Traduction en anglais avec les liens idoines de mon article "J'habite un pays. Quelques jours en sarkozie". Merci à Nicolas Belloni pour sa traduction.
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September 13, 2010. I turn on the radio. It is 11:30. I live in a country where the president uses the state's services to spy on a magistrate suspected of being the source of leaks to the press about a case of influence peddling involving – at least – a minister and – probably – the head of the state himself.
It is 13:00. Newsflash. I live in a country where we learn that the magistrate who was also the journalists' "source" is suddenly transferred to French Guyana .
It is 14:00. Reading the newspaper. I live in a country that the United Nations and the European parliament condemned for its policy towards Roma.
I live in a country where the Minister of the Interior issues an illegal, unconstitutional and racist circular . September 13, 2010. It is 15:00. Newsflash. I live in a country where the Minister of the Interior rewrites in haste, the same illegal, unconstitutional and racist circular .
It is 17:00. I live in a country where the Minister of Immigration and National Identity says he had no knowledge about an illegal and racist circular while his parliamentary colleagues explain that France has no lesson to receive from the European Union or the United Nations and that France will continue to solve poverty and immigration problems with illegal and racist circulars.
I live in a country where, when one ignores the circulars coming under his ministry, the others assume them and stand out for them, and the third one hastily rewrites them. Should also say that I live in a country where the Minister of Immigration and National Identity was busy getting married when we found out about this circular illegal and racist. I live in a country where we cannot do two things at once (in french "au four et au moulin"). Jean Dutour and Jean Moulin.
I live in a country where a former executive of the Socialist Party, now the Minister of National Identity of a right-wing government, marries a young Tunisian student in the Department of Immigration, said marriage is solemnized by a former Minister of Justice herself "an immigrant" and who – before her disgrace – long served as a "visible minority" quota of the right-wing government. I live in a country where even the symbols are complicated.
I live in a country where a case involving a Minister is assigned to the prosecution rather than a judge, the prosecutors being accountable only to … the Minister.
I live in a country where the newspapers explaining all this are directed by dangerous leftists with a dark Trotskyist past and whose only motivation is to attempt to the integrity and the honor of Nicolas Sarközy de Nagy-Bosca. I live in a country where, when a few months apart two and two and half millions of workers went down the streets to defend their rights, they are, according to the police, not representative of anything.
I live in a country where thousands of schoolchildren will not have in front of them anyone else than students who are told that the teaching profession can be learned in a few hours of training.
I live in a country where education, public health, access to health care for everyone and especially for the poorest is every day more difficult, more distant.
It began long ago. I remember. May 18, 2007. I turn on the radio. The 7pm news report. I live in a country that gives itself a Ministry of Immigration and National Identity. Like a ball of hate, arrogance, lies, and stupidity that we take great care to unroll and unfold again. News Flash. I live in a country where we deport children right out of school . News Flash. Again. I live in a country where we deport even a poly-disabled teenager . I live in a country where at every new flash, I have to pinch myself to say that I did not dream, that this will stop, that reason will prevail.
I think of those, I think about the struggles. The ones that allowed that three words appear on the pediments of town halls. I think about the cracked pediments. I think about their meaning, lost in those cracks. I think about those who, once upon a time, lived in the country of human rights.
I live in a country. I live in a country where I wish, too often, I was just transient.
