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Week 20, 2004
THE REGULARS: Summary
A) Poem of the week: "The Imprisoned Soul" by Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
B) Le texte plus abordable de la semaine/Kidzworld: Cinco de Mayo [Le 5 mai, fête nationale mexicaine, est devenue une fête américaine.]
C) CNN/Global Office: Promoting plain workplace English [Une campagne pour un anglais moins alambique dans le milieu professionnel.
D) The New York Times/The Ethicist: Acceptable Bootlegging [Conseils sur l'éthique et la déontologie : Je vis au Viet-Nam où le seul moyen d'acheter un DVD est d'acheter des versions piratées. / Ma femme vote pour notre fils handicapé mental.]
E) Slate/Dear Prudence: Better Off Dead [Conseils sur la vie sentimentale et la vie tout court : Ma mère ne veut pas que j'informe mon frère et ma soeur de son futur décès. /Je cherche un petit ami sur internet mais tous ceux qui répondent sont mariés. / Notre fils de 40 ans ne sort qu'avec des blondasses. / Je suis une bonne partie mais les filles ne semblent pas s'intéresser à moi.]
F) Washington Post/Miss Manners: A Religious Observance [Conseils sur les bonnes manières : Puis-je assister aux offices d'une église d'une religion que ne compte pas pratiquer celle-ci ? / Ma fille veut exclure certains parents de sa fête de fin d'études secondaires.]
G) NPR Morning Edition/Present at the Creation: The Recliner [Topo sur la création du premier fauteuil relax ; vous pouvez écouter le reportage en entier, ainsi que trouver d'autres liens sur le sujet en consultant l'adresse quit suit.]
H) The Entente Cordiale series: The fork in the road [Une série d'articles publiés dans Libé et The Guardian à l'occasion de la commémoration de l'Entente Cordiale. Ici, un article sur deux familles marocaines, l'une émigrée en Angleterre, l'autre en France. Suivi d'une adaptation française.]

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A) Poem of the week: "The Imprisoned Soul" by Walt Whitman (1819–1892)

AT the last, tenderly,
From the walls of the powerful, fortress'd house,
From the clasp of the knitted locks—from the keep of the well-closed doors,
Let me be wafted.

Let me glide noiselessly forth; 5
With the key of softness unlock the locks—with a whisper
Set ope the doors, O soul!

Tenderly! be not impatient!
(Strong is your hold, O mortal flesh!
Strong is your hold, O love!)

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Cinco de Mayo

May 5th is not Mexican Independence Day despite what you may have heard. Mexico became independent from Spain at midnight on September 15, 1810. It took 11 years until the first Spanish soldiers clued in and were forced to leave Mexico.

The History of Cinco de Mayo
Cinco de Mayo celebrates the victory of the Mexican army over the French at the battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. About 4,000 Mexicans faced the French army which was better armed and three times larger - and won. A year later the losers from Puebla managed to take over Mexico City and start a French government. The French victory was short lived. The government soon collapsed and Mexicans took back their city.

Why Do Mexicans Celebrate Cinco de Mayo?
The fact that the heavily outnumbered Mexican army fought for victory and won is what all the fuss is about. Mexicans are proud of this day and celebrate it every May 5th. Independence Day is a bigger holiday, but that's another story.

Celebrating Cinco de Mayo
Mexicans celebrate this holiday with a hefty dose of local food and drink, mariachi bands, parades and folk dancing. For the holiday, dig up a recipe for your favorite Mexican food and make sure it's spicy.

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http://edition.cnn.com/2004/BUSINESS/05/03/go.plain.english/index.html

Promoting plain workplace English
By Nick Easen for CNN

(CNN) -- Just half a century ago office workers toiled over carefully scripted manuscripts before sending them by post. Now e-mail allows us to zap our typed chat around the globe in seconds. Yet the latest electronic technology has not made us better writers -- corporate culture is still full of jargon and cliches, as well as abused and overused phrases.

In the fiercely competitive global workplace, clear English skills can be vital for success. But co-workers still "talk the talk", assess the impact of "post-merger integration" and "human capital" on the "bottom line." In a recent online CNN poll, out of 56 voters, 27 percent said that the standard of written and spoken English in their company was poor, while 53 percent said it was just reasonable.

"The workplace is probably the most important area for plain English," John Lister of the Plain English Campaign told CNN. "It is where we spend the most time during the week, and it is the place most of our formal communication takes place," Lister said.

Phrases are picked up from co-workers and bosses in meetings, e-mails and presentations and can quickly spread around the office like a computer virus.

Although the best rationale involves applying common sense and clarity to the written word, Lister believes there is undue pressure in the workplace. "In particular (managers) need to discourage the situation where staff feel pressured to use jargon as a status symbol," he says. Lister believes anything that places the emphasis on displaying knowledge rather than communicating ideas and information can cause problems.

This approach could stem from higher education, where students write for an audience -- lecturers or examiners -- who already know the information and are instead looking for a demonstration of knowledge by the writer. Management courses may also teach people to use convoluted language and overworked expressions to fit in and advance their career. "This tends to create a self-fulfilling prophecy," says Lister.

A number of Web sites, books and software packages exist to assist employees with clear, effective business writing.

Advice on business English
The Plain English Campaign is an independent group that has up to 5,000 activists worldwide. It is against poor English language use.

The campaign celebrated its 25th anniversary last month and identified the ten worst phrases currently in use (See list at top right).

The organization has the following suggestions regarding the use of clear English in the workplace:

Managers need to create an environment where a clear, everyday writing style is seen as a positive.

The writer's responsibility is to put a message across clearly. The reader can then take responsibility for their actions in response to the information. Employers are responsible for removing any barriers to this process.

There are three main causes of unclear writing: forgetting the needs of the audience; writing for a reason other than communication; and not putting a point across clearly.

Plain English reduces the need to explain and clarify documents, or to return forms that have mistakes because the instructions are unclear.

The passive voice can be used to avoid taking or giving responsibility. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but writers should be aware that they are doing it.

When speaking at home, we are usually very familiar with the people we speak to and the situation under discussion. This means we can rely more on shared background to give language enough context, even when the words we use are potentially ambiguous or understated. This does not translate well in the office.

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TOP OVERUSED PHRASES
1. At the end of the day
2. At this moment in time
3. Like (as a form of punctuation)
4. With all due respect
5. To be honest
6. Let's touch base
7. I hear what you are saying
8. Going forward
9. Absolutely
10. Blue sky (thinking)
Source: Plain English Campaign

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E) Slate/Dear Prudence: Better Off Dead [Conseils sur la vie sentimentale et la vie tout court : Ma mère ne veut pas que j'informe mon frère et ma soeur de son futur décès. /Je cherche un petit ami sur internet mais tous ceux qui répondent sont mariés. / Notre fils de 40 ans ne sort qu'avec des blondasses. / Je suis une bonne partie mais les filles ne semblent pas s'intéresser à moi.]
http://slate.msn.com/id/2099266/

dear prudence: Better Off Dead
My mother's trying to continue a feud from beyond the grave.
Posted Thursday, May 6, 2004, at 6:20 AM PT

Dear Prudie,
My mother, who is estranged from my sister, told me that she (my sister) is neither to be told about nor invited to her funeral when the time comes. However, while relations are less than model between my sister and my brother and me, it will be impossible to keep that news from her. My mother has not yet brought up that my brother—also in a strained relationship with her—shall not be told about her death either, but that pronouncement is probably forthcoming. Question: What's my role here? To inform the entire family that she's passed away, but not my sister? Hope word spreads, raising the ire of my sibling (who would hear the news secondarily)? Do I ride in the limo alone? P.S.: The only tie I have to my mother is love, as there is no monetary incentive for me to honor her wishes, but this situation violates a personal code I have about forgiving.

