One more post on this subject before the upcoming election:
The French have a convention for counting down to an event – they use the lettre J (for ‘jour’ meaning day) minus the number of days left. So since Friday I’ve been getting e-mails from the Comité français de soutien à Barack Obama with titles like J-4, J-3….
But aside from that the media coverage here has been plentiful and not just on the campaign itself but on American issues (of course that’s issues seen by the French or issues as seen by the French). A month ago there was a 5-part series on TV about the US, each segment on a different region. Last week Telerama, a weekly TV Guide on steroids (it’s way more than a TV guide, it includes topical articles as well as reviews of movies, books, theatre, art and music) dedicated this issue to analysis of the US (the cover read ‘Numéro special USA) and included articles on Howard Zinn interviewed re: his historical perspective, an article about the series ‘West Wing’ and ‘24’ (non-white presidents) and whether art was imitating life (or was it the other way around) and another about segregated campuses in Georgia (Tuskegee vs Auburn). Since Friday there’s hardly a news report that doesn’t feature the race plus several longer, more in depth TV news magazine reports. All this interest gives you some sense of how other parts of the world believe they will be affected by our choice, and it’s not only that this particular election is momentous because of the color of Obama’s skin…
And of course, there will be plenty of election coverage here, certainly not rivaling that in the US but, on the other hand, it’s not like I’ll have to work hard to stay informed either!
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