Tunisphere and the French elections: · Global Voices
samsoum

A lot of Tunisian bloggers showed a lot of interest in the French presidential elections. There are a lot of reasons for this interest. Historically, due to the colonization of the country by the French for 75 years, the Tunisians always had a love-hate relationship with this country, but more love than hate. France is the most important economical partner for Tunisia. It is the country that has the most of our expatriates. A lot of bloggers on the Tunisphere hold the French citizenship or live in France.
But in my opinion the main reason for our interest in this election is the thirst we have in debating political ideas, expressing opinions about candidates, criticizing and disagreeing without attracting the censors of the Tunisian government. If we can’t be part of a real democratic election in our country, we can at least participate in the French one.
The lack of freedom in choosing our leaders and our government since the independence made us loose any interest in being part of any staged election in our country. We all know that it is a staged comedy where the numbers are “cooked” in the HQ of the Interior Ministry. During the last presidential election, the candidates were said to be chosen by the president himself and that does not surprise me since any time they got some airtime, they don’t stop thanking him fro all his achievements.
This lack of interest and ignorance about our government members was a subject of a post from “Girl from Mars”
Bref, j'ai remarqué que la plupart d'entre nous connait par coeur la scène politique française, est capable d'énumérer la majorité des membres du gouvernement français, peut énumérer les propositions de chaque candidat, en faire la critique et proposer ses propres modifications..ils nous manquerait plus que la carte d'électeur pour voter:)
Mais combien d'entre nous est capable de donner les noms de nos ministres (moi personnellement même le premier ministre je connais pas son nom!), d'énumérer nos partis politiques, de distinguer le programme de chacun d'entre eux, de citer les dernières mesures gouvernementales…
J'en connais pas beaucoup..
Sommes nous plus français que les français ou moins tunisiens que nous devrions l'être?
Mani l’africain, wrote a very nice post presenting the French candidates as if they were Tunisians candidates for the Tunisian presidency. A very elegant and smart post where Nicolas Sarkozy becomes “Si Markouzi”, Segolene Royal becomes “Sihem Malki” and Francois Bayrou is “Firas Bouzagour”.  Too bad I can’t translate the whole post, but this the part presenting Mrs Sihem Malki.