—J in SA

Dear J,
Try to understand that your personal code about forgiving is just that: personal. Your credo can guide you, but you cannot magically make it your mother's guiding principle as well. It seems that she is intent upon punishing her out-of-favor child from the grave. This puts you in a difficult spot, certainly, because you will no doubt take the heat while your mother will be ... gone. Perhaps this would be a workable solution: Abide by your mother's wish that you not inform one or both of your siblings, depending on how that particular detail plays out. You are most likely correct that another family member will convey the information. If one or both sibs call you, simply explain that you are the messenger: "Mother requested that you not be there. This has nothing to do with me." Then add that, having delivered said message, the recipient is free to do whatever is most comfortable and that you would be happy to have company in the limousine. This is really splitting the difference, and Prudie hopes she has not wimped out by trying for a middle ground in what is a tough moral decision.

—Prudie, differentiatingly

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Dear Prudence,
I am a single gal who does not go to bars or clubs and is considered the hard-working, goody-two shoes type. I decided to subscribe to a few local singles sites on the Internet. What has been happening is that four out of 10 guys that I converse with, and then meet, end up being married with kids. It really is getting to be a problem when deception is in full swing in the dating scene. I started noticing a lot of the men asked to meet during the week or at odd hours (early in the morning or late at night). These guys are persistent and want to rush things, and once the meeting takes place, either they want to go to my place or a motel. I refuse, and that's when they break down and inform me they're married but have not had relations with the wife in months. For those wives with computer-savvy husbands, it's just like your children: Either spend more time with them, or create some activities so Hubby does not seek outside entertainment from the Internet.

—Wanda

Dear Wan,
Men want to initially meet early in the morning?! Astounding. What woman would do that, anyway? But back to business. Prudie is not sure what your question is, but the information in your letter may be useful to some women. It has, in fact, been reported that a significant percentage of married men both advertise and respond to singles ads. The no-sex-with-the-Mrs. routine is one of the oldest in the book, by the way. Prudie has a hunch that the way one occupies little kids would not work for husbands, but your underlying theory might be useful in certain cases. As for your own situation, perhaps it's time to cut your losses and set about meeting some live, single candidates, as opposed to cyber-suitors. Volunteer, join affinity groups or clubs, let friends know you're up for a relationship. You definitely need a new modus operandi. Good luck.

—Prudie, embarkingly

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Dear Prudence,
Our son is a source of great concern (unhappiness?) for my husband and me. Perhaps you're guessing he's a teenager. If you are, you'd only be 20-some years off. "Jeff" is 40. He is whip-smart, financially successful, and a magnet for women. Where's the problem, you ask? The women for whom he is a magnet. The type he favors is big-busted, good-looking, and extra light on the brain power, please. He could do so much better and of course shows no signs of wanting to get married. He is too old, obviously, for his father and me to weigh in on this state of affairs, but it's a source of great pain for us. We are both accomplished and well-educated—as is he. Have you any advice for two people who see so much promise going to waste?

—Beside Myself

Dear Be,
"This state of affairs" is certainly the apt phrase. Oftentimes parents see choices their children make that just make them want to weep. A 40-year-old man is, alas, not going to take the kind of advice you have in mind. And Prudie is guessing you and Romeo's dad have made your views known. For whatever reasons, your son's taste in women inclines toward the bimboid. You cannot change this, just as you could not change, say, a cocaine habit or a preference for golf. What Prudie hopes you develop, for your own peace of mind, is the gift of acceptance, the recognition that this is the way things are. As you may have read in this space before, everyone gets one life (Shirley MacLaine excepted) to do with as he or she pleases. This situation is beyond your control.

—Prudie, compassionately

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Dear Pru,
I've always loved your column but never thought I would have a reason to write. However, I'm at the end of my tether and not sure what to do. Basically, my question is, what exactly is it that women in my generation are looking for? I'm a 23-year-old law student and political activist who also loves ballroom dancing and classical music. Everyone tells me I'm a great listener and that I put other people first. After all of this, not only have I not had a date in years, but women don't even give me a second look. When I ask my women friends, they tell me that any woman would be lucky to have me ... but no one is interested. Any idea on what I might be missing to make my generation swoon?

—Lovesick Legal Eagle

Dear Love,
Different women look for different things, my friend. Among them: kindness, humor, looks, money, smarts, status, knowledge, big sex drive, no sex drive, large family, no family, lovely friends, good taste, a yacht, ability to listen, the gift of gab, multiple degrees, ambition ... and Prudie will spare you the laundry list. What women find appealing is determined by needs, neurosis, and background. Not knowing you, it's impossible to know what, if anything, is missing. Don't give up, however. It is likely that between your professional activities, cultural interests, and personal qualities, you will connect with a woman who will wonder why you're still on the loose. Hang in there, counselor.

—Prudie, intuitively

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F) Washington Post/Miss Manners: A Religious Observance [Conseils sur les bonnes manières : Puis-je assister aux offices d'une église d'une religion que ne compte pas pratiquer celle-ci ? / Ma fille veut exclure certains parents de sa fête de fin d'études secondaires.]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29211-2004Apr20.html
A Religious Observance
Wednesday, May 5, 2004; Page C11

Q:
Dear Miss Manners:

I read a lot about religion and have become interested in a specific faith that happens to have a church near my house. I am most definitely not interested in converting to this faith as I am secure in my own, but I do find their beliefs and practices interesting for purely intellectual reasons. I want to attend one of their Sunday services, but a friend told me it would be unspeakably rude and deceptive to do so, since I do not intend to take on their faith as my own and am no better than a "gawker." My intention is not to gawk or make a spectacle of myself, but merely to quietly observe the service for my own education. Would be rude and wrong to do this?

A:
That's not gawking. Gawking is when you tap people on the shoulder while they are praying and ask them to let you by to see the paintings. Serious religion is regarded as a never-ending quest, and regular church services are considered to be open -- even welcoming -- to well-behaved visitors.

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Q:
Dear Miss Manners:

Our daughter will graduate from high school this June. While we were discussing how she'd like to celebrate, she made it clear that she was unwilling to invite some of her close relatives as they will embarrass her. Granted, some family members have quirks, like preaching, complaining or overeating. However, we let our daughter know EVERYONE has relatives like this and her guests wouldn't be offended in such company, thus she shouldn't be embarrassed. She maintains it would ruin her affair. In the end we told her she could have the party, but must eliminate all of that side of the family so no one member is slighted. This has left us feeling bad. We love all of our family members, quirks and all. She says she loves them, too, just not at her party.

