout France and the overseas territories still under its control will go to the polls for the first round of the presidential elections. This comes after ten years of Nicolas Sarkozy being in power, the last five as president. The French Tories have managed to score some important victories for the ruling class over that decade. Two successive pension reforms have raised the retirement age while cutting pensions. Social Security (equivalent to the NHS) has been cut so that the sick now have to pay much more out of their own pockets. Huge tax cuts have been given to the rich while wages have stagnated and unemployment has risen.

Mass strikes

However, the bosses did not get everything their own way, and mass resistance has been an important feature of the past ten years. Mass strikes against pension reforms may have been defeated, but the youth rebellion in 2006 against a new precarious work contract was victorious. After Sarkozy’s election as president in 2007 a number of local struggles managed to delay or avert job losses. National days of action peaked towards the huge pension revolt in the autumn of 2010, when several million workers struck, marched and blocked railway stations and oil refineries.

This general climate and the disaffection with Sarkozy mean the Socialist Party (equivalent to the Labour Party) is now the favourite to take over after the elections.

Ever since he came to prominence, Sarkozy has attracted the hatred and contempt of a majority of workers and youth. It is an interesting paradox that this pension cutter had a majority only among the over-60s when he was elected in 2007. But Sarkozy’s election slogan « Work more to earn more » did resonate with some working class voters. Overtime was to be made easier and taxed less, and this was supposed to lead to overall growth and more employment.

Five years later it is clear that those who work more have gained nothing, while many others have simply lost their jobs. One iconic example is the Continental tyre factory in Clairoix, north of Paris. In 2007, two minority unions accepted a deal pushing up the working week from 35 to 40 hours in return for a promise to keep the factory going until 2012. But just two years later it was announced the plant was to be closed, with the loss of 1,200 jobs in the plant itself and 2,000 more among subcontractors.

The Continental workers felt utterly betrayed, and started a heroic struggle first against closure and then for substantial severance pay. Their spokesperson, trade union activist Xavier Mathieu, became nationally known when a delegation of Continental workers ransacked a local government building and he refused to condemn the action on the evening news. In response to a journalist who asked, « Do you regret the violence? » he replied, « I hope you’re joking! What is there to regret? A few broken windows, a few computers, and next to that thousands of broken lives… » Other workers have led similar struggles, striking and often occupying their workplaces, and attracting widespread sympathy – at stationery maker M-Real, the Fralib tea factory in Marseille, metal workers at Fonderie du Poitou and others.

Images of Sarkozy promising workers at a steel plant in 2008 that the state would invest in the plant rather than see it close have become a symbol of his untrustworthiness. A year later the plant did close, and workers responded with grim humour by laying down a plaque that reads « Hereunder lie the promises of N. Sarkozy. »

The start of the election campaign has only strengthened the resolve of workers fighting for their jobs. Recently undergarment makers at Lejaby have managed to force Sarkozy to temporarily save some of their jobs through one of his billionaire friends, but they are far from dropping their guard or giving up the fight for those workers who did lose their jobs.

Cuts or more cuts?

While the question of jobs is high on every candidate’s agenda, the solutions they offer in response to the crisis are not necessarily progressive. The two frontrunners, Sarkozy and the Socialist Party’s candidate, François Hollande, offer a very traditional remedy: more competitiveness and more flexibility. Hollande puts more emphasis on training and education, and has made a few noises about regulating finance, but his reassurances to City bankers have cooled the enthusiasm of many. He even boasted, « The left was in government for 15 years in which we liberalised the economy and opened up the markets to finance and privatisations. There is no big fear. »

Still, there is a contradiction at work in the support for the Socialist Party which goes beyond voting for « anybody but Sarkozy ». Hollande has made clear he wouldn’t completely reverse Sarkozy’s pension reform, but he would still undo some aspects (Socialist Party activists participated enthusiastically in the 2010 pension fight). Hollande has never condemned the policies of fellow members of the Socialist International, Papandreou in Greece or Zapatero in Spain, but he has gained support in France by advocating recruiting teachers and not cutting the overall size of the state sector, while Sarkozy has been reducing the number of teachers and state jobs. This means that a victory for Hollande over Sarkozy can give sections of workers the confidence that most of society does want a left wing alternative, and that struggles can attract mass sympathy and participation.

However, there can be no doubt that Hollande’s overall orientation is one of austerity. His obsession seems to be to ensure that he does not « make promises he can’t keep », meaning any reform which would substantially displease the bosses he is anxious to have on his side. This risks lowering expectations so much that many voters with left wing aspirations will end up staying at home – this is in many ways Sarkozy’s best chance for a comeback.

Fascism lurking

While the fascists have enjoyed a high degree of support over the best part of the past three decades, Jean-Marie Le Pen’s performance in 2007 was disappointing to them (he got 10.44 percent). Now Marine Le Pen has taken over her ageing father’s role. Over the past year television and mainstream magazines have been busy building her up as the « third face » of the elections. The Front National has been a pioneer in « streamlining fascism », with a success that the BNP among others have been keen to emulate.

