Mildrade Cherfils

Mildrade Cherfils covers France for GlobalPost. Before moving to France in 2003, Cherfils worked in New York and Miami for the Associated Press, where she documented the plight of mostly...

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Mildrade Cherfils's Notebook:

November 16, 2009 18:09 ET | Updated: November 16, 2009 18:10 ET

If all publicity is good publicity…

An internet company’s publicity stunt to distribute free money on the city’s streets over the weekend incited a near-riot when the event had to be scrapped after thousands of people showed up for the giveaway.

Video footage showed people brawling in the streets near the Eiffel Tower, turning over a car, knocking down street signs and hurtling rocks as police in riot gear moved in. Nine people were arrested, according to news reports.

Now, authorities are trying to determine what charges, if any, Mailorama.fr should face in light of the havoc that resulted from its plan to distribute small bills ranging from 5 to 500 euros. Law enforcement officials are considering charging the parent company, Rentabiliweb, for damages.

The company denies any responsibility saying in a press release that it had received prior police authorization to carry out the operation but the authorities changed their minds at the last minute and encouraged them to cancel the distribution. A lawyer for the company said either the police should have denied the company’s request in the first place or been prepared to handle the disorder.

Though an estimated 5,000 people turned out on Saturday, some people had criticized the effort as a lowbrow stunt that portrayed the country negatively. Either way, the company achieved its aim of getting free publicity. 

The company has said it will donate the funds to a charity organization that fights against poverty and exclusion.

November 4, 2009 14:10 ET | Updated: November 4, 2009 14:18 ET

French intellectual's death leaves giant shoes to fill

In tributes acknowledging his contribution to intellectual life in France and the world, Claude Levi-Strauss has been called a “giant,” and “one of the greatest ethnologists of all time.”  President Nicolas Sarkozy described the centenarian who was regarded as the father of modern anthropology and who died just weeks shy of his 101st birthday, as “a tireless humanist," a curious and free-thinker who was always in search of knowledge.

More extraordinary than being honored after one has passed is receiving such accolades while one is still living.

Though he mainly stayed out of the public eye in his later years,  Levi-Strauss' 100th birthday was a widely celebrated affair last Nov. 28 with an exhibit at the Quai Branly Museum in Paris and tributes in dozens of countries. I happened upon the Paris event quite by chance. I'd gone to the museum in search of another French intellectual with three names, Bernard-Henri Levy, who was among the more than 100 French public figures tapped to take turns reading from Levi-Strauss’ works.  I wanted to introduce myself, tell him about a not-yet-launched venture called GlobalPost and see if he wanted to contribute any thoughts about the recent U.S. election.

I spent my first visit to the museum known for exhibiting indigenous artwork expecting to round every corner and come face-to-face with a flamboyant middle-aged Frenchman, with wild salt-and-pepper hair, wearing a white, button down collar shirt, with a few of the top buttons undone, blue jeans and a black blazer.  In the caricature of Levy — a writer, pundit and personality known as BHL — that I had invented, I expected him to be surrounded by an entourage of tall, beautiful women, all dressed in black, a different image from what I was observing and learning of the erudite Levi-Strauss.

In space after space, throughout the museum, I discovered photographs and objects Levi-Strauss had brought back from various trips through the Amazon and the Americas. I listened to the broadcast of a radio station that had set up a studio in the museum's lobby and featured guests debating live on the air the anthropologists' pivotal works. In various corners, I stood shoulder to shoulder with museum visitors who'd waited in long lines and now strained to hear passages from Levi-Strauss' works as they were read by French personalities. I didn't recognize anyone, but the murmurs and movements of the crowd sometimes indicated that someone important was nearby. 

The whole event was the kind of tribute one would expect to see long after someone has passed away. But Levi-Strauss was very much alive. In fact, Sarkozy had visited him that day at his Paris home "to express the gratitude and appreciation of the entire nation."

I discovered a little of Levi-Strauss that day but never found BHL, not at the musem nor at the cafe, Les Deux Magots, where I ventured the next day. I had been told BHL liked to hang out at the old left bank haunt of Ernest Hemingway, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.

I wonder now, with Levi-Strauss' passing, who will pick up the torch. No figure that I know of is dominating the French intellectual scene of the 21st century the way Levi-Strauss apparently did in the 20th, by all accounts. As part of the birthday tribute last year, BHL contemplated in an essay published online what place Levi-Strauss would inhabit in the stratosphere of contemporary ideas. I can't help but wonder if BHL is thinking the same now, but about his own place. Is a celebrity intellectual the next incarnation of the country's great thinkers? Can we still call it France if there aren't any chain-smoking sophisticates sitting in cafes debating lofty ideas? 

