Posted on 04/28/2008 1:34:38 AM PDT by bruinbirdman
A young French minister who provoked a political storm by branding her male colleagues as cowardly has defended herself by describing the women in President Nicolas Sarkozy’s cabinet as more “original” than the men.
Sometimes described as one of the brainiest women in government, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, 34, the junior environment minister, catapulted herself into the limelight earlier this month by accusing senior party members of “cowardice” in their policy towards genetically modified crops, which she firmly opposes.
It was the latest in a series of embarrassments for the government and in the ensuing uproar she was struck from a list of guests accompanying the prime minister on a visit to Japan.
The public has rallied around the “green Sarkozette” – according to one poll, 80% agreed with her stand – and she has not been tempted to alter her opinion of male politicians. Far from it.
“They make you feel that they’ve been there since the dawn of time and that the women’s presence is less legitimate,” she said in an interview over lunch in her ministry last week.
Warming to her theme, she went on: “There is more variety of character in the women than in the men. The men are more traditional but the women bring more originality, even if they are not necessarily the easiest of characters.”
Originality certainly seems to be an attribute of Kosciusko-Morizet, a science graduate from an illustrious political family of Polish origin which has produced ambassadors, senators, mayors and a member of the wartime resistance.
She chose to do her military service in a naval outpost off the coast of Djibouti and her harp-playing and horsemanship have also helped her to stand out from the crowd.
The “cowardice” incident was not the first time that she had attracted the wrath of her colleagues: she was attacked for planting a kiss on the cheek of José Bové, the antiglobalisation campaigner who has spent the past few years in and out of jail for destroying genetically modified crops.
Kosciusko-Morizet claimed that a male politician who kissed a female activist would not have caused such a fuss and besides, she said, “I have never asked permission, even from my father, to kiss anyone.”
Battling to shore up his crumbling approval rating one year after coming to power, Sarkozy went on television last week complaining about “young ministers” such as Kosciusko-Morizet speaking out of turn and warning that he would not forgive the next indiscretion.
However much he approves in private of the verve of his “environmental muse”, as Kosciusko-Morizet has been called, he has been accused of “reverse machismo” in his indulgence of women ministers and there has been grumbling in the ranks of the party.
Rama Yade, the 31-year-old undersecretary for human rights, has twice put her foot in it with impunity, most recently when she contradicted government policy by attaching conditions to Sarkozy’s participation in the Olympic Games opening ceremony this summer in Beijing.
Kosciusko-Morizet dismissed allegations of favouritism, however. “The men try to make us think there are favourites,” she said, “but if there was so much favouritism there would be more than 18% women in the national assembly. Our political life needs more biodiversity.”
She insisted nevertheless that “Sarko”, who married Carla Bruni, the top model and folk singer, in February and who has packed his cabinet with women to fulfil a campaign promise to promote sexual equality in government, was more advanced than most other male politicians when it came to dealings with women.
“Many male politicians often have difficulty working with women, and difficulty accepting women as legitimate partners in political life,” she said.
“But he [Sarkozy] thinks that women’s presence is perfectly normal. He doesn’t have any problems working with women. In France that does not make him part of the majority.”
Kosciusko-Morizet, who is married with a two-year-old son, is just as passionate about environmental issues as she is about putting women into power. She switched the Peugot 607 that came with her job for a less polluting, and much smaller, Peugeot 308.
“When I go to official functions,” she said with a laugh, “the security agents often don’t recognise it as a minister’s car.”
A former environmental adviser in the government of Jacques Chirac, she became an MP in 2002 and has made it her priority to promote more awareness of how environmental issues affect health.
“I think we’re behind other countries in this regard,” Kosciusko-Morizet said. “It was when I was pregnant with my son that I realised how little information there was.
“When you say to a doctor, I’ve got a young child, I live in an urban zone and want to take him out every day but I’m afraid of pollution, is it better in the morning or evening, the doctor hasn’t a clue.” She went on: “At the gynaecologist you’ve got all these leaflets telling you to be careful about various foods and so on but nothing about the environment and health.”
She tries to practise what she preaches: “I like to have bio food. I take care of the quality of air. And the baby’s intercom should not be too close to his head.”
Another issue to absorb her attention is the melting of the world’s glaciers. “Experts say now that it is going two to three times faster than we thought and that some of the big ones will have disappeared by 2020 or 2030,” she said.
Apart from encouraging flooding and drought in countries such as India, this could also kill off the European winter sports industry.
“To buy a chalet at this moment on a 25-year mortgage thinking that you’ll be able to go every year to practise winter sports is pure folly,” she said.
As for Sarkozy’s dwindling popularity, she said the French were impatient for change.
