Holy Freedom Fries!
France is currently in the middle of of their presidential election, and it is full of drama. The conservative front-runner was recently implicated in a corruption scandal, which has created openings both on the far right (nativist Marine Le Pen) and the left (radical centrist Emmanuel Macron). But voters are unhappy.
And some of those voters are trying to find a “white knight” to come in and rescue them from this mess. Except that their knight is actually black. And he isn’t even French. It is Barack Obama.
In the past week, posters have gone up around Paris with the slogan “Obama17” and “Oui On Peut”, which is French for “Yes We Can”.
They also have a website, urging voters to sign a petition to draft Obama. They hope to get a million signatures from people who promise to vote for him.
Here’s some of the (translated) text from their site:
The French are ready to make radical choices. That is good because we have a radical idea to propose to them.
After five years and faced with the announced failure of the next presidential election, we think it is time to move to the 6th Republic to get France out of its lethargy.
To launch this 6th Republic, we wish to strike a blow by electing a foreign President at the head of our beautiful country.
Barack Obama completed his second term as President of the United States on January 21 — why not hire him as President for France?
Our goal is simple, to collect before the 15th of March, 1 million voting promises to convince Barack Obama to run for the presidential election of May 2017.
– Barack Obama has the best resume in the world for the job.
– Because it is still possible to vote for a President and not against a candidate.
– Because at a time when France is about to vote massively for the extreme right, we can still give a lesson of democracy to the planet by electing a French President, a foreigner.
7 Comments
1) he is as white as he is black.
2) where is your “like” button
3) don’t we all wish we were back with the “No drama Obama”
4) he said he would have been elected again this fall if able to run
5) he can’t speak foreign languages. French speak only French
6) my son spent a year with his dot.com company in Paris. When they went to Germany with French company members, my son translated from French to English which the Germans understand very well and back again to French
That is even funnier considering that shortly after Fillon was caught in a corruption scandal, Marine Le Pen was caught in her own brand of corruption scandal for more or less the same thing as Fillon. French people are currently looking at either electing a corrupt right-wing President, a corrupt extreme-right “outsider” as President or a candidate who is as exciting as diet porridge. Considering this, it would be easier to teach French to Obama than to be enthousiastic about the current choices.
Viva la France! Someone is thinking outside the box. Good for them.
And of course viva should have been vive, but not vibe as autocorrect would have me type.
I think the most important question is who will run against president pence (or maybe Ryan) in 2020?
Serait-il le premier élu à diriger deux pays?
And the English version:
Would that make him the first elected official to lead two countries?
If Thomas Paine could serve in the French National Convention …