Tuesday, January 20, 2009

The French take on the Inauguration

We officially have a new president. And of course, since the French were *such* fans of Bush (haha not really) they are all very excited that America has a new president. I didn't see the whole thing, but I did notice a few things that I found very interesting. 
1) Everytime someone said "Barack Obama" in English, the French translator would say "Barack Hussein Obama"
2) They showed George Bush leaving the White House via helicopter and then promptly stopped talking about him - that was their way of saying goodbye, I guess. 
3) Miss France, who is of a mixed heritage, was in Washington to see the inauguration and started crying and really couldn't say more than three words. It was quite amusing watching the reporter handle that
4) The news showed a black and white picture of Superman standing in front of an American flag and superimposed an image of Obama's face on it - with the caption "Un nouveau Amèrique" (A new America) and then the reporter said that nothing could shake Obama. Somehow I don't think that's true
and finally
5) In true French style, after the actual inauguration and speeches and all that jazz is over, they show pictures of the parties and all the famous political people and start discussing (and criticizing) the food choice for the dinners and lunches. 

It's been quite interesting over here today. I think all of France is glad that Obama's the president. We shall see how long that lasts. 

2 comments:

kaitlyn_d said...

What does that mean? See how long that lasts? hahaha I love that idea of Super Obama! Niiicee!

Elizabeth said...

it means that they change their minds about American politicians every 3 seconds. I'm pretty sure that if Obama slips up even a little bit they're going to hate him - they're already mocking him for messing up the Oath of Office even though that wasn't his fault....