-Caveat Lector- Now I understand *why* I'm not really upset at Billio, rather disappointed in his inability be good at avoiding perils: too many years as a Francophile. Again, as G Ferraro put it, if stupidity were grounds for impeachment ... >From Int'l Herald Tribune Paris, Saturday, January 9, 1999 Behind the Ridicule, the French May See Peril in Too Much Truth ------------------------------------------------------------------------ By John Vinocur International Herald Tribune ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PARIS - ''Truths!'' Charles de Gaulle is supposed to have shouted. ''Did you think I could have created a (Free French) government against the English and the Americans with truths? You make History with ambition, not with truths.'' The quote is from a new book by Thierry Pfister, a French editor, who uses it to illustrate his thesis that for the French mind, lying in politics is the norm, and that anyone trying to attach a standard of truthfulness to a politician's behavior is naive and worthy of contempt. The general, he suggests, said as much. This is part of Mr. Pfister's explanation of why he believes the French, and particularly France's elites, do not understand how President Bill Clinton could be impeached. He says that the French elite is terrified by the case's implications for its privileges, and that this is the reason, much more than in other democratic countries, that the yearlong reaction here to the impeachment process has been one of ridicule, self-satisfied righteousness, and feigned concern for the future of the United States. For the French elite, Mr. Pfister maintains, ''there are virtually no consequences for lying. It's O.K.'' Certainly nowhere in or outside the United States has the handling of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal been held up as a model of civic procedure. But in France, the circumstances are seen, Mr. Pfister says, as an ongoing means to contrast ''a reactionary American puritanism against progressive French tolerance.'' This week, while CNN's commentators were talking about the solemnity of the opening public proceedings in the Senate, the anchorman on the France 3 state television news at 11 P.M. was describing it as ''a lamentable show.'' In a Page One editorial accompanying the Clinton trial, Le Figaro cried out, ''Wake up, Tocqueville, they've gone mad. When you look at the distressing spectacle that American democracy is offering, you say to yourself that the man who described it best must not be very comfortable up there in the heavens.'' For Mr. Pfister, who served as spokesman for former Prime Minister Pierre Mauroy in President Francois Mitterrand's first Socialist government and as a writer for Le Monde and Le Nouvel Observateur magazine, there is more political lying in France than in other democracies because its democratic culture is weaker. In this context, he said in an interview, a historical climate of lies involving the reaction of the French to the Nazi occupation, the French colonial war in Algeria, and the corruption of the Mitterrand years, makes Bill Clinton's vulnerability for alleged lying under oath an almost otherworldly matter here. ''That's why the situation is incomprehensible for French public opinion,'' Mr. Pfister wrote. ''Punishing lies - what naivete!'' Among its officials, ''France has a cult of lying,'' Mr. Pfister insists. ''With us, lying gets a good press,'' he said. ''Some see it as a Latin characteristic, others as the sign of a superior civilization.'' He said, ''Attempting to limit its use makes you look ridiculous. Playing Don Quixote is the equivalent of confronting standard social usage, discussed from time to time, but never really brought into question.'' No particular fan of an American model, Mr. Pfister describes the investigation of Mr. Clinton by Kenneth Starr as partisan, inspired by the right wing of the Republican Party, and using inquisition-like methods. But he goes after the notion that there was some kind of elegance or refinement in the political circumstances that allowed Mr. Mitterrand to keep his double family life from public knowledge, at the same time that he published innocuous health bulletins that hid his developing cancer. The French were treated not so much as citizens, but infantile subjects, the writer said. If it was fine that the French hardly seemed disturbed on learning about Mr. Mitterrand's second family after his death, Mr. Pfister argued ''it is nonetheless unacceptable that the news was delivered to them so late.'' ''The reality is that it is this contempt, this institutional dissimulating that is being defended by everyone running to Bill Clinton's defense.'' Mr. Pfister singled out the Socialist president of the foreign affairs commission of the National Assembly, Jack Lang, as an example of the French public and media figures who were expressing shock about a so-called re-birth of McCarthyism in the United States, while their concerns, he said, were obviously elsewhere. ''It's not the drift of the American system that concerns them, but the risk of contamination. Suppose they were required tomorrow to give explanations?'' ''The Americans, British, Germans, Spanish, they all know that things can turn around against them, and that exercising responsibilities involves risks. Explanations are demanded of them, even on their private lives if they become controversial. That's the price that Clinton is paying because it's the price of democracy.'' Mr. Pfister's book, ''Lettre Ouverte aux Gardiens du Mensonge'' (Open Letter to the Keepers of the Lie) is published by Albin Michel. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ A<>E<>R The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. 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