Thoughts on a Sunday

I'm not sure about the rest of you, but I've received so many messages this week with  "praying for Paris" and tear face emojis.  It's left me feeling conflicted - I'm grateful I've got so many family and friends thinking of me, but on the other hand, I'm annoyed that there is such a big fuss made about this event while shootings are a multi-daily occurrence in the US.  I mean, I literally woke up the next morning after the Champs-Elysée shooting to see "Two policeman shot in Seattle" as the first story on my news app.  But then you turn on the news, and there's no mention of it, only the Paris incident. Ironically enough, C just wrote an article on this very topic that was set to publish next week - ie why are Americans so scared to come to France when they're much more likely to get shot at home - though I'm not sure if they will post it now or wait a few weeks.

Also, how are you all feeling about the first round elections today?  I'm still not quite sure who to vote for (besides not Marine Le Pen, obviously).  I've watched all kinds of interviews, we watched "15 minutes pour convaincre" the other night - though there was no convincing going on for me.  I can definitely understand why so many voters are still undecided, and it does feel very reminiscent of the US elections.

And then there's the question of whether or not to vote your beliefs, or to vote the person who's most likely to beat FN?   C is very much of the "vote your convictions" stance, whereas I'm terrified of what could happen if Le Pen wins, so I'm leaning towards a vote stratégique.  Though if you look at the polls, I'm not actually sure who that would even be. 

Obviously the polls are not always the best predictors, but I am leaning towards the polls being a bit more reliable in France than they were in the US this last round.  So many Americans were ashamed to say that they were voting for Trump that they lied to pollsters and it completely skewed everything, whereas it seems to be not as shameful to say you're voting FN here...

I'm somewhat encouraged though by all the pictures yesterday taken of the long lines showing French citizens voting abroad, and the long lines reported at many polling stations already today.  C & I will vote just after lunch, when it will hopefully be a bit quieter...

*Sad Face*

So it's over and done with.  Yesterday was a sad, dark day for me. For as much as I did a media blackout in the days coming up to the election, I was glued to the TV yesterday.  Starting at 6am when a girlfriend called me from Maison de la Radio and until C came home from class at 9:30pm.  I woke up horrified with Trump's number of votes, and that horror continued to grow as the day went on. To my disbelief, even my own state didn't call the election until yesterday evening.

I know so many people thought it wasn't possible, but I've had this sneaking suspicion for the past six months that it really was.  I come from a blue state, and the number of people I've spoke with there who said "I just can't vote for Hillary" far outnumbered the ones who said they could.  And the fact that these were normal people, educated people, people who had traveled abroad, people I respect - that is what scared me.

Hillary wouldn't necessarily have been my first choice as a Democratic nominee, but I would have been proud to call her our President and there is no denying that she is by far the most qualified candidate we have had in recent history.  And now we are faced with the most unqualified candidate in all of history.  But it's done.  (Half of) our countrymen have spoken. And we are stuck with Trump for the next four years.  So the question now is what do we do?  How do we face a president who has complete control of the government and the upcoming Supreme Court Justice nominations?  How do we protect those that the Republican party stands against? How do we safeguard all of the progress that has been made in the past 8 years? 

These are the questions I woke up with today. I was inspired by both Hillary and Obama's speeches yesterday and they sheer grace they both showed in defeat, but I am struggling with how to respect both the voice of the people and fight for what I believe in.  I am scared for the future of my country, and I worry about how we can find common ground.  I'm concerned about how I can continue to work with people who so obviously supported Trump - I'm just so baffled by how people who travel as much as I do were still able to vote for him.  And what am I going to say to all of our customers abroad?  I'm sure with the exception of China and Russia, they are all like WTF??   Plus, so much of our business is à l'étranger - how will Trump's supposed "tariff renegotiations" affect us?   And how can so many Americans think other countries are just going to sit back and say "Okay US, you can increase your import taxes, but we will just keep ours the same for you"??  But I digress...

I have no answers to these questions.  But I do know we have to take time to grieve and then get back up. I know expats struggle with how to help from afar, but one concrete thing we can do is prepare for the upcoming elections in France. I know many of you can't vote, but the FN is already gearing up to put into place some of Trump's campaign practices, and we can still make a difference in France by having those complicated conversations with our friends and loved ones here.  Immigration, le mariage pour tous and fear of the other are just as hot button topics in France as they are in the US, and we can help change that by putting faces to those issues. By explaining how changes in the laws governing them will affect you or those you know personally. By encouraging civil discussion instead of hateful rhetoric.  I have had some heated discussion with my in-laws over these very same issues, and it is so hard you guys...but I am making the commitment to continuing to have those discussions with them, as well as with my fellow countrymen.

Warning - depressing post ahead!

