The Sun giddily reports:
French Going Wild For Senator Kerry In Election Fever‘A CERTAIN ELEGANCE’ IS SEEN
If November’s presidential election were being held here, there’s no doubt that Mr. Kerry, the Massachusetts senator and Democratic candidate, would win by a landslide.
“People are going crazy. My phone is ringing from morning to night because everybody wants to know about Kerry,” said the head of the France chapter of Democrats Abroad, Constance Borde. “I’m even getting calls from French people asking if they can contribute to the campaign, and of course I have to tell them no.This is something I’ve never seen happening.”
-But in Mr. Kerry, the French seem to have found an American they can embrace.
-Mrs. Borde said the French see in Mr. Kerry the kind of leader they are more accustomed to.
Oui! Oui, et il se rend bien aussi!
- Mr. Kerry’s connection with France dates back to his youth, when he spent summers with a flock of cousins in St-Briac-sur-Mer, a summer resort town where his maternal grandfather had built an estate.James Grant Forbes, an international lawyer and banker,settled there with his wife, Margaret Winthrop, in 1908. The couple raised 11 children, including Mr. Kerry’s mother.
Their rambling cliffside property, called “Les Essarts,” was destroyed when Nazi troops occupied St-Briac, but Mr. Kerry’s grandfather rebuilt the estate and it became a regular summer haunt of far-flung relatives.
-One of Mr. Kerry’s cousins, 58-yearold Brice Lalonde, is a former French environment minister and now mayor of St-Briac.In an article in L’Express under the headline “My cousin JFK,” Mr. Lalonde recently wrote of how Mr. Kerry always took charge of his cousins’ activities when he visited the estate.
Still, Mr. Kerry has not returned to St-Briac in 20 years. At the height of American-French tensions last year, he skipped a family reunion that saw more than 200 relatives gather at the estate.
Oh-la-la! Le flip-flop!
Posted by feste at March 16, 2004 03:47 PM | TrackBack