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SuperFrenchie
reports a bad reporting, a case of writing in bad faith by an American French-bashing journalist, who it seems, if the Wiki blurb were to be believed, is a 'decorated' war correspondent.
I read the purported beastly article in question and true enough,
Janine di Giovanni's arsenic-laced piece of journalism is an exercise in frustration and it does
"take the cake for bad faith reporting."Giovanni's piece nearly had me flummoxed. I mean, some of the garbage she said about France are just completely false. An example: zero credit card. She writes, "No one lives on credit in France because banks don’t allow overdrafts and zero percent credit cards do not exist."
Where did she get that piece of rubbish? So blatantly misleading is she that klancymiller, one of the commenters in her site, was prompted to ask quite rightly: "Where do you do your research?" and went on to point Giovanni's spins.
No one lives on credit in France and don't allow overdrafts, etc., etc.? Utter falsehood. My brother, who is a student in an Ecole de commerce in Paris, survives virtually on his credit card overdrafts. I can tell you right here and now that my parents have just (very recently matter of fact) paid off his 1500-euro overdraft after his bank threatened to do something drastic about his burgeoning debt.
Giovanni pushed her reporting too far when she wrote, “Last week Lanvin, the French couture house favored by Hollywood celebrities, gave a private sale and I stood in the midst of hysterical women clamoring for fur coats. Fur coats? In the midst of the global meltdown?”
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I Googled the Lanvin sale and found what she might have been talking about in
L'Express which is a pretty reputable French weekly (by the way, I am familiar with these Faubourg-Saint Honoré
soldes):
Lanvin- 40% sur le prêt-à-porter automne-hiver, les chaussures, les sacs et les ceintures sauf manteaux en fourrure et certains bijoux cristaux, colliers plastron et perles. La bonne affaire: la sublime robe longue du soir en jersey gris chiné retenue par de fines bretelles, avec sur le devant un nœud de velours noir à 925 € au lieu de 1 540 €. Ou bien, petit «must-have» de la collection, les ballerines plates à 330 € soldées 198 €. 15, rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, VIIIe. 01-44-71-33-33.
Translation of those in bold: 40% on ready to wear Fall-Winter collection, shoes, bags, belts except fur coats and some crystal jewelry, plastron and pearl necklaces. °
In other words, Lanvin fur coats were not part of the private sale, hence the women shoppers couldn't have been clamouring for fur coats in that private sale precisely because they weren't included in the private sale!
So, is Giovanni (shown
right in picture)
LYING?
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Well, what's clear to me is that she has embelished her story to shock and awe her readers but why did she have to make up, i.e., lie about, some of the things she was reporting on? Of course, there are more anneries in her artitcle but this is just one spin too many so I will leave it at that. Go, read it and try not to puke!
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No matter how you turn her
article around, you see it dripping with disdain, contempt, scorn for the French etc. That article contains a historical record of her thoughts about the French and there's no doubt about it, she hates the French.
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Why Janine de Giovanni baise français (fucks a Frenchman) boggles the mind but maybe, just maybe, elle souffre de la malbaise! (she's fucked badly!)
A huge bravo for Marc who has remained dignified and calm amidst the vitriol against the French because our government refused, and rightly so, to sanction President Bush's illegal, immoral and criminal invasion of and war on Iraq.
Not all Americans deserve to be rebuked. But I maintain that those Americans who take to bashing the French because America's own president lied to his people are the parochial, insular, ignorant types, much like their blundering warmonger for a commander in chief, Bush. Frankly, this blog is tempted to to deal with people of this caliber by simply letting them wallow in their pathetic and flawed self-righteousness but, heck, Marc Cormier is right: something has got to be done to educate them!
Lest there be any misunderstanding: Most French backed our government’s refusal, as Marc stated, “to follow Bush/Cheney in lock and step over the invasion of Irak” because we believed that Bush and his fellow hawks were totally wrong to invade and cause havoc on a nation based on deceit and lies… Didn't America’s own officials involved in the Iraq Study Group virtually prove that Bush had been completely inept when he insisted that Iraq must be invaded and its people violated on the basis of fixed intelligence?
It is not a measure of courage or intelligence for a government and a people who have at their command an omnipotent military to be able to poke holes on every square foot of land in a third world country and cause devastation and misery to its already suffering population but it takes immense courage and great intelligence NOT TO DO something as odious and ignoble as that.
And for that we are called cowards?
Photo of commemorative plate in the tunnel at Plage Bonaparte from Mathieu GUY's photostream and also from here.