On the surface, Marine Le Pen is reaching new heights of success. Opinion polls put her at around 18 percent, a very high point at this stage of the campaign, although slightly down from last year. She has ditched most of the visible anti-Semitism of her father and concentrated on more fashionable Muslim-bashing. This has been combined with a few expressions of concern for (French) workers in order to defend her xenophobic policies. Le Pen has managed to fool a sizeable portion of the media, and even part of the left, that the Front National is now a party like any other, with a programme which should be countered with arguments in rational debate.

It is unclear at this stage whether this will hold throughout the campaign, as reminders of the real nature of the Front National keep shining through the thin veneer. The Front National has in any case not as yet resolved the contradiction it has faced since the late 1990s: while it has a huge electoral weight it has very few active militants on the ground. Of course good election results, and mainstream tolerance of their ideas as acceptable, will make it easier for them to rebuild a strong organisation. This makes it all the more important to organise mass protests everywhere it shows up – this has happened in a number of places locally, but we’re still a long way from what’s needed.

Turning left

At this stage one thing seems clear. Some kind of left wing response to the crisis will get a hearing during the electoral campaign. Unfortunately, right now it is the more reformist Front de Gauche (an alliance between a left wing split from the Socialist party and the Communist party) rather than the New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA) (or the abstract version of Trotskyism put forward by Lutte Ouvrière) which attracts the most attention. In certain ways this is not a problem: their candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon is eloquent at countering the neoliberal interpretation of the crisis and he is quick to defend Greek workers’ right to resist the diktats of the EU and the IMF, etc. Still, his campaign is strictly limited to the electoral field, and the tens of thousands of activists, trade unionists and young people who attend his rallies are given one single perspective for changing society: casting a vote for Mélenchon.

The NPA

It didn’t have to be that way, and it is clear a good deal of the responsibility lies with the NPA’s lack of audacity over the past three years. The potential for building a broad, dynamic party rooted in struggles and helping to coordinate and organise activists over a range of issues has been set back. The NPA has too often been content to juxtapose correct, but abstract, statements about capitalism with a practical focus on participating in elections.

As a result, a range of issues such as work in trade unions, housing, anti-racism, opposition to war or police violence has not been debated and organised throughout the organisation. This means that many of the best activists who were initially attracted to the NPA have not found much use in staying in the organisation.

The NPA’s candidate is Philippe Poutou, a car factory worker and trade union activist who led a victorious fight against job cuts. This allows us to make a link with every similar struggle, and to be heard by a wide audience defending the need for workers’ self-organisation, workers’ control of companies and services and the need for international solidarity – especially with the struggling peoples of Greece, Egypt or Syria.

Whatever the result of the elections, the crisis, the international context and the experience of recent struggles means the next government will not have an easy ride. It also means a strong fighting left can and must be built.

This article was taken from http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=11936

_

/DR

My name is QUAN Alice, I am 18 and I live in France. I am currently studying economics at the University Paris-Est Créteil. I love travelling and discovering new countries. I also like learning about the history of the different countries I visit. My origins may have an influence on my personality. When people look at me, they think I am just a Chinese girl. They cannot imagine I am a little bit Mexican too. People are in general very curious and interested in me when they know about my mixed origins. “How could a Chinese man and a Mexican woman meet and get together? It is actually atypical.” 

The process of immigration is sometimes more complex than what one might think. I am going to share something personal with you; something I am quite proud of by the way. Even if most people think, when looking at me, that I was born from immigrant parents who left China to come straight to France, I am in reality the fruit of a more complex movement of immigration. I would even say that I am the result of many movements of immigration.

“How did my family end up in France?” That is the question.

My great-grandfather was born in 1880, in Guangzhou in China. In the early 20^th century, he decided to go to the United States to find gold. That was the period when in the United States discovering gold was still the only way of making fortune for newcomers. That was also the last wave of the gold rush in the American History. My great-grandfather spent ten years before finding what he had come for. He then decided to explore Mexico. He finally stayed there, got married with a Mexican woman and built his family.

My grandfather was born in Mexico. However, when he turned 8, my great-grandfather sent him to China to study. He lived there until the second Sino-Japanese war which began in 1937. That war was the most important Asian war of the 20^th century. My grandfather had therefore to escape it. He went to Hong-Kong where he stayed for few years. Then, he moved to Macau one -along with Hong Kong- of the two special administrative regions of the People’s Republic of China. He met my grandmother there. They did business and owned some shops. Despite everything my grandfather went through, he still wanted changes. He was an adventurer! They left Macau for Indochina, precisely Vietnam. They did not know how to speak Vietnamese. But, they were not afraid of taking risks.

My father was born in 1964 and it was also the year when the United States invaded South Vietnam. Americans invaded the south and took possession of the capital: Saigon. Vietnamese claimed their independence and a war began. In April 1975, it was the end of the war and Vietnam became a Communist regime. The government took everything from the people of the South. My family could not stand the situation. In 1978, they decided to leave Vietnam and go to France. They came in boats; they were “boat people”.

After a long journey, they finally arrived in France in 1978, precisely in the city of Créteil near Paris. They first stayed at the “Foyer des Réfugiés France Terre d’Asile”.

