Is Sarko scum?
"The deaths proved a flashpoint for the frustration and fury of second- and third-generation north and black African immigrants, and spread nationwide, fuelled by remarks of the hardline interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, who called the rioters "scum"." So says the Guardian website in a report dated 11 November (not bad going considering it's 4:10pm on 10 November).
My own characteristically superficial research reveals the word he used was "racaille", which translates more as rabble. Our Paris correspondent says "yes definitely not scum, racaille actually conjures up, in the modern Parisian mind at any rate, what I imagine are what you call chavs". She's been in France a long time, so her Modern English isn't what it was, chavs being definitely not immigrant. Still, the Guardian has decided, Sun-style, to go with the more emotive scum.
Our Paris correspondent continues
"We were so shattered that Sarkozy (it says Fuck Sarko on the wall opposite our gate, painted a couple of nights ago) had said he would expel all foreigners arrested in the rioting, be they with resident permits or without, and so convinced that this would cause an explosion, that my teenage sons both watched the news with me last night because they didn't believe what I'd heard on PM on Radio 4 ..."
As Fred Truman would say, what is going off out there?
posted by Paul Jeremy @ Thursday, November 10, 2005
1 Comments:
From today's (11/11/05) Grauniad profile of Nicolas Sarkozy
"...and promptly promised to rid France's estates of their "rabble" (the word he used was "la racaille", widely and slightly excessively used in the British and American press as "scum")."
You read it here first. The scum word can also be seen on pages 16 and 28 of today's edition of the New Statesman. Unusually for a French politician, Sarko has also suggested positive discrimination. Which is interesting but also sounds like I have some sort of brief for the man. I don't.
Post a Comment
<< Home