Green wave as environmentalists win key cities in French local elections

A green wave has swept France as the environmentalist party and its left-wing allies won control of major cities including Lyon, Strasbourg and Bordeaux in local elections, allowing the Greens to up pressure on President Emmanuel Macron for his meeting with members of the Citizen’s Convention on Climate on Monday. 

Europe Ecology, The Greens party (EELV) took control of key cities including Lyon, Bordeaux and Strasbourg.

They also won the smaller cities of Besancon, Tours, Poitiers and Annecy, hung on to Grenoble and became a power-broker in Marseille.

Having endorsed the Paris socialist Mayor Anne Hidalgo, the Greens also played an important role in ensuring her re-election with 48.7 percent of the vote.

EELV described the results as “historic”.

“Today, ecology is taking a big step. A giant step,” the party’s secretary Julien Bayou said in a statement, adding that “it is THE mandate to act on climate and social justice,” echoing a tweet by Green MEPs.

“The French are ready for change. Great, so are we,” he said.

The election was marked by record-high abstention rate of 59 percent.

President Macron expressed his concern and acknowledged that the elections were marked by a “green wave”, the presidency said.

Upping the pressure

Green MEP Yannick Jadot said the results proved that Macron had been “in denial” over growing public demand for ambitious measures to fight climate change.

He told Europe 1 radio EELV would not join Macron’s government as part of a widely-expected cabinet shake-up, saying instead the president should enact “as he promised” 149 measures proposed this month by his Citizen’s Convention on Climate.

Macron is to meet the council’s members on Monday where he plans a “first response” to their proposals, including reducing motorway speed limits and making “ecocide” a crime.

The Covid effect

Jadot described EELV’s strong results as a “political turning point for our country,” with a landscape “recomposed around ecology”.

In an interview with Le Monde he attributed the party’s good performance both to “the government’s powerlessness and lack of options [proposed] on ecological and social issues, and the vertical nature of its governance”.

The run-off local poll had been delayed by three months due to the two-month lockdown imposed in France.

While the record high abstention rate was in part due to fears over transmission of the coronavirus, the lockdown itself may also explain the Greens’ good score.

“Ecology is central to any reading of the epidemic,” political scientist Jerôme Fourquet told Le Monde.

For him, a lot of discussion centred around  “questions of  lifestyle and consumer habits which are putting our ecosystems under strain”.

“Lockdown acted as an accelerator,” he said “with people asking for more localism and a slowdown in the frenzy of consumerism. The lockdown period reinforced EELV themes.”

Source: Green wave as environmentalists win key cities in French local elections

Actress ‘proud’ she walked out of French Oscars over Polanski

Actress ‘proud’ she walked out of French Oscars over Polanski

Actress Noemie Merlant has absolutely no regrets about walking out of the French Oscars after Roman Polanski won best director to cap what was perhaps the most bitter and fractious awards ceremony in French cinema history.

Merlant followed her “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” co-star Adele Haenel nd the acclaimed movie’s director Celine Sciamma, to the exit after Polanski won best film for “An Officer and a Spy”.

Haenel cried “Shame!” as they left, furious that the Cesars academy had honoured a man still wanted in the US for the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl in 1977, and who has since had to deny several claims of sexual assault.

Haenel — a key figure in the French #MeToo movement, who last year revealed that she had been sexually harassed by a director as a teenager — had declared that “distinguishing Polanski is spitting in the face of all victims”.

“I am proud that I left with my comrades,” Merlant said of the dramatic night four months ago, which caused an earthquake in the French industry.

– ‘It had to happen’ –

“I think it is good that it caused a stir, that it started a debate.

“The world is changing, and going forward,” the actress told AFP.

“Now we are standing up and we are walking out when things have to change. It’s something I think that has to happen,” said Merlant, who made her breakthrough playing a woman radicalised by the Islamic State in the 2016 film, “Le Ciel Attendra” (Heaven Can Wait).