Preoccupations are different today and the president's tribute message hinted at the world as Levi-Strauss came to see it. "Recently, he expressed grave concern at the disappearance of many living plant and animal species, and wondered about the changing world and the impact of human activities on Earth," the message said.

The scholar lamented the effects of globalization and offered this gloomy prediction in a statement that's been cited often in the last days: “The world began without man, and will end without him.”

I wonder which intellectuals are sitting around right now debating global warming.

 

October 22, 2009 19:29 ET

French president's son won't seek business district chairmanship

A composed and bespectacled Jean Sarkozy announced during a television interview that he would no longer seek to head the agency that managed one of Europe’s most important business districts. He said he did not want his election tainted by suspicions of nepotism. He will seek an administrative role instead.

The 23-year-old said he came to the decision on his own, after enduring what he called a campaign of "misinformation." Before deciding on the position, he said, he listened to the opinions of voters, reflected and also discussed the matter with his father, President Nicolas Sarkozy.

"If the question you are asking me is: Did you speak to the president, no. Have I have spoken with my father, yes," the younger Sarkozy told France 2's David Pujadas. "He is like every father and I am like every son. And of course, in difficult moments, we talk."

The second-year law student said he was not a collector of titles and did not launch the campaign for money. His only motivation in seeking the chairmanship of the La Defense business district, he said, was to serve.

His candidacy sparked a huge outcry from political rivals and many French citizens, who cited Jean Sarkozy's age and lack of professional experience among the reasons for opposing his pursuit of the chairmanship.

October 12, 2009 18:08 ET | Updated: October 13, 2009 00:18 ET

Cries of nepotism as Sarkozy's son, 23, is considered for top post

A 23-year-old second-year law school student is being considered for the job of leading an agency that manages an important financial district that is home to some of Europe's biggest businesses.

But he's not just any 23-year-old. His last name happens to be Sarkozy and his father happens to be the French president.

The results of this saga are loud cries of nepotism, widespread criticism and ridicule, and an Internet petition that has garnered more than 27,000 signatures against Jean Sarkozy’s candidacy since the site was created last Thursday, according to the newspaper, Le Monde.

Online posts have sarcastically called for the younger Sarkozy to receive the Nobel Peace Prize instead of President Barack Obama. One suggested Brad Pitt drops everything to play the younger Sarkozy in a future Spielberg film.

Conservative leaders have defended Jean Sarkozy's candidacy to lead La Defense's business district, where corporations like the oil giant Total and Societe Generale bank have their headquarters, citing that he already holds elected office on the regional council of the Hauts-de-Seine area, representing a part of the upscale western Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine. His father was the commune's mayor for 19 years.

Some members of the leftist Socialist party have been quite vocal in their criticism. "If he did not have the name he has, would he be where he is today?" a "shocked" Segolene Royal told France's RTL radio over the weekend. Other politicians have criticized the nomination because of Jean Sarkozy's lack of experience or a diploma and his age.

Jean Sarkozy told Le Parisien newspaper that he has always been criticized ever since he entered politics and the criticism is something he has come to expect. "But I am determined, very motivated," he said.  It has not gone unnoticed that most of the "biased" attacks are coming from the left, he said.

President Nicolas Sarkozy has not issued any statement on the matter. The vote on the chairmanship is set for Dec. 4.

October 9, 2009 12:57 ET

French culture minister stands his ground, warns against confusing pedophilia with homosexuality

The uproar started with the French culture minister defending Roman Polanski following the filmmaker's arrest in Zurich, but has now escalated to insinuations that Frederic Mitterand is a pedophile.

Calls are mounting for his resignation, especially by political rivals, over a passage he wrote in a book in 2005 describing how he paid for sex with “boys” in Thailand. But the minister said he will not resign.

Mitterand, who is openly gay, appeared on French television channel TF1 to defend himself against accusations that he had sex with young boys or that he committed "sexually deviant acts," saying he may have erred in the past but that he never committed any crime. He also condemned sexual tourism, calling it a disgrace.

The word choice of “garcon,” meaning boy, in a passage in his semi-autobiographical, semi-fictional book, “The Bad Life,” is at the core of the issue. Mitterand insisted that his sexual partners were of age and not “little boys.” He called for people not to “confuse pedophilia with homosexuality.”

One well-quoted passage from the book reads: “The profusion of very attractive boys, immediately available, put me in a state of desire that I no longer had to restrain or conceal.”

Mitterand, who joined Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP government earlier this year, is the nephew of former left-leaning Socialist French president, Francois Mitterand. The far-right wing National Front is seeking Mitterand's resignation and some Socialist party leaders have also been critical. The minister, who is standing his ground, said he met with his boss, the president, and has Sarkozy's support.

The French magazine, Le Nouvel Observateur, reported that the president previously read the book and did not have a problem with it, even calling the work "courageous and talented."