Family is family and all would enjoy her graduation. Please let us know if we should give in to this selfish child's desire and exclude half of the family from the celebration. At this point I feel as if we shouldn't have a gathering at all, which is a disappointment, too. What should we do?

A:
Exclude the other half of the family.

No, wait -- your daughter did not ask Miss Manners to say that. We should all cherish our quirky relatives, not least because that is how they might define us.

It is difficult to give a party for both teenagers and adults, as they have different ideas of what constitutes a good time and different definitions of "loud." There are ceremonial occasions on which one must give such a party, and Miss Manners will unhesitatingly support you if your daughter makes the same argument in regard to her wedding.

But graduation night is best left to the (heavily supervised) young. Unless you have the room and the energy to throw, in effect, simultaneous parties that are mixed only for greetings and perhaps a celebratory toast (incidentally minimizing the time at which your daughter's friends observe her relatives' quirks), Miss Manners recommends having your family party at a different time.

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G) NPR Morning Edition/Present at the Creation: The Recliner [Topo sur la création du premier fauteuil relax ; vous pouvez écouter le reportage en entier, ainsi que trouver d'autres liens sur le sujet en consultant l'adresse quit suit.]

http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/patc/recliner/index.html
The Recliner

April 15, 2002 -- Americans love to lean back, put up their feet -- and relax, with the TV remote in hand and a snack and beverage within reach. The activity -- or inactivity, as it were -- dates back at least to the 1800s (minus the remote control, of course).

"Even in 19th century Europe, (people) were astonished to see how often American males would put their boots up on railings, on mantelpieces or tables," says Edward Tenner, a visiting researcher at Princeton University. "They just loved to tilt back in their seats."

In 1928, Americans got some serious help relaxing when two young cousins named Edward Knabusch and Edwin Shoemaker in Monroe, Mich., came up with the idea for a new kind of chair. It automatically reclined if you just leaned back, Cindy Carpien reports on Morning Edition as part of NPR's Present at the Creation series.

"It was simply a wood slat chair that you could kick back and enjoy a summer breeze," says La-Z-Boy historian Judy Carr. The cousins tried to sell a few of the porch chairs to a department store buyer in Toledo, Ohio, but he said he had no use for a "seasonal chair." Carr says he told the cousins: "You know, if you boys can come up with a chair that could recline like that, but maybe had some stuffing and upholstery and could be used year round, you know it might sell."

They hired an upholsterer and spent months perfecting the design, Carpien reports. In 1931, Knabusch and Shoemaker received a patent for the first automatic recliner but realized they needed a better name than "automatic adjustable chair." They held a contest with their seven employees. The losing names were Comfort Carrier, the Slack-Back and the Sit-N-Snooze. The winner: La-Z-Boy. Eventually other companies came up with their own recliner variations, and in1947 Barcalounger added the built-in footrest.

In the 1950s, big, bulky recliners took their place in front of new television sets. But by the 1970s, the recliner moved from the den to the basement. "The problem was taste. Our over-stuffed clunkers, that once looked comfy, had become embarrassments," Carpien says.

But more than a decade later they came back -- this time with sleeker looks and classier fabrics. Propelled by sales to baby boomers, "motion furniture" is now a $4 billion industry. Recliners even play starring roles in TV shows like Friends.

But the future of recliners is more like an episode from The Jetsons. Experts predict chairs will sense your center of gravity and make you feel like you're floating on air. How relaxing.

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Other Resources

• Read a history of recliners at the La-Z-Boy Web site.

• Learn about recliner inventors Edward Knabusch and Edwin Shoemaker at the American Furniture Hall of Fame.

• Read "The Life of Chairs", a Harvard Magazine article by Edward Tenner.

• Review recent trends in recliners.

• Read about recliners on the set of NBC's Friends.

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H) The Entente Cordiale series: Changing Rooms [Une série d'articles publiés dans Libé et The Guardian à l'occasion de la commémoration de l'Entente Cordiale. Ici, un article sur deux familles marocaines, l'une émigrée en Angleterre, l'autre en France. Suivi d'une adaptation française.]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1185737,00.html

The fork in the road

Thirty years ago, two men left Morocco with their families; one settled in Toulouse, the other went to London. Both of the men had been married to a woman called Taanante: her children would grow up with the Channel - and a more subtle cultural gulf - dividing them. Christophe Boltanski and Jon Henley uncover a tale of two immigrant families

Monday April 5, 2004
The Guardian

It's a real English Sunday. Tea and biscuits conclude a copious lunch. The wind and the rain lash the bow windows. On the telly, the football. Across the opposite pavement, identical red-brick semi-detached houses, each with their porch and their parking space. The whole family is in the living room, round a low table. The son, Aness, celebrating his 21st birthday, is recovering from a Saturday night out. His elder sister's 10-month-old baby is babbling on the sofa. Malika, the baby's grandmother, utters a cry of joy: "She said Allahu Akbar [Allah is great]!"
Malika, a brown-tinted muslin veil framing her permanently smiling face, is the eldest daughter of Taanante, and the product of her mother's first marriage (the families have asked us not to use Taanante's second name), who followed her father to London, then married and settled here. Malika returns regularly to Morocco with her husband, Hassan Fakruni. "On holiday," she says. "A month's enough for me. I miss my home sweet home." Her son Aness, wearing a shiny grey T-shirt, and multi-pocketed trousers, sighs. He refused the couscous because "I don't like it," but has deigned to show up for his cake.

The Fakrunis are a model of successful integration. Hassan left the Rif in 1969, coming to London on a friend's advice. Courteous and with a very British reserve, he now runs a big restaurant in Leicester Square. "To be honest, I never thought I'd stay so long here," he says. "Winter's so depressing. But when you have kids, it's hard to move." He looks proudly at his daughter Samira: 'She's almost a lawyer." He slaps his son on the back: "He's studying psychology at university. Al-hamdu lillah (God be praised), we have survived in Great Britain!"

They live in northwest London not far from Portobello Road, a little Morocco with stalls selling spices, shelves of north African vegetables, a mosque and community centre. Samira, 27, can't imagine living anywhere else: "I've got dual nationality, but I feel British." Not English - that's too loaded - but a citizen of a kingdom that has always been mixed. "Even if we watch EastEnders, drink tea, like the food and speak English among ourselves, that doesn't make us natives," she says. She is wearing a Sunday kaftan instead of her lawyer's robes. The teapot smells of mint; verses of the Koran are on the mantelpiece.

The family are practising Muslims. "Here, you can wear your faith on your sleeve," says Malika. "A headscarf or a jellaba, praying - it's no problem. There are mosques everywhere." Samira laughs: "And halal Kentucky Fried Chicken." She does not envy her aunts, her father's half-sisters, across the Channel, even after spending a year studying law at Lille university. "Here, everyone mixes but keeps their identity. In France, everyone has to go through the mixer."

Hassan recounts his visit to the Mirail estate in Toulouse, where his half-sister Mina lives: "I saw streets strewn with stones, burned-out cars. If you call an ambulance, it's not certain to come. We don't have such lawless zones here. There are parts of the Mirail that look like backward corners of Morocco." Samira steps in: "In London, there are times when you could be in Pakistan or Bangladesh." Yes, agrees her father, "but at least here, people have a job, a house".