“Maybe five or 10 years ago, I wouldn’t have done it,” the actress admitted. But after working with “lots of female directors I began to ask myself some quite perturbing questions about women’s lives, about what they wanted to say, and their choices.”

Merlant, 31, said that while the Cesars ceremony was “extremely stormy”.

“I feel deep down that it opened up some things, both in the profession” and beyond it, even “among families and friends”.

– Younger generation shocked –

“It is something that people want to talk about — and even when people don’t want to talk about it, that too is interesting,” said Merlant, who was nominated for a best actress Cesar with Haenel.

“As women speak up, it allows you to ask questions about ourselves,” the actress said. “This is also why so many of this new generation of (women) are shocked” and angry about cases like Polanski’s.

Having worked with a lot of woman directors, Merlant said she has been lucky to star in so many female-driven stories.

“Up to know, I think the women that I played were not objects but the subject, and I want to keep it that way,” said the actress, the star of the new French film “Jumbo”, in which she plays a loner who forms a strange attraction to a fairground ride.

“I really love to go out of my comfort zone and to take on roles and stories that scare me, that take me somewhere else,” said Merlant told AFP in March, before the release of the film was delayed by the French lockdown.

 

Source: Actress ‘proud’ she walked out of French Oscars over Polanski – RFI

France’s Assa Traore honoured for her anti-racism activism at BET Awards

International activist Assa Traore, whose brother Adama was killed in French police custody four years ago, was given the BET Global Good award on Sunday.

Traore thanked BET, an American television channel dedicated to African-American and minority people, for the award, calling it “an acknowledgment of our fight.”

“It’s an acknowledgment for all the victims, for all the families who keep fighting for truth and justice,” she said in a video message played during the virtual awards ceremony.

The award is “BET International’s recognition of public figures who use their platform for social responsibility and goodness while demonstrating a commitment to the welfare of the global Black community,” according to the channel’s website.

Before her brother’s death, Traore, who has been dubbed the French Angela Davis after the US political activist, had never been someone who campaigned for a cause.

But the 35-year-old mother of three was thrust into the heart of the global fight against police violence and racism by the death in Minneapolis police custody last month of George Floyd.

For four years, she campaigned, organized demonstrations, spoke out publicly and gave numerous interviews after alleging her brother was killed by the police. An investigation is still ongoing.

For a long time, the “Adama fight” remained a local battle unnoticed outside France. But the death of George Floyd has catapulted it into the global consciousness.

Thousands of people demonstrated in Paris in early June and hundreds of others took to the streets across France against racism.

“In the name of my brother, I will change everything I can change,” Traore told AFP on Saturday.

Source: France’s Assa Traore honoured for her anti-racism activism at BET Awards

Site helps owners plan dog-friendly trips in France

As French residents are encouraged to take holidays in France this summer post-Covid-19, a website is helping dog-owners plan holidays with their pets, sharing dog-friendly listings around the country.

Emmène ton chien (Bring Your Dog), launched by Sophie Morche, has around 100,000 monthly visitors – known as “Wouafers” – who search the site find to dog-friendly places to visit in France, as approved by other members.

Ms Morche says visitors can share places that have made their dogs “really welcome” in France. Dog-friendly establishments are then given a rating from 1-4 on the website’s “Qualidog” scale, depending on how positive users’ experiences have been.

Information provided on the site includes how many dogs can be allowed into a dog-friendly establishment at once, what size dogs are welcome, and whether services – such as bowls and dog pads – are provided. It also answers questions such as which campsites allow dogs in onsite restaurants, and which holiday cottages have dog-gardens. 

Five years ago, Ms Morche adopted her own dog and quickly found: “Finding dog-friendly places wasn’t simple. Often you don’t know what the welcome will be like when you go somewhere. My dog is a member, and a full part, of my family. There are about 18 million people in the same situation [in France], and we shouldn’t apologise for wanting to go on holiday with the whole family!”

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As well as accommodation and restaurants, emmenetonchien.com includes popular destinations in France, such as tourist sites and physical activity centres. It also has listings for activities specifically for dogs, such as agility courses and even dog massages. 

