France

Whatever one might say about Sarah Palin, this photograph is disturbing on many, many levels... And, for the people who pay attention to these things, it's a blunder too. Because, you know, seeing Sarah Palin perched on a sofa chattering away with Henry Kissinger emphasises rather than reduces the validity of concerns about her experience and knowledge. Daft.

Visiting friends or family with small children? Stuck for a present (toy drums and trumpets are not, I believe, generally considered thoughtful)? Well, my default gift is a collection of Jean de Brunhoff's wonderful Babar books. You cannot, in my view, and that of most tiny children, go wrong with Babar. So, amidst all the sturm und drang on Wall St and the hurly-burly of the American presidential campaign, it was a relief to be able to turn to Adam Gopnik's lovely essay on Babar in this week's edition of the New Yorker. It's a fine, perceptive piece, not just on Babar, but on French culture, colonialism, the bourgeoisie and the differences between British, American and French children's literature.

More baby news: Rachida Dati, the 42 year old French Justice Minister, is, like Bristol Palin, pregnant. As Art Goldhammer says, however, they do things differently in France. Dati says she has no intention of revealing the father's identity and offers this marvellous comment: "I have a very complicated private life, and that's where I draw the line with the press. I won't have anything to say on that subject." Meanwhile, the Times' Charles Bremner has a pop at French hypocrisy vis a vis privacy and the coverage of the Sarkozy administration: The complete silence on the identify of Dati's partner looks more like old-fashioned deference to the governing class. There was another, related, example of the deference phenomenon today.

Art Goldhammer looks at the Democratic convention in Denver and lets loose his imagination... I got to thinking about what would have happened had a comparable scene been staged in France. Just try to imagine Carla Bruni rattling on about her first meeting with Sarkozy at a posh Parisian dinner party. And the family vetting? Would she have brought "Nick" home to meet her sister Valeria, an actress rather than a basketball coach like Michelle's brother, and would Valeria have offered an opinion on Nick's prowess as a persuasive public speaker? And how about the kids? Might Jean Sarkozy have motored on stage aboard his scooter, patted Carla on the rump, and asked an image of "daddy" on the television screen what city he was in?

Via Cato, comes this report from The Times: They turn out in their hundreds in Stetsons and boots as hits such as the Crazy Foot Mambo and the Cowboy Strut echo around their village halls. They are drawn by a love of American culture - although definitely not American politics - and a passion for line dancing... Now country and western has become so big in France that the country's bureaucrats have decided to bring the craze under state control. The French administration has moved to create an official country dancing diploma as part of a drive to regulate the fad. Authorised instructors who have been on publicly funded training courses will be put in charge of line dancing lessons and balls.

Are Paris Saint-Germain the worst football team in Europe? This obviously depends upon how one measures or defines "worst". PSG, despite another appalling season, would (thankfully) still be expected to defeat, say, Shamrock Rovers. But in a pound-for-pound sense is there a more pathetic club in europe?I's not just that they only narrowly avoided relegation this season, it's that they continue to squander resources. Even when they were owned by Canal Plus, PSG under-performed. Indeed, since the club was formed in 1970 they've only won the French championship twice (in 1986 and 1994), despite being one of the richest clubs in France and the only major club in Paris.

As an addition to this post on wartime France, Clive Davis directs one to this Max Hastings op-ed from a couple of years ago that makes similar points: Hearing a recent conversation about collaboration, I made myself unpopular by suggesting that, if Britain had succumbed to Nazi rule, our own people would have behaved pretty much as the French did. Anthony Eden is seldom quoted with respect these days. Yet the former foreign secretary made an impressive contribution to Marcel Ophüls' great film on wartime France, Le Chagrin et la Pitié. He said, in impeccable French: "It would be impertinent for any country that has never suffered occupation to pass judgment on one that did." Here was wisdom.

