[Reid Hall correspondent Greg Keilin looks at France's love-hate relationship with its oldest minority]

Passover began Saturday night and I was fortunate enough to have my visiting parents to celebrate with. We joined the Seder of some Israeli friends of theirs who are here visiting their daughter and her husband.

We had a wonderful time together. Our observance of the service was not strict (goyim made up 25% of the assembled company) but the songs and prayers were sincerely joyful as befit the occasion. We sat together late into the night, enjoying each other’s company and conversation.

I was particularly pleased to meet another Jew living in Paris because I do not know many. The community here is mostly confined to two small neighborhoods, and its members tend to be a bit too traditional for my taste. They usually keep more or less to themselves, partly because they have little need or desire to mix with outsiders and partly due to the discouragement that results from a subtle, but nonetheless powerful, French anti-Semitism.

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[Apologies readers for our 24 hours of downtime. Routine backend maintenance might have rendered us commentatorily (yeah, not a word) impotent for the last day or so, but global events offer us little in the way of a reprieve: for one thing, it looks like the former breadbasket of Africa is about to enter its third decade as one of the world's top political and economic basket cases. The Commentariat nagged Slate contributor and sometimes-blogger Lydia DePillis--who is currently studying abroad in Cape Town, which makes Paris looks like Hamilton Heights--for some update on how the crisis is playing out in neighboring South Africa.]

I really don’t have any better read on the situation than any layperson, but I can tell you that it’s a hot topic around here and people are pretty on edge. I went to a lecture at lunchtime about the Zimbabwe situation yesterday and the room was packed. The Zimbabweans I’ve talked to–the university is full of them; everyone who can get out already has, and thousands of people cross the border every day–don’t know what’s going to happen, and they’re hopeful but not particularly optimistic. I see people walking around with MDC shirts all the time, and the SA press posts headlines calling Mugabe a “vampire.”

One of the things Kirchik didn’t mention is that President Mbeki hasn’t been particularly helpful with the whole situation, maintaining that the National Electoral Commission–which is composed of government appointees with a vested interest in a ZANU victory–should take its time releasing results. Needless to say, people are a little upset. The thing about it, I think, is that SADC leaders still in the first decades of independence are careful to criticize heroes of the liberation struggle–especially Mbeki, who’s already standing in someone’s shadow.

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[After two months in the City of Lights, our Reid Hall correspondent is still feeling a little left out. Greg Keilin explains:]

Recently, my girlfriend Kate and I have been bombarded by guests. First, a friend of Kate’s from high school brought some college friends of hers to visit us. Half way through their stay, a friend of mine from Columbia arrived. When she left, we had three days off before Kate’s aunt and uncle came to town; they were here for a week.

And March was only half over. After a day and a half to ourselves, we headed off to London to pay a visit of our own. The day we got back, my aunt and thirteen-year-old cousin landed in Paris. When they left, another friend of ours took their place.

After her departure tomorrow, we will have five whole days of freedom before we host two more friends of Kate’s friends. They go and, a week later, my parents roll into town for a two-week vacation. When, on May 7, we bid adieu to a pair of Kate’s aunts (whose stay overlaps with that of my mom and dad), the two-month marathon will be over.

Now I don’t want to give the wrong impression: I love entertaining guests and I have been (or will be) very glad to see everyone who has (or will) come to visit. I offer this litany of lodgers not to exorcise my annoyance but to prove a point that may seem obvious: Paris attracts tourists.

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And it’s not Hilary Clinton. Congratulations to George Krebs, C ‘09, whose election as CCSC president is pretty much a foregone conclusion at this point. But hey, prove me wrong, ’09s. Prove me wrong.

What’s up, Dov? From the vast Saharan wastes comes a sly critique of Edward Said wrapped in a travelogue, or perhaps a travelogue wrapped in a sly critique of Edward Said. Of course the last half of his article should vindicate the identity politics/ethnic studies crowd, which would in turn vindicate Dov, which would in turn vindicate the identity politics/ethnic studies crowd.

Y’know, I can see why people would want to get the hell out of here…

Yeah. Slow news week. Columbia: crisis free for 3 1/2 weeks and counting! Plus, everyone knows that the glass-encased Spectator Organic Mental Core writes all the editorials…

Viva L’Kosovo!: The Commentariat is currently polling Harriman faculty on the birth of Europe’s newest country, the creation of which brings the number of states carved out of the former Yugoslavia up to six (Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia and Kosovo…am I forgetting any?). In the meantime, here’s the Washington Post’s unsurprisingly positive read on things. And here’s mine, for the time being: anybody who thinks that this doesn’t cut to the center of simmering and possibly intractable ethnic hatreds clearly doesn’t know much about the region. The WaPo’s belief that the Serbs can magically restrain their “poisonous nationalism” is not only unfounded, but suggests a certain ignorance about why Kosovo is such a flashpoint to begin with–indeed, they seem to forget that Kosovar militias have been attacking Serbian civilians for years, and that Serbian domination of Kosovo has incredible symbolic significance. Also, those who think that Vladimir Putin isn’t going to use this as an opportunity to stick it to the west have waaaaaay too much faith in Vladimir Putin.

