The meaning of celebration, death-defying, Krèyol é Kompanyi... The Wandering Week by Denis Carreaux
THE MEANING OF CELEBRATION
Three weeks after the guerrilla warfare sparked by PSG's Champions League victory, traces of the Fête de la Musique are being erased almost everywhere. Assaults, stabbings, rapes, brutal stings, and injured police officers: the joyous June 21st evenings established by Jack Lang are over. Street singers and one-night stand artists have given way to the din of XXL speakers, drunken crowds, and blind violence. Football matches, Bastille Day, the Fête de la Musique: it's hard to imagine a single celebration without extraordinary police action, mass arrests, and scenes of desolation. A country of champions!
TuesdayDEATH CHEAT
7 a.m. on the A8. In the 90 km/h (56 mph) section between Cagnes and Nice, a scooter zigzags at high speed between cars and trucks. The passenger clings on while the driver swings his right leg, anticipating the fall. T-shirt, shorts, flip-flops: the motorcyclist and his passenger are wearing the outfits of those the firefighters pick up in a thousand pieces throughout the summer. Death-defyers who put their lives in danger and can turn any of us into murderers, even if we're a moment too careless.
WednesdayCREOLE AND COMPANY
Lang fransé a "déwoulé asou tout latè menm jan epi kolonizasyon-an" for vini "pwopriyété epi viktwa" se moun-lasa ki sevi avè'y, é ki dè fwa sevi li kont Sé Fransé-a. Fò nou "trapé on lòt mo ki pa lang fransé pou nou sa palé di lang-nou. Si nou lé fransé vin on lang komin, fò i vin on lang kréyòl." (1)
This is what a speech by Jean-Luc Mélenchon will look like the day he follows his logic through to the end. During a conference on the Francophonie, the Insoumis leader stated that it would be better to say "that we all speak Creole" , believing that "the French language, which has borrowed from all sides, has not belonged to France and the French for a very long time" .
1. Translation (thanks ChatGPT!) into Antillean Creole of the following passage: The French language "spread throughout the world at the height of colonialism" to become "the property and conquest" of "those who used it and sometimes used it against the French" . We must "find another word than French language to describe our language. If we want French to be a common language, it must be a Creole language" .
THURSDAYBOTTOMLESS PIT
Finding 40 billion in three months, as François Bayrou and his government are trying to do, is mission impossible. Letting the same amount slip away in the same amount of time, however, is nothing easier. At the precise moment when Economy Minister Éric Lombard was convening his public finance alert committee at Bercy, the INSEE (National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies) revealed the figure for France's debt. At 9 a.m. on March 26, it reached the unprecedented amount of 3,345.8 billion euros, an increase of 40.5 billion over a short quarter! At this rate, it will therefore be necessary to find 162 million in new savings in one year to ensure that France's financial abyss doesn't get any deeper. A bottomless pit.
FridayPEACE ACCORDING TO TRUMP
The Nobel Peace Prize jurors could save precious time. What's the point of wasting days sifting through hundreds of nominations, debating and arguing, when the 2025 winner (and also 2026, 2027 and 2028) is a natural choice? The successor to Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama is obvious: it's Donald Trump, obviously. "They should give it to me!" repeats the American President, obsessed with the idea of distributing happiness from one end of the planet to the other, from Greenland ( "I don't rule out using military force to take control" ) to Gaza ( "All hell will break loose if the hostages are not released" ). These statements should encourage the Norwegian jurors to agree to his other request: that the Nobel Peace Prize become the Trump Nobel Prize. Why not have thought of it sooner?
SATURDAYLETTER TO JEFF
Dear Jeff, I'm very sorry I wasn't invited to your lovely wedding in Venice. I'm a loyal Amazon customer (this year I ordered a phone case and a Patrick Sébastien CD), and I share the profession of journalist with your lovely wife, Lauren. If you had invited me, Jeff, I could have silenced all this unjustified criticism in these columns. I know very well, and I could have written it here, that you encouraged your guests to favor individual transportation (jets, yachts), which is much more environmentally friendly than the giant ocean liners that once disfigured the lagoon. My discreet presence, in my sale suit, would have also counterbalanced the flashy side of your wedding with its overpriced dresses and glitzy palaces. For my part, I would have settled for this two-star hotel (breakfast included) that I found on Booking.com a few years ago to treat my wife (who has excellent table manners) to a little gondola ride. Ah, Jeff, if only you had thought of me...
Var-Matin