Marty Peretz links to this Daily Mail account of an exhibition of photographs taken in wartime Paris which is, for obvious reasons, a matter of some debate in France. And yes, the photographs are shocking. Just not in the way in which either Peretz or the Mail seem to think they are. The Mail headline, subtle as ever, is "Oh what a lovely war! The dazzling photos of innocent Parisian fun that make the French so ashamed" while Marty titles his post, "What the Nazi Occupation of France was Really Like". Here, for instance, is a photograph of three mademoiselles relaxing in the Luxembourg, circa 1942. How, the Mail wants us to ask, can these young Frogs be so blithe and innocent and carefree while their country is occupied y Nazi Germany and most of europe is ablaze?

Here's The Economist reporting developments in France: THE Gaullist backlash against Nicolas Sarkozy's new Atlanticism has begun in earnest, and its new poster boy is Dominique de Villepin... Not only did he denounce the French president's decision, which was warmly greeted by George Bush at last week's NATO summit in Bucharest, to send an extra French battalion (some 700 troops) to Afghanistan. He went on to chastise Sarkozy for planning to reintegrate France into NATO's military command structure. "Not only is the return of France to NATO not in our country's interests, but I also think it's dangerous," he said: "We will lose space to manoeuvre, space to be independent" as well as "an ability to act alone". NATO, after all, he said "is an organisation under American domination".

Daniel Drezner praises Elaine Sciolino, who is leaving Paris after five years as the New York Times' correspondent, as a "fine reporter/observer". Not so fast, cautions Arthur Goldhammer: Her swan song reminds us why she will not be missed. For our national newspaper's chief correspondent, France means above all sexy underwear, friendly butchers, nasty haberdashers, handkissing, and other quaintnesses. La grande Nation is a dotty old aunt best captured in droll anecdotes. Now, to be sure, Madame Sciolino's farewell despatch is meant to be whimsical, even jolly. Alas, it's simply cliched, banal and, appallingly, stuffed with name-dropping. More to the point, it's also supposed to demonstrate how peculiarly funny and odd the French are.

Since the British press have been having all sorts of fun over the "snub"*  Gordon Brown thanks to a canceled meeting with John McCain it's worth noting that press sillyness is not confined to the anglosphere by any means. Art Goldhammer has the details: Le Figaro has a perfidious piece on Ségolène Royal's visit to the US. It leads with the insinuation that she was somehow snubbed by Barack Obama because she attended his rally without obtaining a picture of herself with the candidate. I said yesterday that I would not share my private impressions of Mme Royal, but in this case I will make an exception, because I had a conversation with her about the Obama rally.

An entry for Pseud's Corner. Adam Gopnik on Sarko's romance with Carla Bruni: It is possible to imagine that Sarkozy is not simply a man governed by his impulses and appetites but one trying to use a situation to make a strategic point. In the past, all French politicians were involved in an organized hypocrisy, where mistresses were known, and hidden with a wink. Just as Tony Blair used the cold body of Princess Diana to underline the need for a departure from the national habit of perpetual emotional postponement, Sarko conceivably is using the very warm body of Bruni to make the point that the French need to escape from their habit of perpetual cloaked privilege—of allowing an educated élite to have prerogatives and manners different from the great mass of the people.

So, unsurprisingly, Time Magazine's cover story (international edition) on The Death of French Culture is making waves on the eastern side of the Atlantic (once upon a time, Time might have devoted space to French culture in its US edition: that it wouldn't dream of doing so now tells us as much about the United States as it does about France). Given that all countries enjoy introspection - what's the subject of any attempt at writing the fabled Great American Novel, if not America herself? - it's not shocking that Le Figaro should devote three pages to responding to Don Morrison's silly, exaggerated article. Silly and exaggerrated and irritating, I mean.

The always-excellent Arthur Goldhammer on Nicolas Sarkozy's latest appearance: Sarkozy had another one of his marathon chats with les tribunes du peuple, or what passes for such in the media age: telejournalists. It was an odd performance. The Élysée doesn't really suit its current incumbent. Its rococo excess makes a strange contrast with his blunt language. He cannot bring himself to sit up straight, despite chairs that would seem to require it. He slouches and squirms, and one keeps expecting to hear the voice of an admonishing parent: "Sit up straight, Nicolas!