Political wishes (in english, but probably for french eyes only) 7 janvier 2006

Speechi Interactive (Speechi software coupled with eBeam Interactive whiteboard technology) has been incredibly successful in France in 2005… We do hope Speechi Live will be as successful in 2006 !

As this greeting card refers to french political situation, I feel some decoding is needed for foreign readers of this blog.

Prerequisite: you should have heard of french riots. I assume most of you did, if I just count the number of emails I have received in november asking me whether I intended to escape to the US? Btw, thanks to all of you who proposed to rescue me and my family – maybe next time !

From left to right, you have: Dominique de Villepin, our Prime Minister, who became famous 2 years ago for being the first one to make the american position about Irak look ridiculous at the UNO security council. Do not think Dominique de Villepin is such a smart guy. He, like everybody at the time, did actually believe Sadam had WMD but he is completely anti-american and, in this case, just happened to look right, thanks to Bush cynism, stupidity, bad counselors.

Jacques Chirac, the biggest crook president since Mitterrand, his predecessor, who himself was a renowned crook president.

Although he recently suffered from cerebral attack, Jacques Chirac seems relatively healthier than Mitterrand at the end of his last mandate so question whether he will try to run again for office or just go directly to jail after his mandate is still relatively open. People actually believe that Jacques Chirac primary goal is to avoid that Sarkhozy (the guy sitting left to him) become the new president.

Sarkhozy, in charge of law and order, may not even need Chirac’s help not to become president as both France and his personal life are becoming more and more a mess (of course, foreign readers who already know France will ask the question how it can become more messy and the only answer is probably that « Impossible n’est pas français« ). Sarkhozy’s administration also received high honors this year when it took the decision to forbid the use of Skype for education, in september and then to re-allow its usage in november, which saved the future of Speechi Live software. Of course, the good thing is that it’s a proof that the government took at least one right decision this year (but some people are still arguing about which one).

If the the three above right-wings politicians succeed in destroying each other’s ambition, it may very well be that Laurent Fabius, one of the leaders of the « socialist » party gets elected. (I write « socialist » with BIG quotes since this party has arguably become the most conservative French party – you don’t support a guy like Mitterrand for 20 years without some consequences, it seems). Fabius, like the Gaulle, is a guy who once stood up to say « No » (to the european constitution) but, very much unlike de Gaulle, he does not really know why he said that. However, the critical sense of french people is so highly developped that he may get elected just for that, at the end.

• L’e-learning et le goût du RISC / E-learning and the taste for RISC
• A new framework for altruistic action
• Retour au moyen-âge / Back to the trees
• Le baiser qui tu
• Adam Smith’s Paradise Lost