Paul from Paris

The European Parliament today re-elected Juan Manuel Barroso as president of the European Commission. Barroso, the former prime minister of Portugal and the outgoing Commission president, received 382 out of 736 possible votes, or 51.9% of possible votes. Barroso ran unopposed.

The re-election reportedly brought stability or continuity to EU institutions. That’s a bit premature. After the defeat of the European Constitution in 2005 –at the beginning of Barroso’s first term– European leaders drafted a lighter, consensual convention, the Lisbon Treaty. Ireland voted it down once, and will vote on it again October 2. The Czech Republic, Poland, and Germany still have to ratify it. The conclusion: viewed from mid-September, institutional stability still seems conditional and just over the horizon.

Barroso has not yet shown himself up to the challenges faced by Europe’s economy. He’s muddled through, but hasn’t drawn economic thinkers into his orbit or proposed bold visions for the future. (Or, if he has, he hasn’t brought them to public attention.) Barroso hasn’t yet shown himself capable of presenting alternatives proposed by various member states, in order to seek consensus or debate from which a common approach could emerge.

The European Union’s economic situation is troubled. The European Commission, earlier this week, released a forecast on economic growth, expected to be – 4%. (In other words, the economy will shrink, not grow, in 2009.) And the latest figures, for the month of July, show unemployment in the Eurozone at 9.5%, with more than 15 million Europeans jobless.

Here’s a postscript to the controversy surrounding French interior minister Brice Hortefeux and his equivocal words about a young conservative of North African descent.

French prime minister François Fillon said that Hortefeux was the victim of “a campaign of denigration” and that he was appalled by “this attempted lynching in the media”. Interesting words: “to denigrate” is derived from Latin, meaning “to blacken completely”; and “lynching” is an act of mob violence, historically directed against persons of color.

French president Sarkozy said,”I really don’t have time to lose with that.” For his part, Hortefeux said that he won’t issue an apology, adding, “For there to be apology, there must be guilt or fault.” This confirms my opinion that the left and the right see the matter very differently, and that for the right there fundamentally is no cause for controversy.

Soon after a spat on “aggressive” reporting by a television journalist, French interior minister Brice Hortefeux made news again.

In a video made public by Le Monde, Hortefeux is shown at a late-summer meeting for young conservatives. He’s accompanied by Jean-François Copé, conservative party leader at the national assembly, and surrounded by party activists.

One of the activists, Amine, is of North African descent. It’s a jovial occasion, and everyone’s taking souvenir snapshots of conservative leaders. Amine approaches Copé and Hortefeux for a snapshot.

“Now that’s integration!” exclaims one activist. Someone (Copé?) chimes in, “He speaks Arabic!” Another activist adds, “He eats pork and drinks beer!”

Then Hortefeux adds: “He doesn’t match the prototype at all.” He concludes, “When there’s one, it’s fine. It’s when there are a lot that there are problems.”

There’s an embarrassing precedent. Last January, Hortefeux joked about Fadela Amara, junior minister for urban policy, whom he called “a compatriot”. Then he added, “As it’s not really obvious, I’m pointing it out.” No offense was taken: Hortefeux said he was kidding about his and Amara’s regional origins –both are from Auvergne– not Amara’s North African parentage.

Just days ago, Hortefeux retired a prefect, Paul Girot de Langlade (who coincidentally also is from Auvergne). While at the Orly airport outside Paris, Girot de Langlade became impatient with security checks and reportedly said, “you’d think we were in Africa,” and “there are only blacks here.”

There are three lessons to be learned from the Hortefeux affair:

