A couple of quotes from 
today's Le Parisien:
1) Under the headline Paralysie (or, one reason Mayor Delanoe's grand schemes for an autofree Paris just don't work):
A ticket seller for the RER D suburban-line train into Paris, which has been on strike without any trains for the last week, describing his feelings towards millions of passengers (the RER D normally transports half a million a day; today the RER B joined in the fun) left in the lurch for more than a week, at Christmastime: "You feel a bit embarrassed, you're almost ashamed. You understand their anger. Even we are tired." [On se sent gené, on a presque honte. On comprend leur colère. Même nous, nous sommes fatigués.]
The public workers who strike here always present themselves as fellow victims. He's almost ashamed. He's also tired.
2) "The magistrates in France offer a prehistoric landscape peopled with dinosaurs and one desert after another." [La magistrature en France offre un paysage préhistorique peuplé de dinosaures et de solitudes successives.]
--Jean-Louis Borloo, Minister for Employment and Social Cohesion [and a good guy as far as I can tell] on the Outreau case, a four-year ordeal that dragged six innocent people, accused of child molestation, through the mire. They were recently acquitted but not before a seventh innocent killed himself in jail.
One of the keys to the case was the testimony of a "psychological expert"who testified that the six accused all had the personalities of child molesters. The main, inculpatory indicator was "un manque affectif" or a need for more love! After the disaster, he claimed that he was paid only 15 euros an hour, so he thought it was normal that the court got "des expertises de femme de ménage" [cleaning-woman expertise].
Comments