The French try American-style elections (tradition, virtual, experience, Adam)

[Djamila]

Oft elitist French elections try a town-hall style

<snip>
The "judges" – among them a factory worker, a businessman, and a job-hunting college student – were seated under a canopy of television lights. At exactly 8:50 p.m., a throbbing soundtrack filled the studio.

Everyone sat up straighter. Cameras rolled. From stage left, the petitioner – aka presidential candidate Ségolène Royal – strode to a podium.

She smiled and squared her shoulders. And for the next two hours, live on French television last Thursday night, she fielded questions from citizen-judges. Power to the people! Here was direct democracy in action.

That, at least, was the idea...

<snip>
But in a campaign already widely criticized as superficial and media-driven, the tendency of ordinary folk featured on the new political shows to focus on their personal problems has drawn criticism. More often than not, they use their air time to complain about the size of their pensions rather than grill the politicians about the national debt.

"This election has become completely 'mediatique,' with the candidates as media icons," said Erwan Lecoeur, a political analyst at the Observatory of Public Debate, a Paris think tank. "They spend more time answering questions about health-insurance payments for eyeglasses than about foreign affairs."

<snip>
The experience left a sour taste for Monique Khayat, the principal of a public high school in Paris who was chosen by the station's staff as one of the questioners.

She had challenged the candidate about working conditions and pay for teachers, then listened skeptically as Royal criticized the present right-wing government for cutting 125,000 education positions over the past five years.

"So you would add 125,000 positions back?" interrupted Ms. Khayat, in one of the program's rare adversarial comebacks.

"Well, not 125,000 by the start of the next school year," responded Royal. She recovered quickly, however, and said that, if elected, she would certainly try to reinstate 5,000 education-sector jobs.

After the show, Khayat described herself as less than satisfied. "Madame Royal didn't answer the questions, she wasn't clear, and her statements went on and on and on," she said.

<snip>
Past presidential campaigns in France have featured more conventional television appearances by candidates who were questioned by journalists and editorial writers. The big event has always been the traditional live debate between the two candidates who won the most votes in the first round and faced each other in the runoff election.

Those events were considered models of gravity and eloquent language, so much so that a popular new theater production in Paris features two actors reenacting the 1974 and 1981 debates of two former French presidents, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and François Mitterrand.

The trend this time around is a preference for virtual campaigns that cut out the journalists or experts. The candidates all have websites featuring edited videos of their campaign appearances. Nearly all of them have blogs, and they purport to personally answer the questions posed online.

It's a short jump from interactive blogging to televised question-and-answer sessions with panels of real-life citizens, according to critics.

"As applied to the media, 'participatory democracy' is nothing but an efficient way [for politicians] to escape confrontation," said Christophe Barbier, editor of the newsmagazine L'Express, in a recent interview.

Read the whole article here: http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0319/p...eu.html?page=3

What do you think? I believe the French will tire of it quickly, they've never been a people easily amused by "sound bytes"-style campaigns. I don't think it'll be long before the stuffy, aristocratic style returns - as it has in Italy and some other European countries.

[Victor]

Is aristocratic style literally run by families or is there a more modern development of it where only the best, so to speak rule?

I'm not very familiar with this style, so I'm curious.

[Djamila]

Originally Posted by Victor

Is aristocratic style literally run by families or is there a more modern development of it where only the best, so to speak rule?

I'm not very familiar with this style, so I'm curious.

Best of the best for the best, really. And it trickles down into the rest of society most of the time too.

[des]

I see they just voted in an American sort of president. At least I know the Republicans are gleeful at this point.

Hey Djamali (sp?) I've missed you, but enjoyed your photos.


--des