For places that want to improve their “Qualidog” rating, the site also offers advice on how to better welcome dog owners. 

Source: Site helps owners plan dog-friendly trips in France

From Pope Joan to … Anne

Quel lien entre la figure légendaire de la papesse Jeanne et la théologienne Anne Soupa, qui a fait acte de candidature au siège épiscopal de Lyon ?

What is the link between the legendary figure of Pope Joan and the theologian Anne Soupa, who applied for the Episcopal See in Lyon? No. If only once again – certainly, in a less romantic way – the question of the place of women in the Roman Catholic Church is raised. 

A few weeks ago, Anne Soupa, a recognized theologian, applied for the Episcopal office in Lyon. Since then and in France alone, more than fifteen thousand people have supported its initiative. The courage of this act is only one of the possible responses to the permanent scandal of the place of women in the Catholic Church, they who constitute the vast majority of the lifeblood of the communities. The denunciation of such a scandal once again underlines the age-old resistance of male clericalism and its desire to save at all costs an omniscient power at the expense of the service and pastoral needs of the baptized while the model of the priesthood, versusTridentine, is out of breath in a very large part of Roman Christendom. The personal and media gesture of Anne (Soupa) easily refers the historian to the legendary papess Jeanne who would not have been satisfied with a cathedron but would have squarely occupied the pontifical throne (1) .

La papesse Jeanne (illumination, 1450), Ms. 033, f. 69v, Spencer Collection, New York

Without knowing how and why this legend was born, perhaps at the end of the 10th century, it was around 1255 that Jean de Mailly clearly mentioned it in his Universal Chronicle. Of German origin, Jeanne is said to have studied and traveled across Europe. Disguised as a man, she would have become a notary at the pontifical court, then a cardinal, elected pope in 855 before giving birth publicly in 858 and perhaps dying as a result of her childbirth; unless it has been stoned or simply laid down. This amazing story would not have lived until the 16th century if the faithful themselves had not believed in it, sometimes slyly diverting the meaning of symbols. For example, the presence of two curule seats during the election of the pope, mark of the collegiality of the curia, was transformed for one into a pierced chair which, since the usurpation of Joan, would have enabled a cleric to verify the presence of male attributes of each new pope. “Duets habet and bene pendentes”the auditor would have cheered in a very carnivalesque and joyfully anticlerical scene. Similarly, the detour undertaken by the procession during the pontifical coronation between the Lateran and the Colosseum was interpreted as avoiding the place where Jeanne had given birth to her child while she was on horseback.

For its part, the Church supported for a long time, especially through Dominican literature, but hollow the existence of Pope Joan. It allowed him to make this episode an exemplum, a sort of story with moral value by vilifying the cross-dressing. She also drew an argument from it during successive crises of the papacy, especially during the Great Schism of the end of the 14th century with the simultaneous presence of several popes. If unworthy candidates could therefore access the throne of Peter they could also be deposed. In turn, the Lutherans used this figure to denounce the excesses of the Roman institution and its discredit while Calvin for his part stressed that Joan had ended the apostolic succession. It was only then that Rome, aided by the scholarship of the Jesuits, proved at the end of the 16th century that Joan had never existed.

Far be it from me to use the figure of the Pope in my turn to support positive denunciation and above all the claim of Anne Soupa. His fight deserves much better than that even if History can be of some help to him in this field. It will be noted simply that since this announcement, it is radio silence on the side of the French episcopal conference which never reacts when a problem disturbs it. Only a few second knives have tried laboriously to explain that the ecclesial and hierarchical structure of the Church came from the will of God herself. Will that they know better than anyone, probably thanks to their ordination. It is therefore always and again the place of women in real positions of responsibility that is posed in the face of rules written by and for men. Even if still very timidly,

In fact from Anne to Jeanne, a personal pronoun was lost. This “I” which resonates in the nave and in the choir not only as a legitimate claim but as an imperative pastoral necessity and an urgent theological rereading.

Alain Cabantous

Source: DE JEANNE À… ANNE – Saint-Merry