Posted on 11/15/2005 12:14:52 PM PST by neverdem
“Katrina’s devastation points the finger at Bush’s system. ... Issues forgotten for years are back to the fore: poverty, the state’s absence, latent racism.”
— Le Monde, Sept. 8, 2005
WASHINGTON — The quotation above appeared in a front-page article in France’s newspaper of record.
Just below was a cartoon showing the American president watching TV footage of black corpses floating in the water. “But, what country is this?” the caption had him saying to his generals: “Is it far away? We absolutely have to do something!”
Unfortunately, this column does not come with its own cartoon attached, so I’m forced to describe the one I think Le Monde should print: a drawing of the French president, Jacques Chirac, watching black neighborhoods go up in smoke. The president is asking his generals, “But, what country is this? Is it far away? We absolutely have to do something!”
There are major differences, of course, between President Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina and Chirac’s response to the extraordinary wave of rioting that began in the impoverished suburbs of Paris almost two weeks ago and then spread across the country.
One difference is that it took two days for Bush to respond with a belated televised speech after Katrina made landfall, while it took Chirac 11 days to respond to the riots at all.
Another difference is that Katrina inspired Americans to donate $2 billion to charity. But when Nicolas Sarkozy, the French interior minister, called the rioters “scum,” he failed to dent his own popularity, even though his words apparently spurred the rioters on to greater excess.
The deeper difference is that however ignored or mistreated America’s black underclass may be, most Americans do think of its members as Americans.
By contrast, I doubt whether most Frenchmen even contemplate the possibility that...
(Excerpt) Read more at kansascity.com ...
Chirac has also been President of France for a long time, and the position of President in France is very different than being President of the United States. The POTUS cannot command on the local level, he can only coordinate. The policies that caused the problems after Katrina were local issues and not a national policy. The policies causing problems in France and all of Europe are national policies, under the purview of their national executives and legislatures.
Europeans and Canadians don't understand the American federal system.
Well, that didn't take long to blame Frances' problem on Bush!
pSSST!!!
Katrina was a Hurricane!
France was it's OWN PEOPLE!
katrina? what? France was "bush's fault"???
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