Her suspicions about France have been confirmed by the French government's decision to ban the Islamic veil in schools. "It's just a piece of cloth, it does no harm to anyone!" says Samira, who has never worn one, having been allowed by her family to choose for herself. Her elder sister, Naiman, on the other hand, decided to wear the veil during the last Ramadan. "It was a need that came with age," she says, and "a response to attacks against Islam". "Everyone has their moments of existential crisis," says Samira, scathing. The two halves of the family on either side of the Channel disagree violently on the issue. "My aunt Jamila always rows with me about this," says Samira. "She's a primary-school teacher and she thinks secularism is a good thing."

She thinks Britain should keep a closer eye on what its imams are allowed to preach, even in school. "Colleges and universities invite all sorts of people," she says. "They're often fundamentalists. Once, during a university debate, I asked one of them how it was that if Islam condemned suicide, suicide bombers could claim to be Muslims. He never replied, and he started attacking me because I wasn't wearing the veil."

Naiman turns to her younger brother, Aness: "Remember the one who taught Arabic in your school. It was practically brainwashing." It's left to Samira to sum up. "In France, it's too coercive. Here, it's the opposite. They don't check up on anything, and they let us get on with things on our own. There should be a happy medium."
CB

Something has changed in France's relationship with its immigrants in the 40 years since Mina and Fatiha's father Haddou, Taanante's second husband, came to Toulouse looking for building work. Sitting in Fatiha's spotless suburban living room, five minutes' drive from the sprawling estate where they lived for nearly 20 years, the sisters try to work out what it is.

What surprises them, thinking about it, is that things seem, somehow, to have got worse. Not for them, of course: they are two of the modest success stories of French immigration policy in the latter half of the 20th century. But in their memory, their childhoods were not like those of the kids growing up on the Mirail estate today. There wasn't the anger, the hopelessness, the violence, the torched cars. There wasn't the religion thing, the race thing, that whole self-defeating, hate-filled cité [estate] attitude. There wasn't, mainly, a staggering 36% unemployment.

"It was a privilege for us to move in to the Mirail," says Mina. "It was luxury. These were new, big, well-built flats, with central heating; there was masses of green space, nice schools. We had middle-class, European neighbours, schoolfriends who were Jews. It was genuinely a balanced environment. You couldn't say that now."

Now the Mirail is one of those decaying, crime-ridden, immigrant-filled, out-of-town sink estates in which France has sadly come to specialise. "A receptacle," says Mina, "for everyone here who is in difficulty. A place that fuels its own doubt and paranoia."

There is sweet green tea ("Not sweet enough," complains Mina) on the table, and slabs of chocolate cake. Two of Fatiha's three children, Amin, 15, and Selma, eight, listen politely. Fatiha was six when Taanante brought her, and two other older sisters, to join Haddou here in 1966; Mina, and two brothers, were born in Toulouse. Taanante, now very elderly, still lives in the area, having survived both her husbands.

"I've watched it happen, but I can't explain it," says Fatiha, an administrator at France's main distance-learning centre. "There's ... no more confidence. The first generation, we lived on very little, but there was a will to succeed. We worked at school; our parents set high standards at home. Now there's no hope. And people expect it all on a plate."

For Mina, who is unmarried, a town hall development officer on the Mirail estate with a masters degree in political science, the question is one she faces every day. "Working on the estate now you meet a hatred, a rejection of all dialogue, a complete absence of common ground," she says. "It's hard because I grew up there, I share their roots, and I'm seen as someone who has betrayed them."

Toulouse, lately, has begun trying to get a grip on the Mirail. Money is coming in, blocks including the one where Mina and Fatiha grew up are being dynamited. But the suburb, and the 1,100-plus other designated sink estates in France, mark, in a way, a frontier of the republic. There may be fraternity here, but there's not a lot of liberty, and there's certainly no equality.

The most sacred article in all France's grand republican and secular creed is the principle that everyone is equal and indistinguishable in the eyes of the state: no matter where they come from, all are identical in their Frenchness. This means France does not know exactly how many citizens it has who are of north African origin, or who are Muslim. And so only unofficial reports are available to show that for the past several years, unemployment among 20 to 29-year-olds of north African origin has been up around 40%, against 10% for youths of French origin.

Both sisters insist they have never felt discriminated against, in their education or their careers. ("Maybe," says Mina, "this nagging feeling that you have to prove yourself that little bit more. But that's all.") But equally, both acknowledge that wide-scale discrimination exists in France. "It may not be open, but it's evident," says Mina. "In high-up posts in the administration, TV, politics."

Under France's republican model of integration, the idea that different ethnic and religious groups might enjoy rights and recognition due to their minority status is unthinkable. But if the integrationist approach worked fine for earlier waves of mainly European immigrants, it is plainly not doing so for many of those from north Africa. Mina and Fatiha agree positive discrimination may now be the only realistic way out. "The republican model isn't functioning," says Mina. "It's not flexible enough. The big principles blind people to real problems on the ground."

That doesn't stop the sisters defending France's recent decision to ban Islamic headscarves in state schools. Although practising Muslims, neither wears the veil and both are "shocked" to see religion intrude so visibly into France's secular public arena. "I was in favour of the law," says Fatiha flatly. "It's only in schools, and public services like that are for everyone. In any case, women who wear the veil in France don't work, or only work in the ethnic supermarkets on the estates."

Every couple of years, the family goes back to Morocco. They are upset by the poverty, but feel that it is important to tend to their roots. And they travel occasionally to Britain to see their half-sisters and cousins. They find it a very different place. "There nobody cares where you come from, what you believe in and how you show it," says Mina. "Women can wear the veil or a sari, men wear turbans, it's all perfectly normal. I get the impression it's much easier there to get on, the melting pot means you can set up a business, for example, and your background just won't matter."

Maybe, agrees Fatiha, but that doesn't alter the fact that London is "impossibly expensive", that you wouldn't ever want to get ill there, and that if you were poor, "I've no idea how you'd survive." What would be nice, the sisters agree, would be something in between: Britain's freedoms, France's safety net. Now there's an immigrant's dream.

-- JH

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http://www.liberation.fr/page.php?Article=191747

Société

Libération/The Guardian
A Londres, haut les différences
La famille de Malika s'est intégrée grâce à l'attachement du royaume au mélange. Avec ou sans voile.

Par Christophe BOLTANSKI
lundi 05 avril 2004

Londres de notre correspondant

'est un vrai dimanche anglais. Un thé fumant met fin à un long et copieux déjeuner. La pluie et le vent fouettent contre la bow-window. Une télé retransmet en sourdine les clameurs d'un match de foot. Des bâtisses identiques en brique, «semi-détachées», se succèdent sur le trottoir d'en face. La famille est réunie dans le living. Le fils, qui fête ses 21 ans, récupère après une virée du samedi soir. Sa nièce, 10 mois, émet un léger babillage en rampant sur le sofa. Cri de joie de sa grand-mère, Malika (une fille de Taanante) : «Elle a dit "Allâhu Akbar" !» (Allah est le plus grand).

