Just another reason to despise the french
Posted on 02/23/2004 12:31:39 PM PST by NativeNewYorker
ST-BRIAC-SUR-MER, France, Feb. 23 (UPI) -- John Forbes Kerry is not running for president here, but if he were, he would clinch the town's vote. Call it partly anti-Bush backlash after months of Iraq-related mudslinging across the Atlantic, but it cannot hurt that the Massachusetts Democrat summered as a child in this picturesque village, hugging Brittany's rocky shores. Or that Kerry's cousin happens to be mayor of St. Briac.
"I know my cousin, and I know he has a clear view of the rest of the world," said 58-year-old Brice Lalonde. "And sometimes the rest of the world feels a little bit left out, not understood by the United States." "I must say too," added Lalonde, a former French environment minister and onetime French presidential candidate, "his environmental policies are much better than Mr. George Bush's."
There are no pro-Kerry rallies, or presidential stump speeches in this village of 2,000 year-round residents, which quintuples in size during the summer. The few Kerry-for-president stickers are stashed at St. Briac's tiny town hall. But in this 16th-century village of thick stone cottages and budding apple trees, residents like Stephanie Lagand are quietly rooting. "Honestly I don't like Bush's politics," said the 29-year-old newspaper shop owner, who moved to St. Briac three years ago. "Mr. Kerry seems quite nice. And he's got this French background."
The son of a U.S. diplomat, French-speaking Kerry spent part of his childhood in Europe, attending boarding school in Switzerland, and spending holidays here, biking and fishing with a flock of cousins. But until recently, his Gallic connections were a buried footnote in his political biography. With icy relations only beginning to thaw between France and the United States, Lalonde too plays down the family heritage, appearing fearful a misplaced remark might dim Kerry's presidential ambitions.
During an hourlong interview Friday, he described in clipped English his own past as an anti-nuclear campaigner, plans to burnish St. Briac's artistic heritage and his qualified support for the war on Iraq. But when asked what kind of president Kerry would make, Lalonde quickly clammed up.
"I don't know," he said. "You must ask him." Nor can St. Briac's longtime residents remember much about the American boy who summered here half a century ago. Most, however, have not forgotten Kerry's maternal Forbes grandparents, who settled here in 1908.
The Forbes were a wealthy and worldly couple. Shanghai-born James Grant Forbes was an international lawyer and banker. His wife, Margaret Winthrop, boasted blue-chip lineage stretching back to the first governor of Massachusetts. The couple raised 11 children, including the mothers of Kerry and Lalonde. Today, their offspring are scattered across Europe and North America. Only two - - Lalonde and an uncle -- remain in St. Briac.
At La Sagesse retirement home, 95-year-old Pauline Briand remembers well Kerry's grandmother, who ate English biscuits, spoke fluent French, and walked a pair of corgis daily through the village. During the bleakest months of World War II, she picked up milk at the Briand farm. "Madame Forbes was very kind," said the tiny Breton as she finished an afternoon snack at the home, near St. Briac's town hall. "She was the same age as my mother-in-law, and they would chat. She spoke French very well." When Nazi troops occupied St. Briac, they destroyed the Forbes home. Undaunted, Kerry's grandfather rebuilt the rambling cliff-side estate that later become a hub for far-flung relatives.
Among the young cousins summering there during the 1950s, Kerry was a natural leader.
"He was older than I, so he was always organizing the games. Kick the can, biking, fishing," Lalonde said. "He was tall, really into sports, popular. He was our favorite cousin."
Kerry is hardly St. Briac's only claim to fame. Pont-Aven artists like Emile Bernard lived here. So did an exiled Romanov grand duke. Then there is slight, bearded Lalonde, who looks nothing like his American cousin. Yet as the two cousins grew older, they followed oddly similar paths.
As Kerry burnished his credentials as a Vietnam War critic and fledgling politician in the '70s and '80s, Lalonde led an environmental campaign against French nuclear testing in the Pacific. One of the founders of Friends of the Earth, the environmental non-profit, he became French Environment minister in 1988, under Socialist President Francois Mitterrand. Like Kerry, Lalonde ran for president. But in a 1981 bid, he captured less than 4 percent of the vote. In 1995, Lalonde became mayor of St. Briac. He now juggles municipal duties with work as an environmental consultant.
"People here like Mr. Lalonde," said Yonnick Guguen, 59, who owns a pharmacy in the town square, and knew the Forbes family since childhood. "Now they are beginning to talk about this American cousin. Of course, they make the connection with Mr. Lalonde."
Kerry and Lalonde still see each other occasionally in Paris and Washington, swapping family gossip and discussing shared environmental interests. But the U.S. candidate has not returned to St. Briac in 20 years. He skipped a family reunion last summer, at the height of U.S.-French tensions over Iraq.
But as Kerry continues to dominate Democratic primaries, his long absence has not discouraged the paparazzi. The first French camera crews began trickling into St. Briac a few weeks ago. Then came a sprinkling of foreign reporters. Bemused, St. Briac's residents give interviews. They clip the articles, and watch themselves on evening news.
"All we've been hearing in the French media these days is Kerry, Kerry, Kerry," said bakery owner Medard Perrois, as he ducked into a cafe one bitter afternoon. "But when the elections are over, St. Briac will return to oblivion."
Just another reason to despise the french
Fellow freepers: Please keep these "France shills for kerry" stories.
Just another reason to despise the french
And reason alone to oppose Kerry!
It takes a Britney to raise a village.
...or something like that.
In other news, Kerry carries Tehran, Pyongyang, and Havana.
Generally speaking, we common folk summer where we spring, fall, and winter. And we almost never use "summer" as a verb.
I'll bet Kerry would like to hug Brittany's Britney's rocky shores.
Who cares, as long as Ketchup Boy does the same in our next war? Perhaps Tuh-RAY-zah will even buy la belle France for him.
He wouldn't marry her, though.
With a net worth of only $100 milion, she's still $450 million short of being rich enough for Kerry.
The Frogs didn't seem to have a problem with selling a nuclear a reactor to Saddam for "testing".
LOL! Too True
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