One year away from retirement -- or la Maison d'arrêt de la Santé -- and Jack has put the hurry-up on legacy-building.
FRANCE TAKES ON GOOGLE; WANTS TO BE CUTTING EDGE
PARIS April 25, 2006 (AFP) - President Jacques Chirac on Tuesday unveiled plans to invest in six major high-tech projects -- including a European rival to the search engine Google -- in a bid to secure France's place as a world leader in industrial innovation.A Franco-German search engine called 'Quaero', personally backed by Chirac as a counter to US domination on the Internet, is the most high-profile of the projects selected by France's Agency for Industrial Innovation (AII) [L'Agence de l'Innovation Industrielle].
Chirac said the projects were chosen to "focus on essential technological challenges for our future" and to show the world that France is more than a "museum country". ... Chirac acknowledged that France currently lagged behind other countries in terms of industrial innovation...
DOES FRANCE REALLY NEED ITS OWN SEARCH ENGINE?
April 27, 2006 (Guardian) - Despite its claim to a lucrative local market, most experts say that Quaero - with a name drawn from an already dead language [L., "I seek"] - is already dead in the water. Europe is already happy to use Google, and without serious innovative ideas, Chirac's project could be consigned to history's dustbin by more experienced competitors or more audacious upstarts. It looks as though Quaero will be searching for the answer for a while yet.
We do not believe this sort of state market dirigisme -- without a specific state purpose, say, putting a man on the moon, where the government is a contractor not an innovator -- can do well what a free market does best. Governments tend to treat innovations as permanent fixtures: you build it and slap a coat of paint on it every 10 years or so. The French Minitel is a case in point.
But this is not innovation. It is renovation. A desperate last-minute renovation of Jack's shabby presidency.
CHIRAC TRIES TO BOOK A LOFTY PLACE IN HISTORY
PARIS April 26, 2006 (Telegraph) - President Jacques Chirac sought to boost his reputation in French history books by unveiling a series of ambitious high-technology initiatives yesterday. The six grands projets are part of efforts, now gathering pace as he enters what is likely to be his final year in power, to establish a legacy comparable to those of his predecessors.Weakened by repeated setbacks, he promised that the projects would allow France to invent "the processes, applications and products of tomorrow".
Some of the schemes, costing an estimated £1.4 billion, involve co-operation with Germany and range from a challenge to Google to new light trains and high quality television on mobile phones.
Mr Chirac is likely to be out of office before any of the projects deliver the "tens of thousands" of jobs his aides claim will be created. ... If his initiatives yield the predicted results, historians may look more kindly on an era that biographers are already describing as a tragedy for Mr Chirac and for France.
Political legacies come in two flavors, the good or that which is desired to be remembered -- and that which is not or the bad.
Good legacies are more usually the stuff of longstanding policies that have been supported through criticisms and adversities, have been tested against and successfully prevailed over competing ideas and policies, and have produced a good. Such legacies are the by-products of successful governance, not the governing objective of governance.
But after 11 years as president Jack's legacy ledger has no memorable success entries. Jack's political career has been self-serving not visionary. His "multipolar" world is not so much a vision as a personal obsession with la politique de grandeur française. Aside from the Jack pack and Belgium, nobody else seems to understand what a "multipolar" world entails other than resisting American leadership.
Jack's politics are risk-adverse, reactionary, timid, duplicitious, and high-toned but empty. He has been dubbed La Girouette (Weathervane) and Supermenteur (Superliar). Jack's talents, such as they are, have been confined almost exclusively to machine politics and the management of his elections.
Jack is the Bill Clinton of France. A man yearning for the legacy he did not make, that does not exist.
PFFT (What is this?): Jerry-built legacy props 5 | Genuine successes 0 | Rayonnement français 0
Bonjour,
What a shame !
La presse française nous apprend qu ' une réunion du Parti Nazi Américain s'est déroulée dans le Michigan en Avril ...
Ce qu'aucun Etat civilisé ne tolère , les Yanks l' encouragent...
On a vu des ordures américaines défiler en uniforme nazi.
Et maintenant , cette "Nation" qui prêche l' ouverture au Monde entier se déchaîne. Et pour quel crime ? Parce que des latinos immigrés,citoyens américains, ont osé … adapter "Star spangled banner" en Espagnol !!!!
Voilà la Nation qui prétend répandre la démocratie et le multiculturalisme dans le Monde...
Quelle imposture !
Good luck for your country in Irak !
A Franco-German search engine called 'Quaero'
Quaero--which means "to seek" in Latin.
Latin? I thought we were finished using Latin :) quaesō, quid quaeris?
So Chirac has decided to turn to Europe in the hope that an alliance of nations can find the finance and will-power to fight back
Umm, I’m not sure I see that happening…
Bonjor, Professor.
La presse française nous apprend qu ' une réunion du Parti Nazi Américain s'est déroulée dans le Michigan en Avril ...
Free speech applies to all...even idiots such as KKK, Nazi can pretty much say what they want.
However, condoning the right of someone to speak their mind is different than the state condoning their beliefs. There is a huge difference, which, apparently you do not see. Perhaps you could search "Free Speech" on Quaero, no?
Bonjour,
On aimerait tout de même que l ' AIPAC ou l ' ADL avant de parler de la "France antisémite" se penchent sur les horreurs des "USA antisémites".
Qualifier d' "idiot" les adorateurs yankees d' un régime criminel me semble un peu court...
Good luck for your country in Irak !
Bonjour,
Puisqu ' on parle technique...
Les Yankees sont totalement hors course en ce qui concerne la Physique des Hautes Energies.C'est l' Académie des Sciences yanks qui le reconnaît.Le LHC en cours d'achèvement à Genève permettra sans doute des avancées scientifiques majeures (boson de Higgs ?) ,les USA étant éliminé par faute de ressources de la compétition.
On ne peut pas tout faire:progresser en Science et dépenser des milliards pour faire la guerre , en vain d'ailleurs , à un pays du tiers-monde...
Good luck for your country in Irak !
