## F04 LiveFromFrance S2E04

It's now April, the month of the...fishes? And as we say in France : Ne te découvre pas d'un fil (litterally : don't uncover yourself by a thread). Speaking of threads, we had plenty to follow in the French media, with always something to argue about. 

The main issue was raised by President Macron during a press conference: the end of life and assistance in dying. These aren't exactly the words he used to describe the path to euthanasia. In several European countries there are laws or ways to do it. In France it's complicated... OK, it's complicated everywhere and it's difficult for doctors to help someone to die because there's no way to cure them. It's like admitting that you're powerless. As I wrote a few weeks ago, we are so ignorant. A citizens' convention has given some advice on the subject, but only a few directives have been taken up... to save a few extremes and electoral support. After the convention, doctors and religions were consulted and that explains a lot. After all, it's the King's prerogative to choose! This was also a way of avoiding or silencing the European election campaign. The far right party seems to be largely in the lead because the left parties were so stupid to split...

But it's not the only subject that can provide a distraction. There is war! War in Ukraine, of course, and as I said last month, discourse is far from action. If France is second in the world in terms of arms sales, it's not for Ukraine, which can't keep up with the pace of this war, when it comes to the consumption of shells. It's only been a few months since a real task force was set up to deal with this problem. The new sparring partner for an MMA fight with Poutine isn't really ready to jump into the ring, despite his nice "photoshopped" pictures. ... But there's an obsession with everything to do with security, the far-right party's favorite topic.  Don't forget the European election campaign... A trip to Marseille, a mecca for the drug mafia, and you're led to believe in an arsenal of measures. The Prime Minister (known as Mini-Macron) does the same the week after. The dealers just kept their heads down for a few days and moved on. Communication as always... The operation "Place nette XXL" is only for 
the media.

It's a battle of communication between the government and the extreme right. The last subject was the singer at the Olympics. The French-Malian singer Aya Nakamura was scheduled to perform at the opening ceremony, or at least it was a hypothesis. A scandal for the far right, which wanted to clone Edith Piaf (a half-Italian-French singer) or Charles Aznavour (an Armenian-French singer). ... And another week to talk about it and not about Europe or internal politics. The height of ridiculousness was perhaps the Minister of Sport (short-lived Minister of Education... see February) trying to sing a song by Nakamura with falsities and a hypocritical smile as a bonus. I'm not a big fan of this singer, but I don't care. She's the best-selling French singer in the world.... That's the game at the Olympics.  Who remembers good moments with singers at the Olympics ? The other game is to be threatened.

It was a scandal in many schools with threat mails received by many students and 	teachers on the «E.N.T.», a digital space for communication between teachers, children and parents. Russia was shown but quickly another issue appeared : That system is not secure and some young students had hacked the system to disseminate movies of ISIS, easy to find on the web. Many of these digital spaces were closed for a while. Silence now, the buzz is finished. And in the same time, a principal in a school was threaten because a girl said he had violently torn off her hijab… The prime minister has shown his firmness by filing a complaint ...and all was false because the girl had lied. The principal, not far from retirement, resigned. A few days after, a movie was released with a teacher wrongly accused for trying to seduce a young girl. Based on a true story, the movie was more a critique of the French educational institution, with sometimes some racist cliché… And News gave food to the racists with a girl attacke
d by others about the way she dresses, against a religious backdrop, and a boy killed by a group of young people defending their sister's so-called honor because he had just... discussed sexuality. All has been done to feel insecure and more than 40% of voters could be on the far right at the next election.

Should I speak of «Le Petit Emile» ? It's a young boy who had disappeared mysteriously during last summer, when he was at his grandparent's house. The body has just been found and it was four days to speak about....nothing because we know nothing about the cause of his death, etc… The Media as in many countries in the world, are like vultures trying to find a target or a carrion. Time could be happy with a beautiful spring, a very expensive fest to come this summer... Don't forget, you are in France !  If you're planning to come to France, don't talk to a French person who can give you some good addresses. He might make you believe that the situation is the same as in Syria or Libya? No really, there are good news like...we have now mustard and oil in stores, ha ha. Gastronomy is what France is all about !

2Dɛ

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