L'éléction 2008, Part One: Bias

In 1939, the first edition of Agatha Christie's Ten Little Niggers was published. It would go on to become the best selling mystery ever - just not under that name. When the book was published in the States shortly afterwards, the title was changed to the litigation-friendly, controversy-free, and all around spookier And Then There Were None.

Fast-forward to something at least mildly relevant/interesting. One of the larger playhouses in Lyon is currently staging the theatrical adaptation ... which they are calling Dix petit negres, a backwards step I'm fairly certain you don't have to speak French to appreciate. Using our handy-dandy outdateness subtraction meter (which has previously been useful in brand new scandals in the priesthood (-5 or 6 yrs)) we can see that this theater company is, by now, 78ish odd years behind the times. And thats not even the half of it.

The French essentialization of the US Presidential race goes a little something like this:
Well, its either Clinton or the negre.
(actually what my seatmate said on my flight from London to Lyon this past weekend)

Hillary Clinton is lucky, at least in this respect, whatever you may think of every other respect, to be married to Bill. With a famous last name, she at least gets more specific credit that her own essentialization - that of being a woman. Though I can't say with any authority what the American discussion on this barrier breaking race is like at this stage in the game, I would rather think that it is not approached with such the - erm - shock and awe of the French who still have very rigidly defined gender roles at least to a certain, rather recent generation. One host parent here laughed at the notion that an American father would help with the housework. My host father refused to answer my request to cook, as the kitchen was not his domain, and another host mother refused to look at library registration information because forms were her husband's business.

This is all, of course, anecdotal. I have performed no great social survey, but the French view of the election, at least in my experience has been one more focused on prejudice than politicking?

And now, for the million dollar question: who do the French prefer?
In a national poll put out by one of the big daily papers, the French populace selected Barack Obama as their preferred pretender to the presidency. Vive la chauvinism, I suppose.