France's ugly politics reach Montreal

[Errigal]

"Khadija Doukali of the UMP"
"Fouzia Benyoub of the Socialists"
TU THANH HA reports

Not a lot of third generation cassoulet eaters, eh?

BITTER RACE EXPORTED France's ugly politics reach Montreal

Campaign office of French presidential candidate Sarkozy vandalized


TU THANH HA

MONTREAL -- It has been a bitter presidential election in France, where the campaign posters of conservative candidate Nicolas Sarkozy are often defaced to make him look sinister, or like Adolf Hitler or Dracula.
Those tensions have been echoed in Montreal, where the office of the local Sarkozy campaign has been vandalized.
"We fear the worst," said an indignant Khadija Doukali, the local campaign director for Mr. Sarkozy's UMP party.
The office's door and windows were spray-painted and plastered with anti-Sarkozy signs.


"Not in Canada, not in France, no home for fascists," said one series of signs.
"Sarkozy sacre ton camp d'ici [get the heck out of here]," said another.
The language on the signs was in the colloquial French used in Quebec rather than the language used in France.
This campaign has been the busiest, most intense in Montreal, home of a large expatriate community. This year, about 33,000 were registered as voters in Montreal, twice as many as usual. More than 14,000 voted two weekends ago in the first round.
Unlike their compatriots in France, who made Mr. Sarkozy the front-runner, French citizens in Montreal are more left-leaning, with a plurality voting for Socialist candidate Ségolène Royal.
Supporters of Ms. Royal were welcoming into their ranks yesterday some of the campaigners of the third-ranked, self-described centrist, François Bayrou.
They also got support from prominent lawyer and rights-activist Julius Grey, who urged undecided French voters to vote against Mr. Sarkozy.
"I fear a Thatcherism of France," Mr. Grey said.
Ms. Royal's supporters are also planning a rally Friday night, a full day before French citizens living in Montreal vote on Sunday for the second round of the election.
Fouzia Benyoub, a spokeswoman for the Royal campaign in Montreal, condemned the vandalism of the Sarkozy office.
"It's unacceptable," she said.
Ms. Doukali said a security camera videotaped three men doing the vandalizing yesterday around 3 a.m.
She said she has received threats on her cellphone and that someone cut the natural-gas line at her restaurant. Two weekends ago, as people cast ballots for the first-round vote, she got into a scuffle after trying to remove a poster that compared Mr. Sarkozy to Hitler.
"It's starting to be too many coincidences," she said.
"When is this going to stop?"

source

[Theobald]

This reminds me of a sketch/joke about 3 Arab girls, Fouzia, Khadija and Zoubida... Probably the three worst female Arab first names ROFL
More seriously Montreal - and to a lesser extent the whole Quebec - looks like a leftist (and multicultural) hell... Is this due to the proximity of the Uber-capitalist America and the traditional opposition between French-speaking and English-speaking in America ?

[Susi]

Yeah, I would think so... but the Quebecois are also crazy protective of their culture, so I don't really understand how a multicultural view can come into play within the majority of QC.

[Franze]

How many french voters are there in Montreal?

[Errigal]

Originally Posted by Theobald

This reminds me of a sketch/joke about 3 Arab girls, Fouzia, Khadija and Zoubida... Probably the three worst female Arab first names ROFL
More seriously Montreal - and to a lesser extent the whole Quebec - looks like a leftist (and multicultural) hell... Is this due to the proximity of the Uber-capitalist America and the traditional opposition between French-speaking and English-speaking in America ?

Yes. To give a quick answer I would say the political spectrum in Quebec goes from American capitalist to soft-EU style socialist. By current North American standards they are considered too nationalist and too unwilling to accept globalism, and measured by those standards it is true. In my experience Quebec has a vibrant anti-Semitic tradition which makes Dieudonné a welcome guest at the comedy festival (at least with the audience).

Originally Posted by Peter

How many french voters are there in Montreal?

The Manila Times Internet Edition | WORLD > French in North America vote in large numbers

[Franze]

Originally Posted by A Few Acres of Snow

)



The Manila Times Internet Edition | WORLD > French in North America vote in large numbers

Thanks, very interesting