The first round of the French Presidential election is over, and conservative Nicolas Sarkozy and socialist Segolene Royal, with 29% and 26% of the vote respectively, are advancing to the second round. Voter turnout was a record-breaking 85%, indicating the importance of this election to a pessimistic French nation. They want a candidate who will swiftly steer France away from the brink of decline by instituting lasting but painless social and economic reforms. Essentially, they want a political plastic surgeon.
Yesterday Mr. Pinault and I journeyed to Cambridge so that he could vote at the International School along with French ex-pats from all over New England. Looking around the school gymnasium at all the chic female voters, I suddenly understood the explosion of mass-market paperbacks that seek to teach American women to be more French. I was a wildebeest in a herd of gazelle.
Feeling threatened by so much raw sophistication, I quelled the urge to cause a scene by impromptu campaigning for right-wing extremist Jean-Marie Le Pen, a perennial candidate with an anti-immigration platform that brought him one step away from the French Presidency in 2002. “Vote Le Pen! Protect the Motherland from the invading swinish multitudes!” I dreamed about shouting so it would echo shockingly throughout the gymnasium. But instead, I sat quietly in the back, cursing my proclivity for sneakers.
Afterwards, we drove across Cambridge to Formaggio Kitchen, a specialty grocer that stocks an excellent selection of French cheese. The cheese counter was packed with Americans demanding brie, so we got in line behind a family who we had just seen voting at the International School. They recognized us, and the husband said to his wife “See, it’s normal to buy cheese after voting!” Yes, but only if it’s a French election. He then attempted to order comte cheese in centimeters rather than inches or pounds.
Tomme
We got a mild Tomme from Savoy and a sheep-milk cheese I never had before called Brebis Ossau, which almost made me cry because it was so good. I could taste the wildflowers and fresh grass that the sheep grazed on in the Pyrenees, yet it had a nutty flavor to temper the sweetness. Vive la Republique! A country capable of making such divine cheese is worth saving!
