What the Mainlanders are saying

arnaudherve wrote:

On French cultural radio, equivalent of BBC 4:

Clic on "Ecoutez" red button top left

Writings are numerous. Which political shade do you want?

Merci monsieur. L'Anarchisme s'il vous plait.

Ó de le rive gauche o de la rive Vert and pardon my french I haven't written it for 18 years.

cactus flower wrote:

Quote :

I'd have to come back to that after you've shown there is some critical change in the Treaty. There doesn't seem to me to be one - it looks like a few small steps, most of them in directions I would consider good directions.

Well precisely Ibis. No one seems to want to say why not passing it would matter that much, apart from the nonsense about the six words on climate change etc.

If I accept your point that the Treaty is just a little light housekeeping, why all the fuss?

I haven't said it's a bit of light housekeeping either. It's a set of necessary institutional changes, not a bit of hoovering. The fuss is because the institutional changes are necessary.

cactus flower wrote:

One would have to be a fool not to see it as a very considerable step towards a federal Europe. That is probably its best selling point.

As the actual federalists amongst us have pointed out, it isn't anything of the kind - it's nearly as hard a sell to federalists as it is to nationalists. Simply saying "it's federalist" doesn't make it so, except in the almost meaningless sense that any move away from total and exclusive national sovereignty can be described as "federalist".

Auditor 9 wrote:

L'Anarchisme s'il vous plait.

I don't find anything yet so I offer you this funny video. It's from a recent movie that voluntarily accumulates cliches and makes fun of French spy novels from the sixties, that considered French spies as naturally dominant in Arab countries.

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The scene takes place in Cairo, "a nest of spies" as they say in the movie. The tune is from "Bambino" by vintage singer Dalida, which is itself very nostalgic and Mediterranean. The fact that the spy learns the instrument and Arabic immediately is part of the parody.

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Most enjoyable. Pépé le Moko was the man for me.