Fierté. Avec son mari, Hassan, Malika retourne régulièrement au Maroc. «Pour les vacances, précise-t-elle. Après un mois, ça suffit. J'ai envie de mon "home sweet home".» Un foulard de mousseline tacheté de brun encadre son visage toujours souriant. «On y va en voiture. C'est très joli.» Soupir de son fils, Aness : «La façon typique des Marocains de voyager !» T-shirt gris satiné, pantalon multipoches, il a boudé le couscous qu'il «n'aime pas» et rejoint la table pour son gâteau d'anniversaire.

Les Fakrouni montrent l'exemple d'une intégration réussie. Hassan, le père, a quitté la région du Rif en 1969. «Sur le conseil d'un ami, je suis venu ici.» Cet homme, à la courtoisie et à la réserve très britanniques, gère un restaurant dans le centre de Londres. «Jamais je n'aurais cru que je resterais si longtemps dans ce pays. L'hiver est si déprimant. Quand vous avez des enfants, c'est dur de bouger.» Un regard de fierté vers sa fille. «Elle est presque avocate.» Une tape amicale dans le dos de son fils. «Il étudie la psychologie. "Al-hamdu lillâh" (Dieu soit loué, ndlr), nous avons survécu en Grande Bretagne !»

Ils habitent au nord-ouest de Londres, à deux pas de Golborne Road, un «petit Maroc» avec ses échoppes pleines d'épices, sa mosquée et son centre communautaire. On y vient de préférence le vendredi, jour du sermon, prier, papoter et faire ses courses. La fille de la maison, Samira, 27 ans, ne conçoit pas de vivre ailleurs. «Malgré ma double nationalité, je me considère britannique.» Pas anglaise, un terme qui sent trop son terroir, mais citoyenne d'un royaume qui a toujours été multiple. «Même si nous regardons EastEnders (la série culte de la BBC, ndlr), buvons du thé et parlons anglais entre nous, cela ne suffit pas à faire de nous des gens du cru.» En ce dimanche, elle a troqué ses habits de juriste pour un caftan marocain. Un narguilé repose près du mur. Des versets du Coran, en lettres d'or sur fond noir, trônent au-dessus de la cheminée.

«Au mixeur». Ce sont des musulmans pratiquants. «Ici, on peut facilement afficher sa différence. Porter le voile ou la djellaba, prier, ne pose aucun problème. Et il y a partout des mosquées», souligne Malika. «Et des Kentucky Fried Chicken halal», surenchérit la fille en riant. Samira se félicite du choix de son père et n'envie pas ses tantes installées dans un Hexagone tiré au cordeau. Un pays qu'elle connaît bien. Elle a suivi des cours de droit à Lille. «Ici, on se mélange en gardant son identité. La France passe tout au mixeur.» Ce fut aussi la découverte d'une immigration nord-africaine encore peu présente au Royaume-Uni, du «raï à la radio», et des tensions racistes. «Des préjugés, il y en a partout. Ici c'est plus caché.»

Hassan raconte sa visite de la cité du Mirail, à Toulouse, où ont grandi ses belles-soeurs, Mina et Fatiha (lire page précédente) : «J'ai vu des rues jonchées de pierres, des voitures brûlées. Nous n'avons pas de telles zones de non-droit. On se croit dans des coins reculés du Maroc.» Samira corrige : «Parfois, ici aussi, tu peux te croire au Pakistan ou au Bangladesh.» «Oui, mais au moins les gens possèdent un travail, une maison.» Sa fille opine : «Je ne crois pas que j'aurais eu les mêmes opportunités en France.»

«Crise existentielle». Sa méfiance s'est encore accrue depuis l'interdiction du voile à l'école. «Ce n'est qu'un morceau de tissu qui ne fait de mal à personne», s'écrie Samira qui ne l'a jamais porté. Sa soeur aînée, Naiman, en revanche, a décidé de le mettre lors du dernier ramadan. «Un besoin», dit-elle, venu avec «l'âge». Une réponse aussi «aux attaques contre l'islam». «Chacun traverse un jour sa crise existentielle», ironise sa cadette. Patronne d'une société de nettoyage, Naiman a voulu rencontrer un client avec sa nouvelle parure pour «voir». «Ça n'a fait aucune différence. J'ai décroché le contrat. Ce qui compte, c'est d'être compétent et bon marché.»

Sur ce sujet brûlant, les deux branches de la famille, de part et d'autre de la Manche, n'ont pas la même opinion. «Ma tante pense que la laïcité est une bonne chose», raconte Samira. Elle reconnaît cependant que le royaume aurait intérêt à surveiller un peu mieux ses imams autorisés à prêcher jusque dans les écoles publiques. «Ce sont souvent des fondamentalistes. Une fois, lors d'un débat, j'ai lancé à l'un d'eux : "Si l'islam condamne le suicide, comment un kamikaze peut-il s'en réclamer ?" Il ne m'a pas répondu et a commencé à m'agresser parce que je n'étais pas voilée.»

Naiman se tourne vers son jeune frère, Aness : «Tu te souviens de celui qui te donnait des cours d'arabe. Il t'avait presque lavé le cerveau.» Et Samira d'ajouter : «En France, c'est trop coercitif. Ici, c'est le contraire. Ils ne contrôlent rien et nous laissent nous débrouiller tout seuls. Il faudrait pouvoir trouver un juste milieu.»

© Libération

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http://www.liberation.fr/page.php?Article=191746#

Société

Libération/The Guardian
A Toulouse, le mirage du Mirail
Mina et Fatiha ont vu la cité de leur enfance devenir une zone de désespoir.

Par Jon HENLEY
lundi 05 avril 2004

(«The Guardian»)

Toulouse envoyé spécial

lles ne comprennent pas pourquoi tout a empiré. Sauf pour elles, bien sûr. Mina et Fatiha représentent deux exemples de réussite de la politique française d'immigration durant la seconde moitié du XXe siècle. Dans leurs souvenirs, leur enfance ne ressemblait pas à celle de ces gamins qui grandissent aujourd'hui au Mirail. Il n'y avait pas cette colère, ce désespoir, cette violence et ces voitures incendiées. La cité ne connaissait pas les questions de religion et de race. Surtout, elle n'affichait pas 36 % de chômage.

«Paranoïa». «Emménager au Mirail, pour nous, c'était un luxe, un privilège, raconte Mina. Les appartements étaient grands, flambant neufs, bien construits, équipés du chauffage central. Nous avions de bonnes écoles, plein d'espaces verts, des voisins européens, des camarades juifs. Cet équilibre n'existe plus.» Aujourd'hui, le Mirail fait partie de ces cités pour immigrés, délabrées, rongées par la délinquance, qui sont devenues une spécificité française. «Un déversoir, dit Mina, pour tous les gens en difficulté. Un lieu qui alimente les doutes et la paranoïa.» Fatiha, assise avec sa soeur dans le salon, réside à cinq minutes en voiture du HLM où elles ont grandi. Un thé vert et sucré repose sur la table. Deux des enfants de Fatiha, Amin, 15 ans, et Selma, 8 ans, écoutent.