1. For the left, racism is a mortal sin. It cannot be excused; it can be pardoned only after contrition. Insofar as the left draws on universal principles, this makes sense, because drawing ethnic lines runs counter to universalism. It also helps explain why the remedy sought is resignation rather than apology. Those on the left may be quick to find racism here because of Hortefeux’s precedents, the Girot de Langlade affair, and the fact that Hortefeux and president Sarkozy are fast friends.
2. For the right, and maybe for a majority of French people, Hortefeux did nothing wrong. (This also seems to be Amine’s position.) The right believes that national or regional origins carry or are prone to result in certain character traits; talking about an “Italian family” or “German precision” is shorthand not intended to stigmatize. This helps to explain why French prime minister Fillon appeared on national television and said that Hortefeux was the victim of a campaign of denigration. (Interesting etymology, better reserved for another post.) It makes understandable Hortefeux’s unwillingness to say something like: I didn’t mean to give offense, and I apologize to any whom my remarks may have offended. It also helps to explain how references to regional –as opposed to ethnic– origins would explain and excuse talk that otherwise could be thought racist. And it draws a line of sorts between Hortefeux’s comments and Girot de Langlade’s disparagement.
3. Hortefeux is behind the times, but not for the reasons some have in mind. In recent years, the quality of consumer electronics has improved: devices that capture images, video, and sound are accessible. And the Internet makes it easy to divulge and disseminate recordings. But Hortefeux has not been caught in a “Gotcha!” moment. He appeared at a communications event organized by his party, and he’s a professional politician. He consented to a photo-op. But he thought that he and his party control his image and how it’s used. On this point, the world is changing, becoming “flatter”, more democratic, more popular.

Ulva armoricana, referred to colloquially in French as algues vertes and in English as sea lettuce, proliferates along the Brittany coast.

Fertilizer runoff and animal waste from intensive agriculture cause the proliferation.

Its effects include large amounts of plant matter that wash ashore. When the plants decay, they can generate toxic fumes that may have caused the death of animals and a worker.

In an interview with French daily Libération, the French junior minister for ecology, Chantal Jouanno claimed to seek transparency about adverse health effects for people and animals, and hopes that a study will lead to an action plan.

What sort of action does Jouanno envisage? Picking up more sea lettuce, including at sea. The junior minister doesn’t venture an estimate of what collection efforts cost now or are likely to cost in the future.

What about reducing the effluents responsible for the problem? Don’t expect much, replies in essence Jouanno. At least not for two years. What’s special about two years? Nothing, so far as the environment is concerned. Everything, where politics are concerned: French presidential elections will occur in 2012.

To my eyes, sea lettuce is a classic example of a failure to address a problem. Indeed, sea lettuce is a problem, recognized as such; there are no defenders of sea lettuce. There are, however, defenders of intensive agriculture, that has made Brittany an agri-business powerhouse. Some of the costs of this achievement have been socialized and passed on to commons: rivers and sea coast, and the flora and fauna that inhabit them. So long as the official French response ignores costs and benefits, and focuses on harvesting-at-sea, I have trouble giving credence to bolder French schemes on issues like global warming.

French television journalist Mélissa Theuriau gets a lot of attention.

She's pretty and photogenic, so much so that she has a cult following. Google her name, and you'll come up with all sorts of images and fan sites. Look her up on YouTube, and you'll come up with clips of her reporting or anchoring.

Theuriau's fame climbed even higher when she wed Jamel Debbouze, a popular French comic actor. Theuriau had a child last December, and took time off from her television work.

She returned as anchor of a prime-time Sunday evening show, Zone interdite, on 30 August. For American viewers, Zone interdite bears a resemblance to 60 Minutes, with an emphasis on investigative pieces.

The 30 August episode focused on crime and police in France. After a package on crime on the Riviera, "La côte d'Azur sous haute surveillance", Theuriau interviewed Brice Hortefeux, the French Interior Minister and commander in chief of French police. The network that broadcasts Zone interdite has made available a video excerpt of the interview. (No need to speak French; the body language speaks volumes.)

Hortefeux is no Mélissa Theuriau. He's not photogenic. He's stiff and talks like a bureaucrat. He's not really ready for prime time. Even though 4.1 million viewers tuned in to Zone interdite (peaking at 5.3 million around 10:30pm), Hortefeux's interview was hardly memorable and probably would soon have been forgotten.

Then entered Alliance, a police union. In an open letter, its secretary general complained that Hortefeux suffered "extremely aggressive behavior" from Theuriau, whom he described as "blinded by an open hatred of the police." The network that produces Zone interdite sent a reply, supporting its journalist but otherwise backing off from confrontation (while using bad syntax). The exchange was widely reported by the French press.

Theuriau seems to have stood on the sidelines. Back from maternity leave, she now passes for a hard-hitting journalist, and millions have been reminded of the show she anchors.

As for Hortefeux, after letting pass a chance to shine, his ostensible ally, the police union, seems to offer an example of the worst said against the police: twisting facts, siding reflexively with authority figures, being hard on women and minorities. All of which does a disservice to Hortefeux.