Alice QUAN is currently a student at Paris-Est Creteil University in Paris where she studies Economics

/DR

These days, times are hard. Despite the upcoming election, unemployment skyrockets and misery starts threatening. I am not speaking about a random African country; I am speaking here about Europe. The crisis is far from being over and therefore our economic model is being questioned. The recent riots in Greece illustrate well the drift of the European economy. Capitalism, which has brought prosperity to the Old World, is now blamed for being the cause of the current situation.

Capitalism is based on the accumulation of capital in order to create wealth. Can it be considered as moral? It is an interesting question that the professors in my University would not dare answer without starting by quoting Karl Marx. The latter explains that the exploitation of the workers is inherent to capitalism. Remember that according to Marx, exploitation has always existed, first with slavery and serfdom. When it comes to capitalism, its characteristics are to camouflage exploitation through the salary system. According to Marx, wealth is created both on capital gains and on the back of workers. The latter are deprived of their dues by the capitalists. Marx wrote: « Capital is (…) not only, as Adam Smith says it “the power to command the labor of others”, it is also essentially the power to command an unpaid labor » (Capital, Chapter XVIII).

Morality can refer to the customs, rules of conduct, values, and ethics within a culture. In the western culture for example, man must always be the purpose of any action. In order to answer our initial interrogation, the question must be changed: is capitalism immoral? “Amoral”? We define something as immoral when it is opposed to morality. According to the analysis made by Marx, the term immoral is used to blame the exploitation of human beings.

Yet, lots of things have changed since the 19th century. Indeed, living conditions and in particular the workers’ living conditions were not comparable to those of these days. Without enumerating all the social benefits, one can still realize the significant change that has occurred by observing the life expectancy of the workers in general, -which nearly makes one with the life expectancy of the other economic agents- and by noticing the continuous progress of science. It may seem not connected to our topic but I believe it is. We must always remember those facts when rereading Karl Marx.

Moreover, capitalism is not based on exploitation but rather on property and responsibility. As a result, it can be considered neither as immoral nor as moral, since it is a complete system. In my opinion, it must be considered as amoral. Indeed, it is foreign to all kinds of morality and not opposed to morality.

Obviously, the current events, like the outraging salaries of several managers or traders while a poverty of a new kind (the poor workers) is appearing, shock. How can a few earn so much money when so many do not earn enough to have a decent life? Olson explained that a group’s power decreases with its size. Maybe this is the beginning of an answer… This, however, needs to be qualified. This paradox makes us think. Yet, I am convinced that the best answer is not to blame capitalism but its actors. Another answer is to say that it is the « less bad » of all the systems. Bernard Mandeville tells in his Beehive Tale, the story of a hive in which the more the bees consume, the richer they get. Then one of the bees once asks for a bit of morality in the beehive, which then becomes impoverished. Mandeville’s description of Europe in the early 1700 can help us understand the world of today. I grant you that capitalism is neither perfect nor moral. However, shouldn’t the result of capitalism throughout history compared to other systems suffice us?

I am currently a foreign student living in France and I have been living here for 3 years now. During these years I have experienced all kinds of problems linked with studying abroad. For instance, cultural clashes, racism, communication issues etc… . I am writing this article for those who are planning to go to foreign countries and I hope that it will be of a help.

Most people consider getting college admission the toughest step when planning to study abroad, but as far as I am concerned, the most difficult and important part is to understand the foreign cultural norms in order to get involved within the local society. Why is it the most difficult step? Not only because most foreign students don’t speak the same language as those from the welcoming country, but also because it is especially difficult to make friends with local students who are already in a group of friends. It is obvious that talking to someone in a foreign language is difficult. But there is a difference between not speaking a language well enough and refusing to speak it because we do not feel confident. The more we try not to make mistakes and stop talking, the less confident we are when we then have to speak and the less we want to speak. This is the vicious circle in which foreign students always get trapped into. If you want to study in another country, especially countries with a different language from that of your own, you must be ready to make stupid mistakes and of course, to be teased by others. Frankly, no matter how good we are at learning a foreign language, we will never be as good as the native speakers. So why be ashamed of making mistakes?  It is once you can get over the psychological obstacle, that you can speak the foreign language naturally. And this is the key to get involved with local student groups.

Someone might ask why I have to get involved with the local groups, above all when I feel perfectly well when I am with people who come from my own hometown. In a big city, there will be no difficulty to find people from my country. But, if you want to go to another country just to get University knowledge, then you’d better stay in your home country. It’s always easier and faster to learn something in your mother tongue. The interest to study abroad is to understand other cultures that are probably quite different from yours. I believe, however, studying aboard is not something tough but a wonderful journey if you are well prepared.

Written by Ju Fei

JU Fei was born in Xi’an, China in 1989. She then
moved with her parents to the city of Guangzhou (China) when she was 5 years old. In 2007, she entered the Ocean University of China in Qingdao and participated in an exchange program between the Ocean University of China and l’Université  de Bretagne Occitantale in Brest (France). She arrived in France in 2009 and has since been a student at l’Université Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne in Paris (France).