Happy early morning, Maurice. On Greenpeace we agree 100%. On all the beauties of France too, on the French army policies just the same. Including the extend of the FR nuclear arsenal. A few posts earlier, I wrote some about the differences I had with them Aristocrats : sentenced by a military court to one year in jail, after one year in army, to do; because we had serious disagreements on some foreign policy matters that couldn't be settled : Algeria, Israel etc. They agreed to throw the towel in (dischagred me : status reserve soldier) when I expressed strong Trotskist (totally fake, but I read the books) tendencies, mixed with un bottomless taste for morphine (just as fake, other books), topics that I was going to agit prop to the black 18 years old French carribean soldiers (I was 28 by then).
So they paid me with 115 Francs and some Captain's insults "espece de petit con" (though he was a foot smaller than me but much more muscular).
Quite a good deal for my three weeks military career, actually 3 hours on three Monday mornings, after 48 hours of jail time.
And I went back to robinsoning for another six months on their beautiful shores.
Now Mitterrand much dissapointed me when we learned, at the end of his life, that he was no hero during WWII, but a collaborationist of Petain gov. The fox, let the files out before his death as to conduct the debate.
So what's left : as a president, he was no thug. As an economist he (and his team) were not worth more than my military wages, as a philosopher, writer, peacenik, he was rather good : he dismantled the military courts. As a lover he deserves credit too, as some ladies have profusely documented - but Giscard did beat him by a squadron; and it is murmured that with ChIrak he was ex-aeco... But on Irak, (read against Irak), he was much better.
So what was his main mistake with the Greenpeace affair ? Over reaction, as he wanted to show France that he was as good a Frenchman as the Right wingers. |