I don't know about the rest of you, but I feel like my heart rate has been permanently elevated these past few weeks. I'm both waiting for and dreading the outcome of the US election all at once. Mostly though, I'm just appalled by how vicious this election cycle has become. Every day, I wake up to new, even more horrific, ads and insults.  The people at these Trump rallies...how can they also be Americans?  I just identify in no way whatsoever with these crazy white extremists. 

It has me wondering - have they always been there, lurking beneath the surface?  Or is Trumpism like a disease that's spreading across the US?  I mean, the US is by no means perfect, but the one thing I was always proud of was the people.  I just keep going back to what I was taught in school - we're a melting pot. We're a place where people can keep their language and culture and also be American. We're a country united by our diversity. Where has all that gone?

I also think the media has had a huge role in the negativity in this campaign. What's happened is that they spend so much time on Trump's craziness (and really, there's no lack of fodder), and that to appear fair, they feel they need to give equal negative coverage to Hillary.  And the only major negative thing she's got is the whole email fiasco, which is why we've been hearing about it over and over for the past six months.  I get it's a catch-22 for journalists - really, how can you cover Trump and not appear biased - but I still feel the media is largely in part responsible for the situation we find ourselves in today.

The other issue I have - and C and I actually got into an argument about this last night - is why aren't more people standing up to say that this kind of talk is not normal?  That it's unacceptable and hateful and not the kind of example that we want to set for future generations?  Why is no one saying "STOP. You've gone too far. You can't say someone should shoot presidential candidates, and you can't show up at rallies wearing a mask of our current president with a noose around his neck.  You can't say assaulting women is no big deal.  You can't lump entire religions or groups of people into one basket."  And on and on. Where are all the reasonable people?  I know they're out there. Why are they not saying anything?   Though maybe they're like the Minnesotans in the most recent This American Lift podcast, and they don't dare speak out for fear of offending family and friends. But the other side is not in anyway worried about offending people...

C's side of this was that you can't reason with the crazies, so it was no use trying to talk with them or convince them.  But if that's the case, how does it ever stop?  Where are the limits of society?  How do these people know when they've gone too far?  For me, it's similar to the gun control debate - there's no easy answer and both sides are so heated that they can't have a civil discussion, so we do nothing and people keep getting killed.   But how is that a solution?  I just can't accept anymore "Well you can't reason with those people anyways..."

I feel so strongly about this, and I'm starting to understand the expats abroad who feel the call to go back to their home country to fight for change because things are falling to pieces.  (Though this normally happens in third-world countries, and we're talking about supposedly the "strongest nation in the world" here).  With all the places I've visited, I've often wondered about the countries who used to be superpowers and who are now in ruins.  It was just so inconceivable to me - How did they go from being number 1 to the bottom of the list?  I'm afraid we're now going to see it firsthand.

The worst part is that politicians all over the world are starting to tow the Trump line because they see it brings in voters. It's happening in the UK, the Netherlands, France, etc.  What kind of world are we going to be 10, 20, 30 years from now if we all go back to being isolationist and protectionist countries?  If we only worry about protecting ourselves and not the greater good? 

C thinks I'm taking all of this way too much to heart and that it's not worth the negative affect it's having on me, but I just can't help but feel a sense of despair and a profound disappointment in my countrymen. It's really got me down and all of the above is what keeps me up at night, wondering what our future will be and how I can influence it. I just feel so helpless watching it all happen from over here.

Doing my civic duty

I went to vote for the French legislative elections yesterday afternoon, and got to talking to the lady verifying ID cards. She ended up inviting me to come back once the polls closed to help count the votes, and since I was home alone for the night, I decided to go for it. This process has a special name in French - "le dépouillement des votes".  As a random side note, whenever I hear "dépouillement", it always brings to mind the image of someone digging up a coffin!

But anyways, back to the story. At 7:55pm, I returned to the polling station along with 11 others and we waited patiently for instructions.  They had us sit down four to a table and then passed out two large pieces of paper.  Each paper had a list of each of the candidates and then lines where we could mark the number of votes they got. It was a very similar format to this one from the presidential election:

At the bottom of the page however was a list of seventeen reasons that a voted could be considered invalid - sort of the French equivalent to the mispunched chad. I got a bit nervous reading the list of them since there were so many and it was in French legalese, wondering how on Earth I would ever remember so many different things, but felt immediately better when the young girl next to me said "Whoa" after reading them too.

Looking around the room, there was a mix of all ages - though I would say it was skewed to the older and younger ages of the spectrum, without many middle-aged folks.  At my table, there was a retiree, myself and two students. I asked if the three others had done this before, but we were all newbies, so no one really knew what to expect. Looking at the voting box, the elderly gentleman said that it didn't look like there were many votes in there, and I said that I'd seen on the internet that only 21% of people had voted by 2pm.  One of the two young girls said that she'd heard that it was up to 60% by 6pm, but that it was still one of the lowest turnouts ever for a legislative election. 

