This weekend I talked less than I have in my entire life. I spent the weekend with my friend’s family, which lives outside of Paris. Only a few of them spoke English, so I smiled and nodded and tried to decipher the conversations as I devoured some amazing French food. I couldn’t complain.
One of her cousins spoke English, and we started talking about our respective elections — the American election that has now culminated in a new presidency, and the current French election.
Once we got past the obvious grumbling of the current American president, she started talking about the current investigation on French presidential candidate Francois Fillon.
She told me Fillon, a center-right candidate, was recently caught in a scandal about alleged fake jobs for family members, including his wife and two children. According to an article in the Guardian, his family members were paid 900,000€, $966,780, of public money for work they allegedly did not do.
She said his center-right politics concerned her even before the scandal because of his policies. Hearing her talk about how concerned she was about her country was a breath of fresh air from the judgmental looks and statements most people have given me whenever I have brought up politics in Europe.
The French presidential candidacy has parallels to our own with the right wing politics with periods of favorable lead but plagued by scandal. Fillon is planning on continuing his campaign, and according to an article in the New York Times, he has lashed out at those calling for him to drop out.
The article describes him as defiant, digging in his heels and consistently denying any wrongdoing on his part in the scandal. His wife, Penelope, spoke earlier this month about how she carried out “very different tasks” for her husband as a parliamentary assistant.
Though at different levels, it’s funny to me to hear about this French Republican presidential candidate in scandal, similar to our current president who was in the throes of multiple scandals. The French Republican party has for the most part dismissed the allegations against him, which some Frenchmen have shown their frustration about.
It’s the same story no matter what country we’re in. Political scandal has become something of unimportance, and the character of a candidate is not what it used to be. It’s disappointing to be surrounded by so much indifference, be it in the direct political sphere or talking about it with people who hear about these lacks in character and either don’t learn about it, or worse, don’t care and vote anyway.
Hearing the grievances of European politics reminds me of how the United States is not alone. It was nice to complain for a minute and not be the center of the complaining, and there’s some beauty in that.
haask@indiana.edu
