# F05  LiveFromFrance S1E05

This is the last month of the year, a month of celebrations. But if you expect it to be calm and friendly, don't forget the human factor, especially in France ! 

Too bad because we were beginning to speak intelligently about Ukraine-Russia and Palestine-Israel conflicts. But in this time of the Immigration Bill in the National Assembly, any attack or aggression is a pretext for controversy. A teenager was stabbed in a village when people from an impoverished neighborhood invited themselves to a party. After a week of polemics, extreme right-wing movements and groups organized protests and riots in the neighborhood and in the big cities. Some media drew parallels with immigration. At the same time, a mosque was tagged with insults. And the main far-right party forgot its links with this kind of violent gangs of skinheads and Neo-Nazis. Some of its staff had been members in their youth. The interior minister (who wrote articles in a far-right newspaper in his youth, and who uses the word «ensauvagement», a neologism to describe the fact to become savage, like the far-right) promised to disband these militias. But he didn't explain why these militias were in possessio
n of information that is normally only known to the police. Right-wing and far-right parties (the difference is becoming so thin) are using the fears of others to create a climate of insurrection. And they have good examples.

France is looking at Netherlands, Argentina or Sweden where far-right took the power or at least a part of the power. Nothing was done against that and with left-parties as stupid as the last month in France, most of the columnists made their choice for the next year : The same as in Argentina between the establishment and the far right. You know how it ends ? You saw it in USA, now in Argentina, Israel, Hungary, Italy… So nothing very interesting for internal politics. And for foreign affairs, President Macron is still like a baby discovering his toys, not listening the professional diplomats. He tried to took part in the peace process or in the destruction of Hamas (he's still hesitating...) but didn't understood why nobody was listening to him. He tried once more during the COP28, but didn't understood why it was not a good thing to sell Small Modular Reactors, the new big thing in nuclear power plants. So people in the world are still thinking that France is on the same side than the USA, which are on 
the same side than Israel, etc… He was «neither left nor right». He is now «neither Arabic, nor Israeli», and nothing less in the diplomatic concert. He even managed to create a polemic about secularism, by welcoming rabbis to celebrate Hanuka at the Élysée presidential palace. Even Jewish associations were shocked...

But in the first week of December, the main subjects in media changed : A «mad man», known by the intelligence services for terrorism, attacked a German tourist and other people in Paris : 1 death and two injured before he was caught by the police. He had been in prison several years ago, for an attempted attack, and was under medical care of a psychiatrist. But he had not seen the psychiatrist for a few months and nobody knew that in the internal intelligence service. It's just a few months before the Olympic games and everyone is giving his solutions : More police, more intelligence, more cameras, more psychiatrist and money for psychiatric services, … And some to say (as me), that they are no «zero risk» life. It's of course very sad for the tourist killed by this man and his family. I also noticed a fact : This killer is white, french, from a french family but if pronounced an allegiance to ISIS, the medias and politics didn't insist on the fact that he was a Muslim (he was not really...), but that
 he was a mad man. Not the same vocabulary than if he had been Algerian, Moroccan or other countries seen as «muslim» in France. The parallel was made with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but it was all. The main fear was.… for the Olympic games organisation. You know, that event that French people are not very happy to see in their country.

In the same time, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) showed its new results for many countries in the world. If the main fact wa that SARS-CoV2 had a strong effect of education, France fell further in the ranks, not far from the average. Asian countries or northern European countries are still the best and a debate started. The Education Minister had prepared a new education reform (return of homework, class repetition, ...). The method of PISA is still a problem : How to measure a level in math and language comprehension ? There are facts, of course and the teachers in France will tell you that the level is falling. But some countries need private lessons for many children to get the best schools. What is real in France is the fact that the gap between poor and rich children is growing. And with the new new new reform, it's not going to change. Without surprise, the left former minister were against this reform. And another periodic exam to survey math and language level will be organ
ized each year. Between expressing the level with a grade or not, the debate continues. There was not many people to say that if you don't understand the language, it's difficult to solve a math problem. When you listen feedback from the Baccalauréat (the final exam at the end of high school), you can hear these problems, for many years. 

And now, it's quite the Christmas holidays for children… 

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