Nicolas Sarkozy for President
French Listening Comprehension
Study Guide
Take a look at the following for help with any vocabulary that you might not
have understood in Nicolas Sarkozy for President, then take
the test.
| Vocabulary | |
| alternance | changeover of power between political parties |
| un caniche | poodle |
| un locataire | tenant |
| mâtiné | (adj) mixed |
| la méfiance | mistrust |
| un militant | member, activist (not militant) |
| le plaidoyer | (law) case, plea |
| quant à | as for, regarding |
| réfractaire | (adj) stubborn, resistant |
| un socle | base, level, plinth |
| un sondage | poll, survey |
| UMP | acronym: l'Union pour un Mouvement Populaire |
| Notes | |
| American bases | It is easy to forget today that NATO was based in France for several years. The organization's political headquarters moved from London to Paris's 16th arrondissement in 1952, occupying a building that is now part of the University of Paris. The military headquarters—known as SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe)—were in the western suburb of Rocquencourt, nor far from Versailles, in what is now the Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et Automique. In the early 1960s President de Gaulle became increasingly unhappy with the way NATO was organized. He felt that Britain and the United States were running the show and that his overtures for a three-way directorate had been rebuffed. As early as 1959, France pulled its Mediterranean fleet from unified NATO command and banned the stationing of foreign nuclear weapons on French soil. In 1966 he went the whole hog, arguing that international circumstances had changed and that NATO's integrated military structure was no longer justified. All French troops were removed from NATO command, and non-French forces were asked to leave France. As a result, the political and military headquarters moved to Belgium in 1967. I enjoyed a vivid cinematographic reminder of the fact that American forces had remained based in France—as in other European countries—after the end of World War II recently while watching Jacques Tati's 1949 Jour de Fête. Playing an eccentric rural postman, Tati flies into the countryside on his trusty bike and runs past a convoy of highly bemused Yankee troops. |
| Cinquième République | The Fifth Republic, introduced by Charles de Gaulle in 1958 at the height of the Algeria crisis. The aim was to create a strong presidency and bring to an end the parliamentary infighting that debilitated the postwar Fourth Republic. |
| Immigration choisie | This is Sarkozy's term for immigration that is chosen, in the sense of being the result of a deliberate government policy on whom to admit, as opposed to immigration which France has to bow to because it is a fait accompli, with newcomers who have already settled in the country. |
| Particularités | He is referring diplomatically to the death penalty, among other things. |
| Ralliés | Wordplay with alliés. Rallier means win over, unite, rally. Sarkozy is saying that France is America's ally, but not its imitator; it has not been captivated by the American modèle. |
| Séjour | Nicolas Sarkozy's visit to Washington in September 2006 was of course widely covered in France, where his opponents made hay with his meeting with President Bush. Given President Bush's huge unpopularity in France, it is debatable whether posing for a joint photo was wise, but Sarkozy was probably correct in deciding that his overriding priority was to be seen as a credible international player. The actual photo op was the object of much derision among Sarkozy's more scurrilous enemies, who spread the story that the diminutive Frenchman had had to stand on a box for it. There is a lot of chatter about the visit on the anti-Sarko Internet circuit (for example, sarkostique.over-blog.com). The American visit also caused a stir inside Sarkozy's own political camp when he implicitly attacked the way President Jacques Chirac and then foreign minister Dominique de Villepin had handled the run-up to the war in Iraq in 2003. In a speech before the Daughters of the American Revolution, Sarkozy said: "Il n'est pas convenable de chercher à mettre ses alliés dans l'embarras, ou de donner l'impression de se rejouir de leurs difficultés. J'ai toujours préféré l'efficacité dans la modestie plutôt qu'une grandiloquence stérile. Et je ne veux pas d'une France arrogante et pas assez présente." This did not go down well in the Chirac-Villepin camp,where a more traditional suspicion of the United States remains the norm. British and American diplomats here tell me that London and Washington are vesting much hope in a Sarkozy presidency. I would advise caution. Even if he is elected in May, Sarkozy is above all a pragmatist; I suspect that those who expect to see a radical departure in foreign policy will be disappointed. |
| Turkey in the EU | Sarkozy has taken a clear line against Turkey's entry into the European Union. This may sound like an abstruse issue, but it is actually an acute point of contention in French politics. Hostility to Turkish membership is widespread and motivated not just by fear of immigration. Many on the left say Ankara's human-rights record and its position on the existence of the Armenian genocide disqualify it, while pro-Europeans say Turkish entry will stretch the EU too far and make impossible any meaningful political union of the continent. President Chirac is cautiously in favor of Turkish entry on the grounds that is historically just (the Ottoman Empire having been a European power) and that it is vital to bind an important Muslim nation into the western system. These arguments are enunciated much more forcefully in London and Washington,where Turkish entry to the EU is seen as a real priority. However, in France, British and American support for the idea is seen as part of a nefarious Anglo-Saxon plot to dilute the EU into nothingness. |
| UMP | This is the ruling center-right party that replaced the old Rassemblement pour la République (RPR) of President Jacques Chirac after his reelection in 2002. Sarkozy is the UMP's president and has turned it into a formidable campaigning machine. |
| Nicolas Sarkozy for President French Listening Comprehension Exercise |
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| Sound files and transcript
were
originally published in Champs-Élysées audiomagazine (read my review) and are used with the permission of Champs-Élysées, Inc. |
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