Then the officials came around to explain how it worked. Each table would get an envelope with 100 votes and we were to count them and verify there really was 100 there (both times, we had 102 in our envelope). Then one person was charged with opening the envelope, the other had to read it out loud and then the remaining two each filled out one of the big sheets as the names were read. Once we finished our 100 and verified that both papers had matching vote numbers, they would bring another envelope.  This isn't my picture since I didn't dare bring my camera, but this is essentially what our table looked like (minus the folks standing around watching):

I offered to record the votes along with another one of the girls.  After the first 100, the other two asked if we wanted to switch, and I said no because I was worried I'd mispronounce some of the names because of my accent (there were some weird ones in there).  They said "What accent?" and I explained that I was born in the US. And then I wished I'd kept my mouth shut since I probably would have been able to remain the anonymous foreigner.

Part of me was nervous to participate in the counting, given the racist undertones of this election, and I wasn't quite sure what the others at the table would think about having a non-native French person helping count the votes. I had a little speech prepared in my head about why I wanted to become French and how I think voting is every citizen's duty, but none of them even seemed to wonder how I was able to vote here. Instead they were more interested in asking about where I came from and what I was doing in France.

And then it was back to counting. We also had to makes piles for each of the candidates so that they could be recounted later in case the two people logging the votes didn't end up with the same number:

 

Any invalid votes or empty envelopes had to be placed aside for a later count, at which time all four of us were required to sign them as proof that they were really empty. 

The officials walking around were all very friendly and I was able to ask several questions as the night went on.  One of the big differences between French and US elections is that in France, they announce the winner the minute the polls have closed.  I've always wondered how this was possible, especially now that I see how long it takes to count the votes (it took us a little over an hour to count our measly few). I was told it was because most polling stations in France close at 6pm, so the outside of Paris and a few other cities, all of the votes have been counted by the time 8pm rolls around.  That part I understand, but I still don't get how they can call it without having counted the votes in the capital and other major cities, especially given their large populations and the fact that the elections are often close (within a percent or two).  But yet every time they do manage to call it, without having hoards of people counting for recounts. 

Secondly, I asked how many people were registered at our "bureau de vote".  He replied that there were 1362 registered voters, and that out of those, 849 had voted, amounting to 62% of our neighborhood.  However they had only counted 846 envelopes, and they were hoping to recover the remaining three as the night went on (as a miscount in one of the envelopes of 100). 

Out of the 849 votes, 6 were invalid.  We had two of them at our table and they were both empty envelopes.  I've never really gotten the concept of a "vote blanc".  Like you got all the way down to the polling station, wait in line and then don't even have your vote counted towards anything.  I know it's a sort of way to "sending a message to the Man", but come on, if you do that, you can't really complain about the results of the election afterwards. I heard all kinds of ads on the radio this week encouraging people to vote and to "not let others decide for you", which is a statement I definitely agree with.

Okay back to the counting - very early on in the game, it was clear that the UMP and the PS were going to be the two going on to the next round.  But it was still fun to see them neck-in-neck as the counting went on, and in the end, we ended up with 348 votes for one and 337 for the other.  I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say which was for which though.  Most of the other candidates just got a handful of votes - the next highest number after those two was 37.  And in looking at the official election results online, the UMP and the PS are tied at 34.8% in the first round - so it looks like it will be another close one next Sunday!

You want me to pay how much??

The other day, I came across this image in Ouest-France, showing the average hourly cost of employing someone in each of the European countries.  It came as no surprise to me that France was one of the most expensive in Europe, coming in at 34.20€ per hour. When you compare that to the 3-8€ per hour that it costs in the Eastern block countries, is it any wonder so many French companies have been tempted to relocate East?

I have certainly seen the higher effect of these wages on my customers - more and more and preferring to use temp workers instead of hiring people on the famous CDI like they used to. Even though temp workers cost more per hour, with the way the market fluctuates, it is still cheaper to go that route than to have to let people on permanent contracts go during slow periods.  It is having a big effect on me since the temps aren't trained and often don't stick around long enough to even be trained, so you are always dealing with new people who don't know what's going on and who often don't care.

I also work with a lot of small, family businesses, and I know they are anxiously awaiting the results of this election. Everyone is worried about what will help - some what things to change, others are worried that it will. I try not to talk French politics with my customers, so instead I just sympathize about the difficulties of running a small business in today's economy. I imagine my industry isn't the only one dealing with this issue, and that there are people all across France waiting to see what will happen tonight....