But don’t take my word for it–tune in Wednesday for the first ever Commentariat faculty roundtable.

ZEN: “ASU professors Don and Alleen Nilsen were in Afghanistan at the time, getting hazardous-duty pay teaching at the University of Kabul on a government-sponsored program through Columbia University.

‘The first year, the president of Columbia sent us a Christmas card expressing his appreciation and sympathy that we were in such a difficult part of the world,’ Alleen Nilsen says.”

[The Commentariat's Reid Hall correspondent examines the love life of Nicholas Sarkozy, who could be one of the world's most physically attractive heads of state. Granted, he's no Vladimir Putin...]

When Nicolas Sarkozy was elected president of France in May of last year, he had been married once, divorced, and remarried. His second marriage was on the rocks (he and his wife had both had very public affairs) and it seemed unlikely that the couple would be able to patch things up.

Despite his marital difficulties, Sarko (as both supporters and opponents call him) was consistently seen as the frontrunner in the 2007 campaign and eventually won the presidency with relative ease. The French people found his proposals on the economy, immigration, and national security far more compelling than his personal problems.

In the eight months since he took office, however, things have changed. His second divorce was finalized in October, sparking a tabloid media frenzy. Speculation on potential new presidential partners ran rampant until, in December, Sarkozy was photographed at EuroDisney with singer/model Carla Bruni. The pair was seen again, later that month, vacationing together in Egypt; things looked to be getting serious, although Ms. Bruni’s avowed opposition to monogamy still seemed to pose a problem. And two weeks ago, without warning, the couple had married.

Sarkozy’s approval ratings fell steadily over the course of this whirlwind romance, reaching a new low of 39% the week following his wedding. Surprisingly, given the public’s past indifference to his private affairs, poll respondents have overwhelmingly indicated that the state of President’s love life is the primary reason for his decline in popularity. Have popular priorities here really changed so drastically in such a short time?

No, as a matter of fact. In the past, Sarkozy’s domestic existence had been quietly turbulent. Though the divorce of a prominent politician is sure to be mentioned somewhere, the first time around he made sure coverage was kept to a minimum. Recently, however, he has behaved more like a Hollywood starlet than a politician, seeming to invite excessive media scrutiny of his amorous adventures.

It is this exhibitionism to which the French object. Government officials here are supposed to be statesmen, not celebrities; they should make news with policy, not personality. As long as Sarkozy’s business remained his business, it was irrelevant, but as soon as it became our business, it was shameful.

Given social tendencies in France, such an attitude is not surprising. People here are very private, much more so than in the United States. They do not share much, and they expect others not to pry. Even among friends, personal problems are rarely discussed; you are supposed to solve them on your own.

Sarkozy grew up in that culture, and his career has been a model of self-sufficiency. But his home life, at least recently, has not. Now he is paying the price. Sarko should have known better.

-GREG KEILIN

[or, how much do you wish you were in fucking Paris right now? Commentariat foreign correspondent and philosophy major Greg Keilin, C '09, doesn't have to wish. But who knows--get those imaginations working, and reading him every weekend could be just like being there. Only cheaper!]

Had brunch this morning at one of my favorite restaurants here, Coffee Parisien. It is a mini-chain (there are three branches) that tries to bring the USA to Paris, but I love eating there because of how badly they do it. Though the menu does have milkshakes and bagels, it also has steak tartare. The place is always crammed with couples and young families, their kids better dressed than I will ever be, and there is an espresso machine behind the oak wood bar.

Even more amusingly, the few American touches that are effectively incorporated (Kennedy photos, concert posters, and pop art on the walls) only reinforce the perception of French disdain for the current state of our country. People here still love JFK, Andy Warhol, and Woodstock, but they hate George Bush and McDonalds.

Why do they feel this way? The France of today, I believe, identifies with the United State of the sixties. Its people sense that they are, as we were, at an historical crossroads. Europe is unifying, challenging their strong national identity; the global economy is evolving, straining their traditional socialist values; immigration is increasing, reviving dormant racial tension.

They also feel, as we did, that these difficulties must be engaged head-on. There has been constant dialogue in the press and in public; there have been numerous strikes and protests; and people have voted. In both rounds of the French presidential elections last year, voter turnout exceeded 80%. Though the United States has never reached that level, the 63% participation in 1960 was higher than in any subsequent year.

This last fact is one of the reasons for the recent decline in French respect for American culture. The French see in us now a failure to live up to the promise of the social and political movements they admire. They feel we are apathetic in the face of new challenges. Much more than any particular policy or practice, they resent our self-satisfied detachment from our own affairs and from those of the rest of the world.

Whether or not these accusations are true, they reveal a French self-confidence that borders on arrogance. They despise the United States for having failed where they believe they will succeed, and their high hopes for us only made our crime worse. Of course, it remains to be seen what the future will hold. If history repeats itself, the people of France may want to eat their words in fifty years; perhaps, sooner than that: their new President, after all, is considered “American.” In any case, only time will tell.

-GREG KEILIN