Vive la présidente!

On Sunday, we French will be going to the first round of the polls of the presidential election.  As many of my readers will be aware, the candidate Bilal and I view most favourably (remembering that none of them are a perfect match to us) is Marine Le Pen.

Bilal thinks her niece Marion Maréchal-Le Pen (Marine's niece) is a "well buff wifey", though he views her as being less attractive than me and therefore doesn't look at her with lust, MDR.  He and I agree it is nice that we French have relatively nice-looking female politicians than the frumpy and dowdy ones on the other side of the English Channel.  Theresa May isn't the worst, but she was at best plain in her youth, as she is today.  Bilal notes that Marine Le Pen was reasonably "buff" in her youth, even if she is overweight (by French standards, but not by British standards, MDR).  Though there are many things Bilal and I like about the United Kingdom (its rich Reformation history), the physical appearances of its female politicians (and women in general) leave a lot to be desired.  However, with Marine Le Pen being the only major female presidential candidate, there is not much to be said regarding comparisons of candidates' physical appearances.

Moving on to the less important issue of what their policies are, Bilal and I view Marine Le Pen's policies most favourably.  In the past 24 hours, there has been yet another terrorist attack in France, which seems to have had Islamic motivations.  Let us be clear, being a believer is never easy in any part of France: - very few sectors of French society are in favour of biblical teaching, given how much our nation regrettably did to persecute the Huguenots over the centuries.  However, La Savine has large numbers of Muslim migrants who tend to be very actively hostile to the faith: - Bilal struggled to deal with this and enjoys the less close-knit lifestyle that my penthouse apartment offers him, though he tries to keep up his work in the community of La Savine as much as possible.  Both of us would welcome the reduction in Islamic migration that Marine Le Pen promises, given the hostility our faith already suffers.

Marine Le Pen's economic policies are actually quite leftie.  She seems to be appealing to the stick-in-the-mud Luddite French workers who want to continue doing their jobs the way they have always done them and continue to enjoy ever-rising wages.  As Margaret Thatcher said, "No!  No!  No!": - constantly rising wages require constant innovation.  This means a constant search for efficiency and better products: - as a fashion magazine editor, I very much understand the importance of keeping ahead of the game.

I don't think Anglo-Saxon economic policies are necessarily good, as they centre around the principle of knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing, as highlighted by a recent Financial Times article regarding Alstom's Belfort plant.  Continental European economies seem to work on providing long-term value, whereas Anglo-Saxon economics seems to be "slash-and-burn".  Given that France doesn't have the same silliness with shareholders demanding short-term cash flow, it is possible to focus on solutions providing long-term value.  The Financial Times article doesn't mention the fact that the order will enable SNCF to retire some fleets early and drastically reduce the number of different fleets in service.  In his work for "Le Trom de Marseille", Bilal only has to deal with one fleet (the MPM 76), but his railway industry acquaintances elsewhere tell him how annoying it is when you have to do an enormous amount of work to account for local fleet variations.  However, given their extreme ignorance about how a train operating company and rolling stock engineers work, it is easy for morons working at the Financial Times to criticise the TGV order.  I am generally supportive of Marine Le Pen's desire to avoid slash-and-burn economics.

France is actually doing very well with per-hour-productivity and I don't think increasing the working week would necessarily result in higher output (as Emmanuel Macron proposes), but its working practices are very staid.  Bilal often quotes the famous Neville Shute saying that says "an engineer is a man who can do for five shillings what any damned fool could do for a pound": - if we want to be richer, we need to be constantly on the lookout for improvements and unfortunately, Marine Le Pen's economic policies do very little to encourage this.  They seem to encourage the I-farm-cattle-because-my-father-did-and-his-father-before-him-did-and-his-father-before-him-did mentality.  In summary, I would prefer a candidate combining the best economic policies of both sides, but our presidential candidates are what they are.

All that said, I hope that next month, we will be chanting "Vive la présidente!"

Our possible first female president

According to polls, there is a very serious chance that Marine Le Pen could win the French presidential election.  With the day of the presidential election in the USA a matter of days away, I thought I would reflect on Marine Le Pen and what it would be like to have her as our first female president.

Firstly, as a religious woman, I am at the very least uneasy about the idea of a female leader.  1Timothy 2:12: - "But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence."  Liberals would say that we aren't bound by something as unfashionable and last-season as the Holy Bible.  Halfway conservatives say this rule only applies to leadership positions within the church.

For practical reasons, the issue of men reporting to women is not an issue with my magazine, as it has no male employees, given the type of men who tend to be interested in fashion, who would never feel at home at my magazine (receivers of swollen goods, in other words).  My fashion magazine is all about clothing that Christians would feel entirely comfortable wearing and which is distinctly for one gender or the other (no androgynous clothing, an example of which is above): - this idea of "non-binary" is thoroughly wicked and contradicts "He made them male and female" (Genesis 5:2, Matthew 19:4 and Mark 10:6).  

It is possible for women to be leaders, but still under the rightful authority of their husbands.  This is reputedly the case with Queen Elizabeth II, who is a queen regnant (i.e. a queen in her own right, not a queen by virtue of her marriage to a king).  It is understood that her husband Prince Philip (whose politically incorrect comments I like) makes the important decisions on family matters.  It is the same in my household: - I am doing very well with my fashion magazine, but I joyfully render obedience to Bilal in accordance with Ephesians 5:22-24, who in turn does a very good job of fulfilling his obligations in Ephesians 5:25 (nobody is perfect: - if they were, they would not need a saviour).  Laws in virtually every country in the world guarantee my right to make my own decisions on this one, but I have so far been happy to waive this right and let Bilal make the decisions on when we try for children, for instance.

