Strasbourg Journal: Mayhem

– By Scott Sayare –
STRASBOURG, France — Anarchists rise before dawn.
They wore black, the skinny, pale 20-somethings, tattooed and pierced, in masks or balaclavas – the “Black Bloc,” they were called. They were German, French, British, Turkish, all rallied around the anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-government cause. They carried red flags marked with the hammer and sickle, [...]

Crossing the border to talk about race

– By Scott Sayare –
PARIS — In France, contrast and contradiction abound. It is a country at once old and new, liberal and conservative, uninhibited and repressed, imbued with the spirit of Révolution and Résistance and yet clinging desperately to an outdated worldview, dreaming of the past. And as the nation of the Gauls undergoes an [...]

“Apartheid” in France, says diversity commissioner

– By Scott Sayare –
PARIS — As Obama’s historic election and inauguration begin to fade from the front pages of the French press, so too does an opportunity to change the country’s culture of quiet, but fierce, racism and xenophobia slip away.
“Today, we’re digging a trench that’s leading us directly to apartheid,” said  Yazid Sabeg, [...]

Listening to “Simple Gifts” in Paris

– By Scott Sayare –
PARIS — The talking heads fell silent, as if swept away by the beauty of the strings, the triumphal harmonies, the graceful bombast of American political theatre. As they watched Obama, live, bundled against the Washington cold, as he smiled to the no-doubt familiar tune of “Simple Gifts,” the French commentators [...]

The indignance of a Socialist Party in its death throes: Even Obama goes unspared.

– By Scott Sayare –
PARIS — As the leaders of the free world clamber to salute and applaud Barack Obama’s historic election, one disgraced French politicienne remains defiant, and defiantly immodest.
“I inspired Barack Obama,” Ségolène Royale told Le Monde, claiming that Obama’s campaign message of unity had been lifted from her own campaign for the [...]

L’Obamanie! Ooh la la…

– By Scott Sayare –
PARIS — No need to look much further than the front page of almost any French paper (Libération, Le Figaro, whose blog calls him “the hope of Europe”), the lead story of any TV newscast, or the cover of any magazine from the past few days (or weeks, even) to understand [...]