I'm in a state still over this election I can't vote in. We almost even went to the big gathering for Ségolène Royal at a stadium called Charlety in southern Paris, but instead we've got one eye on it on TV. It's labor day here-- like lefty labor day, and yet I've worked, preparing classes. Thingis, I won't know until Sunday what the next five years are going to look like. If Sarkozy wins, I think it is sure to bring on something like a civil war, though that could just be wishful thinking. That's at least where it should lead if he wins. And that could have its own kind of interest. If Royal wins, I realized last night talking to Titi de Paris about it, I feel like what's going on will continue going on-- there is no revolution in sight here in France even though it used to be the country where things like that happened. But the suspense between these two rounds is killing me!
An hour and a half later, now, I've just gone through the exhausting trial of listening to Ségolène Royal's speech at her big meeting. She was fantastic. Resolutely, she claimed her ties to the socialist past; said that if people wanted civil peace they should vote for her because there was sure to be violence in the streets with Sarkozy; 
wondered what fly bit Sarkozy when he claimed, earlier in the week at his big Parisian meeting, that he wanted to "liquidate the inheritance of May '68," especially given, as she described, how calm the streets around his bunker in Bercy were and the fact that May '68 happened forty years ago; basically said that France will be in a civil war situation should Sarkozy win, banked on it, signed and shit... I could go on and on. Politics hasn't sounded this good in years. I'm all interpellated and atremble and such. My thought at the end of the speech was, "Fuck, it's going to be terrible if she doesn't win." Titi de Paris's response was, "But if she doesn't win, think of how much she's learned and put into place over the course of the campaign." Thus we oscillate.
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