Fatiha venait tout juste d'avoir 6 ans lorsque, en 1966, sa mère, Taanante, l'a emmenée avec deux de ses soeurs aînées rejoindre leur père, un ouvrier en bâtiment. Mina et ses deux frères sont nés à Toulouse. «Je n'arrive pas à expliquer cette transformation qui s'est déroulée sous mes yeux, s'écrie Fatiha, employée au Centre national d'enseignement à distance. Les gens s'attendent à tout recevoir sur un plateau. La confiance s'est envolée. Notre première génération a vécu de rien, mais il y avait toujours cette volonté de réussir. Nous étions des élèves studieux. Nos parents étaient exigeants. Pourquoi tout cela a-t-il disparu ?» Tous les jours, Mina est confrontée à cette question. Un DEA de sciences politiques en poche, elle fait du développement urbain au Mirail. «Maintenant, lorsque vous travaillez dans la cité, vous faites face à une véritable haine, à un rejet de tout dialogue. C'est très dur pour moi, car j'ai grandi ici, je partage leurs racines, et pourtant, je suis perçue comme une traîtresse.» Le chômage, reconnaît Mina, se trouve au coeur du problème. «Pourquoi étudier si vous avez trois à quatre fois moins de chances d'obtenir un travail qu'une personne d'une autre partie de la ville ?»

Poids. La municipalité a commencé récemment à s'occuper du Mirail. L'argent afflue, plusieurs grands ensembles ont été dynamités. Mais, par beaucoup d'aspects, la cité, comme les 1 100 autres banlieues dites «sensibles», marque les frontières de la République. Dans un pays qui réfute toute distinction entre ses citoyens, personne ne peut dire exactement quel poids représente la population musulmane ou d'origine nord-africaine. Des rapports non officiels évaluent à 40 % le chômage chez les beurs de 20 à 29 ans, quatre fois plus que pour les Français de souche du même âge. Les deux soeurs disent n'avoir jamais souffert de discrimination, pas plus durant leurs études que dans leur carrière. Mais elles savent que le phénomène existe. «Même caché, il saute aux yeux. Il n'y a qu'à voir les hauts postes dans l'administration, la télé ou la politique.» Elles se demandent si des mesures de «discrimination positive» ne sont pas la seule issue réaliste. «Le modèle républicain ne marche pas, déclare Mina. Les grands principes empêchent les gens de voir les vrais problèmes sur le terrain.»

Musulmanes pratiquantes, les deux soeurs approuvent cependant la décision d'interdire à l'école publique un voile qu'elles ne portent pas. Mais elles redoutent qu'une fois interdit, il ne devienne pour les adolescentes un symbole de rébellion. «J'étais en faveur de la loi, lance Fatiha. De toute façon, en France, les femmes voilées ne travaillent pas, à part dans les supermarchés ethniques des cités.» Elles se déclarent «choquées» par les atteintes à la laïcité et s'insurgent quand Amin raconte que le professeur d'histoire ne peut pas parler d'islam sans être contredit par ses élèves. Elles visitent de temps en temps leurs demi-soeurs et cousins en Grande-Bretagne (lire page suivante). «Là-bas, personne ne s'intéresse à la façon dont tu t'habilles, à ce que tu penses, d'où tu viens, souligne Mina. J'ai l'impression qu'il est plus facile de se débrouiller en Angleterre.» «Mais, à Londres, tout est terriblement cher, corrige Fatiha, il vaut mieux ne pas tomber malade, ni être pauvre.» Elle imagine un pays qui conjuguerait les libertés britanniques et la protection française. Un vrai rêve d'immigrant.

(Traduit de l'anglais par Christophe Boltanski)

© Libération

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Dan Glaister in Los Angeles
Friday April 30, 2004
The Guardian

A US television station has been bombarded with complaints over plans for a reality show in which five couples compete to adopt a baby boy. ABC's 20/20 programme, hosted by the veteran presenter Barbara Walters, is scheduled to broadcast a segment Be My Baby tonight. The programme shows 16-year-old Jessica, who was eight-and-a-half months pregnant at the time, interviewing couples in a process known as "open adoption". The network promoted the programme as "the ultimate reality show".

"As you watch, a pregnant teenager will decide which of five couples gets her baby," it said, even promising a "nerve-racking elimination round".

But complaints from viewers and adoption groups, and outrage in the media, has prompted ABC to alter its message. "Clearly there is no competition," said a spokesman. "This is the chronicling of a process that happens every day. We as journalists are just focusing a camera on it."

Walters added her own clarification on the show's website yesterday, saying people may have been given the wrong impression. "Some of that may be due to overly zealous promotion on our part; frankly, some of our initial on-air promos went a little over the top." "20/20 simply reports what happened: we did not choose the participants nor exert any influence on what they did. This is not one of those scripted 'reality shows' - it IS reality!" She goes on to detail her own experience of adopting a daughter 30 years ago. "This is a story of love extended and embraced, of lives changed".

But the clarification seemed to come too late. "Shame on you," writes Kathleen Meade, a visitor to the site. "How dare you degrade the process of adoption by turning the journey into a reality TV programme. A baby is not a prize to be won on TV." Another asks: "So, Ms Walters, how much money are you going to make off of these people's personal pain? I only hope America wakes up and shuns this horrible spectacle."

As if things could not get worse, the British-based psychic Uri Geller claimed the show had been copied from his unpublished novel, Nobody's Child. Parts of the novel were put on his website in 2001, and Geller claims to have an application pending with the US Patent and Trademark Office. The plot follows five couples who compete on a reality TV show to adopt a baby. "I can't believe that such a show will go on," he told Reuters. "I was afraid that an unscrupulous producer in TV reality land would steal the idea. I will speak to my patent attorney - I own the idea."

One of the contestants told an interviewer the experience was like being on The Bachelor, another reality show. "You're in or you're out tonight," Tab Brown told ABC. Another, police office Steve Fellinger, said, "It will be devastating if we're not picked". Tina McKeen, a teacher, said: "Here was a 16-year-old who was in total control of our lives. She had in her hands our happiness." Jessica was just as excited: "It's probably one of the biggest decisions I'm ever going to have to make in my life," she said. But the programme may have one final painful twist for contestants: last minute promotion before the broadcast suggested the Jessica could decide to keep the baby.

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4) The Economist: Sierra Club elections [Au sein de l'une des plus anciennes associations de défense de l'environnement aux Etats-Unis une crise sur la question de l'attitude à prendre envers l'immigration.]

http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=2617167

Sierra Club elections: Rock the vote
Apr 22nd 2004
Environmentalists are divided about whether to restrict immigration

JOHN MUIR, the great champion of America's western wilderness, found “no repose like that of the deep green woods.” Were Muir alive today, he might be taking cover there. The Sierra Club, the environmental-advocacy group he helped to found in 1892, has been shaken by a row over who should sit on the board of America's most powerful green organisation.

Five of the 15 slots were open this year, but this was not an election like any other. Alongside the usual run of candidates was a trio of dissenters, on the ballot because they had collected enough signatures, who were understood to favour clamping down on immigration to America. Most prominent among these was Dick Lamm, a former governor of Colorado. Mr Lamm wants the club to revive its pre-1996 position of stabilising population growth at home. Another candidate joined the ballot just to urge members to vote against Lamm and his allies, and the “greening of hate”.

