What the "numer" article missed, was that when we came downstairs after it ended, we discovered that Jean-Marie Le Pen, the extreme right-wing candidate had been elected runner up against Jacques Chirac in the first round of the French presidential elections. The Socialist candidate, Lionel Jospin, had been eliminated. A rude shock to shake us out of the conceptual, artistic and/or professional discussions that "numer" engendered so successfully!
There have been massive demonstrations since the night of that first round of the elections. They started at about 10:30 pm at the Place de la Bastille, and have been continuing since. The 1st of May saw well over a million people on the streets all over the country. The choice is very simple, between either a Fascist or a crook, so there is a massive campaign against abstention, to vote for the crook.
We put up a "virtual demo" site, in which people can "march". The motivation of the site comes from the popular anti-racist slogan: "1er, 2eme, 3eme generation - nous sommes tous enfants d'immigres" - "1st, 2nd, 3rd generation - we are all children of immigrants". This has been a rallying cry in the demos, and I see it as the antidote to the hysteria about "insecurity" which became the premier issue of the campaign, fostered by Chirac (to drown out accusations of corruption), adopted pathetically by the left, and used, of course, with maestria by the fascist National Front.
To participate in the demo, people have to give their first names and where they live. They can also give other info: age, profession, but most importantly a little description of their origins and a banner (which you can see by by clicking on the icons of the marchers). The result is a wonderful, humanist, cosmopolitain display, mostly from France but also from everywhere else, which includes a Brazilian-Japanese living in Cairo! As an "artistic" experiment it tries to give form to political participation on the web, that until now has taken the form of email (or equivalent) petitions, where once one participates one often has no possibility to chart one's participation.
Hopefully, tomorrow, in the second round, Le Pen will be largely defeated, but there is no guarantee for this. Whichever way it goes, on Monday the campaign for the legislative elections start (1st round, 9th June, 2nd round, 16th June). People are very, very sore at being forced to vote Chirac to save our democracy, and the result is that the left is extremely politicised. There is a possibility that the left can remain in power, forcing Chirac back into cohabitation, which for the latter will be like being assigned to hell in a golden castle.
You can visit the virtual demo at:
http://www.enfants-dimmigres.org
Come and march with us! Tell your friends! Tell your mailing lists!
You can also see pictures from the big Paris demo at:
