How does she compare to Hilary?
It was very interesting to watch the television debate between Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal with two Americans. Both bright, well-read people, both psychologists from Virginia on a visit to Europe – their first in ten years. Neither knew anything about Royal, apart from that she is a woman, one had read a profile of Sarkozy in the Boston Globe from which he’d understood Sarkozy is on the right and proud of being photographed with Bush (which classified him as unspeakable as far as my visitors were concerned). Earlier, on the drive up from the airport, I had tried to help by comparing him with Nixon – tricky, slippery as soap in the bath and possibly dishonest. When they saw him in the debate they immediately understood. With the quite wonderful film “The Life of Others” being in everyone’s mind, the idea of a president bugging people (something Mitterrand did too) is easy to imagine.
The first thing they noticed was how long each candidate talked – four or five minutes each. “30 seconds is the maximum a listener can take in information, that’s what the studies show.” He means American studies done on Americans, it would be interesting to know if the same work has been done on different nationalities. But generally he’s probably right. Certainly the concept of sound bytes has not hit France, where every event from the opening of an art exhibition to a major birthday is marked by interminable speeches by five or six people. Sound bytes may force the mind into superficiality, but that may be better than the alternative, palpable in this debate as each candidate changed subject in mid-sentence, rolling from statistics to anecdotes, drawing conclusions from single incidents (one police woman raped on the way home means the country is suffering from a shortage of civil servants). Even if the language was not a problem, the logic was sometimes hard to follow. This morning several French blogs admit they lost the thread at times, or simply gave up. As my French wife said, we’ve heard it all before anyway.
The most interesting thing was to see it from the Martian’s (or visiting Americans’) point of view. The boxing-ring set, the absurdity of the broadcaster’s perfectly serious opening announcement that we were about to take part in a key moment in the history of France, that the entire world was watching (meaning even people in France profonde). When my American guests saw the presenters – both stars in their own country – they could not suppress a guffaw of laughter. It’s true that trying to look suitably solemn both looked deeply bored to be hosting this ‘key moment of French history’, but then I find other countries’ TV presenters generally look odd, they all seem to think that their position needs a non-human gravitas so they never look like you or me – well, you, anyway.
The result of confrontation? Royal was better than I expected, she held her own against Sarkozy, who managed to keep his temper. She was especially good on social issues (always her strong point), a bit woolly on economics. But Sarkozy’s other speciality (when he’s not being aggressive) is to play the victim (“Why do people hate me so much?”), his extraordinary eye-brows enabling him to show innocent surprise that people should take against him. Maybe that’s why ten days ago more women voted for him than voted for Royal.
May 3rd, 2007 at 5:38 am
I was utterly confused by Ms. Royal. Until this very moment, I am asking if she plans on reducing the number of public sector workers or raising them, since she seemed to have argued both sides. And planning to scrap nuclear power in favour of a feasible technology which has NOT yet been invented was equally baffling. I prefer clarity, not just the use of grandiose terms to appeal to the heart and ignore the question being asked, and for that reason, I would have to say Sarkozy was the winner.
May 3rd, 2007 at 8:05 am
So how does she compare to Hillary?
Psychologically, Sarkozy’s passive-aggressive stance put Royal at a disadvantage and in the end her incessant interruptions, showing just how affronted and offended she is by her opponent, undermined her performance.
And what did your visitors think about the equal airtime rule?
May 3rd, 2007 at 10:53 am
To my mind Royal was so bullying, aggressive and (not for the first time) priggish that I felt any sympathy for her draining away and even doubted the authenticity of her outburst over accepting handicapped children in ordinary schools. I can’t even agree that she is “good on social issues” - fine words but where is the money to come from?
May 3rd, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Women against Sarkozy unite! Probably not very fashionable in ‘hupé’ South Ken. Disappointed the american visitors did not know Segolène when John Stewart did. Yes we heard it all before but Madame Royal is not a choice, but a necessity.
May 4th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
She tried to be tough because everybody describes her a the weak woman against the big bad wolf… She succeeded but it was kind of scary.. more of a Condie than Hilary in my mind. Good review… but why would you make fun of the presenters? They are not important and yours are often a very very fun piece of America too.. Another thing, she did well on social matters ? Oh please, her only answer (4/5 times) was “we are going to talk with unions and other representatives”… something we have done for 30 years and that put us on the brink of disappearing as a great power… Sarkozy is a choice, and a necessity.
May 8th, 2007 at 4:01 am
Interesting snippet, but I absolutely miss the relevance of the title. Surely you asked your American guests how they thought Roayl compared to Clinton? The answer to that question is what I’d like to see, especially from someone in France.
Most informed Americans I’ve talked to seem to like Royal a great deal more than Clinton.
Dave