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France: Delusions of Grandeur
Chirac clearly has a distorted view of France's place in the world, based on filtered historical reference and a distorted understanding of how France is perceived today in the world. Arrogance blinds.May 23 issue - Deep in rural France, the ancient village of Sarran (population: 300) boasts a strange museum. It's a 4 million euro building, constructed at the expense of today's French and European taxpayers, and very modern, to be sure. But its spirit harks back to the cabinets de curiosite of the 18th century, in which the great dilettantes of the French Enlightenment accumulated vast eccentric collections that often revealed the hidden corners of their minds. Sarran's cabinet is all about French President Jacques Chirac, who traces his family roots and his political origins to this region of Correze. One of the most notable bits of inventory is the sumo-wrestling collection: figurines, posters, a belt and other tokens of that martial art for light-footed behemoths. To explain his passion for sumo, Chirac once cited a description of the sport as less about contact than contemplating the adversary: when the big moves finally come, the action is so fast that "victory is achieved before we've had the time to know how." Several of Chirac's political rivals have felt that way over the years. "Maybe if I'd started young, I could have done sumo," the 6-foot-3 French president once mused in an interview with the sports newspaper l'Equipe. "I had the necessary height. And the weight? That can be put on." Posted by: planet dan 2005-05-16 |
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