Manifestations

The word for protest in French is "manifestation" which, it seems to me, is interesting in itself. The other day we ran into this manifestation by the Petit Palais.



Generally the gist was they were annoyed at Sarkozy. On the whole (watch out, here comes a generalisation) French seem more politicised than Australians who are generally an apathetic bunch. I met someone at a party who admitted to voting for Sarkozy because she genuinely hoped he would try to reform the country and be more open and disciplined as he promised. Sadly that did not happen.




Nearby our house was this graffiti. It's pretty rude in French meaning something like piss off bastard, or worse. This is something Sarkozy said to a farmer he met who refused to shake his hand. Sarkozy did not think anyone was listening but of course the video ended up on youtube.

Even the law about not smoking cigarettes inside is taken not just as a law against an action but concerning a national character. An American I met recently said the French will talk about sex all day long but don't bring up religion or politics. In fact I've found the French forthcoming on both topics. And it's an interesting dialogue indeed.