“People voted for change by electing Sarkozy,” she said. “Now they’re saying: when is it changing, when are we going to see the results?”
You know the rules.
She sounds like a twat. Madame Pompadour she ain’t.
Half the world starves and she is a greenie whacko against geneticly superior seed that yields twice as much crop as moldy Frog produce.
yitbos
the road to hell is paved with good intentions
> Half the world starves and she is a greenie whacko against geneticly superior seed that yields twice as much crop as moldy Frog produce.
I happen to agree with her. I don’t want any stinking GE produce either: so far in NZ we are lucky enough not to have to eat any of that stuff. Long may that continue!
Helen thinks GE would be “good for us” — that is a very reliable sign to me that we should run away from it SCREAMING.
Why should Monsanto have a permanent lock on the production of food? I think that is a suicide compact with an industrial monopoly that we would be fools to trust.
Nope. Sucks to GE Crops, and sucks to Monsanto, and sucks to Helen Clark, too. The Greens and Ms Fancy-Pants-from-France are 100% right on this issue.
*DieHard*
Bravo, spoken like a true French Lib Female, “Fig ‘em, let ‘em eat cake!
> Bravo, spoken like a true French Lib Female, “Fig ‘em, let ‘em eat cake!
Yeah, once Monsanto genetically-engineers your US crops such that the produce is sterile and cannot be replanted, you’ll be laughing out the other side of your face. Then you’ll have to buy all of your seed crops from them, and they will be able to charge you whatever they like. And if you don’t like it, you can always eat earthworms.
(And that, my FRiend, would be the ONLY REASON Monsanto would be investing squillions into GE. There’s no money in it otherwise.)
No thanks! You can keep your Franken-food if you lot like it that much: DownUnder we’re quite happy with GE-Free food. It’s plentiful, disease-free, and tastes better than what you get in the Northern Hemisphere.
And DownUnder we have the very best agricultural quarantine available: thousands of miles of warm-blue shark-infested waters and a long swim from here to Monsanto’s nearest lab.
I trust two million years of Evolution caused by a benevolent Creator MUCH MORE than I would ever trust Monsanto’s shareholders and their mad scientists. Someone ought to toss a net over all of ‘em and cart them off, before they hurt themselves or others.
Well...OK, what evah...the invading hoards of starving 3rd worlders probably can’t make it to NZ unless you already have them.
> Well...OK, what evah...the invading hoards of starving 3rd worlders probably can’t make it to NZ unless you already have them.
That’s OK, we already provide them with most of their dairy products, with plenty leftover to sell to the Chinese and to the US. We must be doing something right, I’d suspect.
Virtually none of the hybrid corn used now can be replanted with any yield, and that happened a long time before GM crops.
Americans do have a disturbing tendency to think that advancing the interests of multi-national corporations such as Monsanto and Boeing is the same thing as advancing the interests of the United States...when such firms would relocate their headquarters offshore and close every plant in the country the moment it was to their advantage to do so.
Perhaps, I could interest you in some draught resistent crop seed?
yitbos
> Perhaps, I could interest you in some draught resistent crop seed?
The Ozzies might be interested, but just as likely they’d import their requirements from Saskatchewan or Manitoba.
> Virtually none of the hybrid corn used now can be replanted with any yield, and that happened a long time before GM crops.
I guess that’s all the more reason to move away from those particular strains, or at least diversify the crop.
With the additional pressure that bio-fuels (thanks, AlGore Inventor-of-the-Internet!) is going to place on the maize crop in the foreseeable future, is it really *wise* to give the likes of Monsanto such a tight lock on the Food AND Fuel supply?
I don’t think so.
Anybody who thinks Monsanto and their ilk are developing these GE strains out of the goodness of their hearts, to feed the starving poor in Africa, are DANGEROUSLY GULLIBLE.
> Americans do have a disturbing tendency to think that advancing the interests of multi-national corporations such as Monsanto and Boeing is the same thing as advancing the interests of the United States...when such firms would relocate their headquarters offshore and close every plant in the country the moment it was to their advantage to do so.
POST OF THE DAY. Well Said!
Democracy, the Free Market, Conservatism, Capitalism, Freedom, Liberty are all good things, and they tend to thrive in an environment such as what America can provide, with its Constitutional Republic.
But they are not all one-and-the-same things, and any one of them, taken to an extreme, can be bad for the National Interest. And any one of them can be moved offshore and put in an entirely different political context which is, again, not in the National Interest.
That won't help a few hundred thousand farmers.
yitbos
> That won’t help a few hundred thousand farmers.
There’s alot of grain in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario.
Saskatchewan could probably provide the requirements of Australia’s few hundred thousand farmers from their bin screenings alone.
But, hey, they broke Monsanto, not.
yitbos
Guilty.
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