Saturday, April 08, 2006

Ségolène Again

In a January post, I predicted that Ségolène Royal would be the next Présidente de la République. The Ségolène buzz hit the British press in March, and has now reached the New York Times, where you can "read all about it" and see a great photo of the future candidate.

The French may be ready to elect a woman, but I have noticed one intriguing detail. The public always calls French hommes politiques by their last names: Chirac, de Villepin, Sarkozy, Jospin. But Mme Royal is known as Ségolène.

3 comments:

wcs said...

You might also notice that in the US, the press and other politicians always refer to their colleagues by their titles and last names (Senator Hatch, Congressman DeLay, Governor Pataki, etc.) except when they don't.

Examples: Senator Clinton is frequently referred to as simply "Hillary"; Reverand Jackson becomes just "Jesse". Is it sexism/racism? Is it a conscious attempt to belittle a political opponent? Is it sub-conscious paternalism? I don't know, but it's interesting...

Sam said...

That is a funny remark - Royal might bring back too many memories of the Revolution, lol!

Anonymous said...

Are you sure it's because she's a woman? Could it be because her first name is so intriguing?
Nicolas, Jacques and Dominique are not that unique.