Philippe Labro is a writer, filmmaker and journalist. Every Friday, for CNEWS, he comments on what he saw, experienced and observed during the week. A subjective and free notepad.
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 1
Seven months. On this first day of September, the countdown is on: there are barely more than seven months before the presidential election. Depending on your approach to time and politics, you are entitled to say, “It’s tomorrow.” Or on the contrary: “It’s still a long way off.” Events, this “unexpected” that regulates part of our existence, will dictate everything, of course.
For now, polls indicate that Ms. Le Pen and Mr. Macron could come face to face again, but public opinion does not seem to want it. So the “observers” scrutinize the other candidates. Bertrand, Pécresse, Mélenchon, Barnier, Hidalgo and many others. We even feel the desire to see the emergence of a stranger, a spoiler. And then, another truth, the polls are only photographs of the moment. Very clever the one who can say what the decisive ones of January and February will look like.
Another question: are the French really interested in this news? Listen to them, in the street, at the bistro, at the office… What are they saying? They talk about the health pass, the start of the school year, the return to “normal life”. They are concerned about drugs and insecurity. They weren’t necessarily fascinated by the “transfer window”. What a pain, this transfer window! It seems to me that by dint of evoking the millions offered for this or that footballer, we forget the sport. We feel the urge to yell: “Enough talk money!” Let’s talk about the terrain, about the talent. ” In the same vein, we do not give enough pride to the exploits of French athletes at the Paralympic Games in Tokyo. They win the medals, these brave sportsmen who have decided to overcome their handicap with passion, courage and abnegation.
THURSDAY 2 AND FRIDAY 3 SEPTEMBER
Should we write “poor Joe Biden”? I watched all of her TV appearances on CNN. Slow, tired, fragile, searching for his words, his voice a little too low, his gaze a little too shifty. He emerges weakened from the American fiasco in Afghanistan. He persists in talking about the “historic” success of the airlift and the remarkable work of his troops. Certainly. But can we speak of “success”?
Republicans, since the start of his term, have been looking for the right angle to attack the man. They now have a boulevard in front of them. They are fine with blaming him for everything, when the criticism should be broadened to more than twenty years of mistakes. But it is Biden who is in power, and therefore it is he who receives the lightning. And it is fatal. We come to compare him to Jimmy Carter who, for many Americans (and not only on the Republican side), has always embodied indecision and weakness. A lack of energy, of testosterone – the most vicious even dared to say that Carter was the first “female president” in their history.
All this is ugly and does not bode well for the midterm elections in the fall of 2022. For me, the main criticism that we could make him is his lack of compassion towards the Afghans left behind. and who will suffer the barbarity of the Taliban. Few lines have been devoted to the murder of a folk singer from the Andarab valley. His name was Fawad Andarabi. He sang of the beauty of his country, the heritage of his ancestors. He was shot in the head. Among the Taliban, we do not sing, Sir, we kill … We hear, here and there, the adjectives “moderate Taliban”, “inclusive Taliban” … What a huge joke!
To come back to Biden, let’s not forget that his country has always known how to overcome the most cruel tests. We will soon be commemorating the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, this “Nine Eleven” which has become a common expression of the American language. America recovered from it. China and Russia can, for now, rub their hands – they should not ignore this resilience, this rebound capacity that has always been one of the United States’ greatest virtues.