The French Finally Fall In Line
By Calla J. Corner
The French Finally Fall In Line
After a year and a half in France – having moved from Montecito to Meursault (in Burgundy) following the death of my beloved spouse – I’ve finally discovered that FOX News is now one of the umpteen TV news channels I have access to.
So, I stayed up all night to see what was what at U.S. voting booths.
Crazy, right?
I need my sleep and I shall never live in the States again. My home is now in Burgundy. But if you knew the ridiculous regurgitated garbage French news takes from American so-called Legacy TV and biased Brit news outlets such as The Guardian, ITV, and the BBC, you would wonder how I have survived.
I wonder too.
It took Trump serving French fries from a McDonald’s drive-up window – having actually taken the time (15 minutes) to do what Kamala lied about doing one summer as a middle-class teenager – to finally get French TV to wake up and realize that Trump was winning the middle-class Americans who didn’t vote for him before. Sondage des frites (French fries poll) is the way one more astute French commentator put it.
Suddenly, Homme d’Orange (Orange Man) is out, and President-elect Donald Trump is in. French journalists can be an arrogant lot but to associate their national dish with a former American president is, it seems, irresistible: almost as historic as crediting the young Marquis de Lafayette with turning the tide against the British in the American Revolution. French TV might have been ready to reinstate the guillotine on Place de la Concorde for mass suicides had Trump won. Until, that is, l’incident des pommes frites.
That Trump served up this publicity bonanza just a few miles from where he was nearly assassinated has renewed the French press’s interest in the four years he had been president and for his commonsense accomplishments. They still hate him, however, for having to ante up their long-overdue contributions to NATO.
The French press didn't understand Kamala Harris’s salades des mots (word salads) and had been wondering – while handwringing – what another four years of a Trump administration would look like with the articulate, heroic, educated hillbilly, J.D. Vance, by his side. Vance seems ready and able to take over should a bullet hit its target, versus the self-described cretin (knucklehead) Ms. Harris chose for her replacement should she fall to an assassin.
The French paid no attention to Second Man, Doug Emhoff, (no Second Gentleman there), his affair with the couple’s sixteen-year-old nanny, or the following abortion. Late-term abortion, and a string of rapes and murders by illegal immigrants are at the top of the French angst, along with the sensational mass rape trial of Giselle Pelicot.
Could it be that French journalists – because Trump wasn’t afraid to don an apron and do what his rival called “dirty work” – are already imagining the headlines for the next four years?
No doubt editors at Elle, French Vogue, and other fashion magazines are discussing how to finally put the gorgeous and poised Melania Trump on their covers.
At long last, the French can rest easy.
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Postscript: I was overjoyed to see former Montecito resident Dennis Miller, on French FOX News being interviewed by fellow comedian/taxi driver, and host of FOX News Saturday Night, Jimmy Failla. Miller was part of the tarred-and-feathered celebrities in Montecito who dared voice their conservative views.
And now I've been informed by my cordonnier (shoemaker) that Oprah is not leaving Montecito because Trump has been elected. It seems that, other than waiting hours to get the facts about America, I only need to ask my shoemaker. Did you know that the Diva has 500 pair of shoes in her five houses?
I didn't, but thanks to French FOX News, I know now.
Well Calla, that was an interesting commentary that activated all five senses. Thanks for the report from the other side. Those spare shoes probably come in handy for smashing bugs and use as an occasional hammer.
Thank you, Calla - your deliciously witty column reminded me of staying with an American friend at a French haute bourgeois couple's gorgeous apartment in Paris in 1988. They were all gay, and all devastated by the recent death of John Waters' diva, Divine. The couple had never been to the States, and they adored her movie performances and wanted me to tell them that she based it on reality because they wanted to think that America was that fabulous. This was a couple who took me to their place in the Dordogne where we ate foie gras by a stone fireplace and drank bottles of red I'd never have been able to afford myself from their family wine cellar. And yet they toasted the late, great Divine.
I hadn't thought of Divine in years before reading your column this morning. I so wish she was alive and on the cover of Paris Vogue getting her drive-thru fries from The Donald with her gun pointed at anyone who'd call her Deplorable. Quelle belle trans!
Of the many wonderful things about Trump's victory, one of my favorites will be watching the Great Realignment. Which is already happening. In an otherwise snippy Vanity Fair piece about Trump rallies, the writer made a point of also noting that slender, high cheek boned, well-dressed women were in the audience! With perfect children on their laps, they were staring in rapture at Bobby Kennedy and applauding Trump, although they were probably more MAHA than MAGA.
I predict Trump and Melania will soon be given the Ronald and Nancy treatment: ebullient, admiring cover photos. The media didn't like Reagan when he won, either. But they loved the America that came with his presidency because it wanted to have a good time and spend money. And they soon forgot they ever hadn't liked him. The media people I've known have amazing powers of forgetting what they thought and stood for only moments before. I've learned to let it go. And be grateful for the good times. Let them roll now. And let them fawn over Trump now, which they will. He deserves it.