When the issue of immigration last raised its head, in 1998, Sierrans, a fairly leftish lot, chose to take no stand on it one way or the other, but to focus instead on controlling global population growth through means such as family planning. (They also campaign for “fair trade” to raise labour and environmental standards in poor countries, which, on their theory, could make the poor less eager to emigrate to America anyway.) Charles Wilkinson, a professor at the University of Colorado's law school in Boulder (who is not part of the Sierra debate), says that environmentalists should recognise global population growth, whether by immigration or otherwise, as “the ultimate issue”. But most of them are afraid to touch it.

The immigration row also shows up holes in the Sierra Club's structure. The club prides itself on its grassroots credentials: local chapters have a good deal of authority, and it is one of few environmental groups that allows members to elect the board. But club officials worry that non-environmental groups could influence elections by backing petition candidates.

In an extraordinary note accompanying this year's ballot, Larry Fahn, the president, gave warning that groups ranging from the National Alliance (white separatists) to AZHemp.org (pro-legalised marijuana) could be trying to meddle, and urged members to cast votes “as a means of demonstrating to outside groups that they cannot influence our organisation.” Some of the petitioners, including Mr Lamm (a club member in the 1950s and 1960s) joined in 2003, shortly before being put on the ballot. Mr Fahn says the club is now considering requiring board candidates to be members for at least five years, or to have a title within the organisation.

On April 21st, to the relief of most of the rank and file, the insurgents were crushed. But the board's wounds will linger. Mr Fahn says there is already a “serious rift” over immigration: a handful of existing board members favour restricting it, while the rest take a more liberal view. Still, the club may yet be able to unite as the presidential elections draw near. Nearly all the candidates, regardless of their views on immigration, insisted that ousting George Bush should be the top priority this year. The activists can now devote themselves to that struggle

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7) The New York Times/The Way We Live Now: The Human Factor [Comment évaluer le prix d'une vie humaine ?]
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/28/magazine/28WWLN.html

THE WAY WE LIVE NOW: The Human Factor
By JIM HOLT
Published: March 28, 2004

How much is your life worth to you? On the face of it, that's an idiotic question. No amount of money could compensate you for the loss of your life, for the simple reason that the money would be no good to you if you were dead. And you might feel, for different reasons, that the dollar value of the lives of your spouse or children -- or even a stranger living on the other side of the country -- is also infinite. No one should be knowingly sacrificed for a sum of money: that's what we mean when we say that human life is priceless.

But the government set a price for it four years ago: $6.1 million. That's the figure the Environmental Protection Agency came up with when it was trying to decide how far to go in removing arsenic from drinking water. Arsenic can cause diseases, like bladder cancer, that will predictably kill a certain number of people. But reducing the arsenic in water gets more and more expensive as the poison levels approach zero. How many dollars should be spent to save one ''statistical life''? The answer, reasoned the people at the E.P.A., depends on how much that life is worth. And they're not the only ones doing such calculations. The Department of Transportation also puts a price tag on a human life when deciding which road improvements are worth making, although it's the rather more modest one of $3 million.

Presumably, losing your life in a highway smashup is less unpleasant than slowly dying of bladder cancer.

The advantage of this kind of cost-benefit analysis, its proponents declare, is that it promises to make our public policies more rational. But critics find the idea of putting a dollar value on human life preposterous. Part of their case is ethical: it is simply wrong, they say, to count death as a ''cost''; no public action that involves lost lives should be evaluated in monetary terms. But they also object to the ways in which the price of life is calculated.

How, exactly, did the E.P.A. arrive at its figure of $6.1 million?

Economists looked at the salaries paid to workers in riskier jobs like mining. They figured out that such workers received, on average, an additional $61 a year for facing an extra 1-in-100,000 risk of accidental death. Evidently, these workers valued their own lives at 100,000 times $61, or $6.1 million. (In 2002, the E.P.A. revised the price of a life downward, to $3.7 million -- or if you're older than 70, $2.3 million.)

Ingeniously simple, no? But on closer inspection, you begin to have misgivings about this methodology. In the first place, it is not at all obvious that workers really understand the risks they face in the workplace. Women seem to be much less willing to accept such risks than men. Does that mean their lives should be priced higher? Blacks and nonunionized workers demand little or no risk premium for taking dangerous jobs. Does that mean their lives should be priced lower? Poorer people, for whom an extra dollar is highly valuable, will take less compensation for facing danger. Thus, cost-benefit analysis tells us it is more efficient to locate toxic waste dumps near poorer neighborhoods.

Perhaps the strangest thing about the life-pricing business is the way the lives of future generations become discounted -- quite literally. Regulators begin with the assumption that it's better to have $200 in your pocket today -- when you can earn interest on it -- than a promise of $200 in the future. Equating money with human life, they conclude that a life saved today should count twice as much, in dollar terms, as a life saved 10 years from now; a life saved a century from now scarcely counts at all. That is why cost-benefit analysis might sanction, say, nuclear reactors that provide you and me with cheap energy at the expense of lives lost to cancer decades down the road. But as Frank Ackerman and Lisa Heinzerling point out in their recent book, ''Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing,'' it is hardly clear why the same logic should apply to the value of our great-grandchildren. (On the other hand, those future generations may well have developed a cure for cancer, so perhaps we are justified in worrying about them less.)

Champions of cost-benefit analysis -- from the controversial Bush administration regulatory guru John D. Graham to the more circumspect liberal law professor Cass Sunstein -- maintain that the government is always valuing human life implicitly anyway, so we might as well be forthright about it. Only then, they say, will we be able stop spending excessively large sums to protect against small risks and vice versa. Most of us, after all, are deficient in rationality: we are excessively fearful of unlikely hazards when those hazards are shockingly unfamiliar or disturbingly involuntary (like dying in a terrorist attack or from something in the drinking water). And we are far too cavalier about much more immediate risks like dying on the highway (which we do at a rate of 117 fatalities per day).

But are ordinary people really being irrational when they seem to ''price'' their lives differently at different times? Some people even put a negative price on their lives -- when, for instance, they pay money to engage in a risky activity like mountain climbing. The economist E.J. Mishan, an early authority on cost-benefit analysis, has argued that the value of a human life has no meaning apart from the nature of the risk that is being measured. To say that a human life is ''priceless'' does not necessarily mean that it is worth more than any amount of money. It may just mean that money is the wrong yardstick to use when our decisions involve the loss of life. Even the most ardent cost-benefit analyst would spend more money to rescue a single actual child than to save 10 ''statistical lives.''

Jim Holt writes for The New Yorker, Slate and other publications

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How to help Alstom is Mr Sarkozy's most pressing, and difficult, challenge. Last year the firm, which employs some 75,000 people, found itself on the brink of going bankrupt. Neither selling its industrial-turbines business to Siemens nor giving Areva, a state-controlled nuclear-power firm, ownership of its power transmission and distribution business in exchange for a cash injection of some €1 billion ($1.3 billion) raised enough money to stave off bankruptcy.

So, despite long and acrimonious discussions with Mr Monti, the French government and a few big banks put together last September a €3.2 billion rescue package. But burdening a heavily indebted firm with yet more debt could only ever have provided temporary respite. Alstom is again heading for bankruptcy—and Mr Monti has not even approved last year's rescue scheme.

Mr Sarkozy went to Brussels this week with three plans to save Alstom, each of which would bring its own set of problems. The first, Mr Sarkozy's favourite, is to force Areva, a profitable firm, to take over Alstom. Anne Lauvergeon, Areva's impressive boss, is fiercely opposed to this, as it would dash her hopes of taking Areva public this year. Moreover, a takeover by a state-owned firm would also violate EU state-aid rules.

Mr Sarkozy's second plan is for Areva to take on Alstom's trains and trams as well as its transmission and distribution assets. Siemens could then buy the rest of the turbine business. This would be legal under EU state-aid rules, but could conflict with Europe's antitrust rules, for Siemens and General Electric would then dominate power generation. Besides, on May 4th Mr Sarkozy said that he does not want to dismantle Alstom.

The third plan, a debt-equity swap, arguably has the most market logic—even if Mr Monti dislikes it because it would make last year's rescue package irreversible. Then he required the French government to give its aid to Alstom in the form of debt, rather than through the purchase of shares in the firm, so that the aid could be reclaimed should he refuse to allow the bail-out. His decision is due next month. But the fact is that the government cannot be repaid by a bankrupt firm. Alstom now has about €3 billion (60%) more debt than it can service. Common sense suggests that both shareholders and lenders should now bear the pain, says Raymond Greaves, an analyst at Merrill Lynch.

None of these solutions is compelling. Short of liquidating the firm, a mixture of asset sales and a debt-equity swap may be the lesser of many evils. If the French government gets its way, as it so often does in such matters, Areva will, alas, be forced into an arranged marriage and Ms Lauvergeon will probably move on.

Should Mr Monti have been tougher on Alstom last year? He has a good track-record on antitrust enforcement, but has let governments get away with large violations of state-aid rules, says Pontus Lindfeld, a competition lawyer at White & Case in Brussels. But a more assertive stance would not necessarily have delivered a better result. Mr Monti has successfully taken France to court over its aid to Groupe Bull, a computer company. Yet, despite being ordered to do so, France has not reclaimed its loans to Bull. It is hard to enforce policies limiting state-aid without a member state's backing, says Stephen Kinsella, a lawyer in Herbert Smith's Brussels office. Even without Mr Monti's green light, Mr Sarkozy will doubtless continue to find ways to keep Alstom alive.

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9) The Boston Globe: Tasters' Choice [Débat entre deux consommateurs chacun défendant son café préféré : l'un fréquente Starbucks, l'autre Dunkin' Donuts.]

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2004/05/02/tasters_choice/
TWO VOICES: Tasters' Choice
It may be this city's fiercest rivalry short of Sox vs. Yanks. Some swear by Starbucks. Others insist on Dunkin' Donuts. Who wins the battle of the brews?
By Phil Primack | May 2, 2004

For a cup of coffee, your choices run from small, family-run shops to new kid on the block Krispy Kreme. But Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks are waging the biggest war for your tastebuds. Last fall, Dunkin' Donuts introduced a line of lattes and cappuccinos; in press re- leases, the doughnut giant fired a not-so-subtle shot at Starbucks, saying it was offering "freedom from espresso oppression and the tyranny of long waits, high prices, and confusing sizes." We asked two shop loyalists to mull over their differences: Honey Williams of Arlington, a teller at Citizens Bank in Winchester, pledges allegiance to the Dunkin' Donuts/Togo's sandwich shop near her office. Moe Shephard of Winchester, director of a software company, prefers the Starbucks next door.

SHEPHARD I'm not sure how I became customer-of-the-month at Starbucks [last fall], but they had my picture on the counter, and all my friends said, "When is this month going to be over so we can get rid of that ugly mug?" I said, "Yeah, but they gave me 10,000 free cups of coffee." The guy behind the counter quickly said, "No, we didn't."

WILLIAMS Well, sometimes I do get free coffee at Dunkin' Donuts. Like if I go in there at 4 p.m. on a Thursday -- that's the day we all work late -- the owner says, "I'll treat you ladies to a cup of coffee today." I think Dunkin' Donuts workers are more attuned to their customers. Every single morning, it's the same pleasant people, and it's hard to start work at 6 in the morning and have to deal with people who are often rude. At Starbucks, they wait on you, and that's about it.

SHEPHARD They don't have as much turnover at Dunkin' Donuts. At Starbucks, you have this tremendous turnover, even in store managers. We regulars laugh about it -- "Oh, we have to train another store manager," we say. But I've gotten to know everybody who's ever worked there. Everyone talks to you. There's a group of buddies I meet every morning to talk about the affairs of the world.

WILLIAMS I just don't like Starbucks coffee. It tastes burnt. Dunkin' Donuts coffee has a nice taste. And I find Starbucks very expensive. I might go in for a mocha latte in the afternoon, and I'd say, "What kind of pick-me-up is that? It's too expensive."

SHEPHARD It is expensive. But I like strong coffee, and after all these years, I just can't stand anything less than the amount of caffeine in Starbucks coffee. I'm convinced they've been adding to it year after year. They'd probably have to put sand in my coffee to drive me out. I also have a croissant every morning, and it's as close to a real one as you can get in the United States. So I go for the coffee, the croissant, and my pals. And no one hassles you. You can stay as long as you want. It is a place that encourages community building of some sort. I've met people in there that I'm friends with now whom I never would have met otherwise. It's not the same kind of atmosphere at Dunkin' Donuts. You don't want to spend any time there. You want to go in, get your stuff, and leave.

WILLIAMS I didn't want to bring this up, but Starbucks is considered more elite. People sit in there because of the nice chairs and the music and the ambience and to be seen through the window. It really is a kind of class thing. Starbucks is more upscale. The yuppies like it, people who want to impress somebody. If I was going to meet a business customer, I'd meet them in Starbucks. But if I'm just meeting a buddy, I meet them in Dunkin' Donuts. I do agree that Starbucks pastries are out of this world. If I'm having a really bad afternoon, I'll run to Dunkin' Donuts and get my coffee and then to Starbucks for a piece of lemon poundcake, because it's so wonderful. But I wear a hat and glasses when I go in there.

SHEPHARD There are actually several populations at this Starbucks. There's the early guys like me, who buy a paper, get a coffee, and then talk about the affairs of the world and baseball. At 9 o'clock, the mothers with children come in, and after lunch, it's the kids from the high school.

WILLIAMS When I was growing up in Cambridge, it was the same deal at the Dunkin' Donuts in Porter Square. The same people met there to talk every day. People want to go back to the five-and-dime, and maybe there's a little bit of that with Dunkin' Donuts. And you know the product is going to be the same. Even when I'm in Aruba, I'll go to a Dunkin' Donuts.

SHEPHARD Same with Starbucks. I was just in Columbus, Ohio, and I couldn't find a New York Times. So I found a Starbucks, because I knew there would be a Times there.

WILLIAMS Starbucks fills his and his friends' needs; Dunkin' Donuts fills my and my friends' needs.

SHEPHARD I've never really spent much time in Dunkin' Donuts.

WILLIAMS You're coming in to have a cup of coffee with me, my friend.

SHEPHARD I'll do it.

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