That subject covered, let me turn my attention to another very important issue: - Marine Le Pen is badly overweight!  I had hoped that if we had a female president, we would have somebody who is a quintessential example of female beauty in France.  Marie-Ségolène Royal (who thankfully lost to Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2007 presidential election) is a good example of an attractive female French politician.  I asked Bilal what he thought, to which he replied that whilst he didn't view her as being "well buff" like me, she is "reasonably fit".  Zoë Williams, in her rant entitled "Cherchez la femme", gave several good examples of attractive female French politicians who know how to dress.  With all the attractive women who exist in France, it is a shame Marine Le Pen doesn't look like she knows much about how to look nice, though admittedly, her niece Marion Maréchal-Le Pen is also "quite fit" in Bilal's estimation and has a nice figure in my estimation as well.

In terms of her politics, I much prefer the National Front's political positions when they are compared with other major political parties.  I am aware that they particularly appeal to Pied-Noirs (or "Pied Renois", as Bilal calls them).  Islam is the great enemy of what France stands for, though admittedly, the traditional French church (the Church of Rome) is not great either.  I am proud of France's history in the reformation, e.g. the Huguenots, John Calvin etc and am aware that many reformed congregations have existed in the vicinity of Strasbourg over the years.  Granted, there might be potential converts from Islam (like Bilal) coming into the country, but on balance, it would still be great to protect what is left of France's Christian heritage and reform it, bringing about a genuine religious revival in France.  The Le Pen family is very good at standing up to establishment figures who do their utmost to stop France being governed by real French people for real French people.

Marine Le Pen is certainly a very powerful and talented public speaker: - we need such people to put our cause across to the people.  I remember the famous rant she delivered against our commie socialist president François Hollande.  She seemed a little like Zoë Williams, who wrote a long rant about how women can supposedly only enter French politics if they have a powerful relative.  Honestly!  Zoë Williams rants about our great nation not giving women a chance unless they are thin, but yet when a fat woman is in the upper echelons of French politics, she continues to complain!

In conclusion, in spite of her lack of physical beauty, I am keen to see Marine Le Pen win next year's presidential election and make France great again.

Brexit

Given my connections to the UK and business interests, many readers have been asking me what I think about Brexit.  If I were a smoker, what I would do is just light up another Gauloise and say, "bof", because there are plenty of reasons why it is unlikely to have an effect on me, or at the very least, not worth worrying about.

I normally view Britain with derision, but sometimes, business expediency takes over.  My mother gave up her British citizenship, but I took it out prior to moving to the UK to start my career in the fashion industry.  The requirements are spelled out at https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/483729/MN1_Guide_December_2015.pdf and there is an example that matches my case almost exactly in section 3(2).  As I had lived in Britain for just over three years, I am able to register my son as a British citizen (the paperwork is going through at present).  There are lots of things I hate about Britain (fat women, rubbish food, lack of TGVs etc), but with Brexit on the cards, I want to keep doors open for any children I have, should they need to live in the UK to start a career: - pretty much the only advantage the UK has is a vibrant jobs market compared with France.  Maybe a reversal of fortunes will have taken place when my children reach adulthood though?

That said, Brexit is unlikely to have much of an effect on me.  I expect there may be some additional admin if the UK leaves the single market: - many buyers of my magazine are English women looking to stylish French women for inspiration.  However, I am sure this will be surmountable with the right advice and legal representation.  The UK never looked set to join the Schengen zone anyway, so there is no reason to think travel arrangements will be affected, certainly with my British passport.

The narrow-minded approach of the EU and the requirement to form trade deals collectively means there may be more opportunities for me if Brexit takes place.  I am loathed to open an office in Britain, but it can be done if there is business expediency involved, tee hee!  One possible location for a London office is the vicinity of Old Street station, just two stops from St. Pancras International, as this area contains lots of silly bobo (bourgeois bohemian) trendy companies and is a magnet for silly bobo creative types.  Granted, I am creative, but I am down-to-earth as well as fashionable: - as I have repeatedly stated, though Frenchwomen follow fashion closely, their preference is still for timeless elegance over fads.  Poking fun at Zoë Williams, such an elegant and simple philosophy, it could almost be a French dessert: - la moitié, s'il vous plaît!  Anyway, jokes aside, if the UK can quickly conclude trade deals with other nations, it could make it much easier to enter new markets.

France has been famous in Europe for abusing the Common Agricultural Policy, with the end result being that British taxpayers subsidise French farmers who just don't want to modernise.  On one hand, I think there is some merit in that, given that they produce high-quality food, whose production processes cannot always be short-cutted, but on the other hand, I have to run my business efficiently like most people besides farmers and I don't enjoy much if any protection from market forces like the farmers do.  It was a nice arrangement, the British paying to subsidise our farmers so that we could eat properly for less and obviously, there will be some readjustment, but we will see how that goes.

I am aware of the political turmoil in the UK.  Jeremy Corbyn has lost the confidence of his MPs, David Cameron is resigning and I find it "bbbbbbbaffling!!!" that Nigel Farage is resigning, having won his victory at the referendum.  I am aware that Theresa May is the frontrunner at present to be David Cameron's replacement.  Not surprisingly, there is no talk about "girl power" this time around.  Some people would ask me if I think the next UK prime minister should be female in order to set an example for gender equality.  I would unequivocally say, "No!  No!  No!"

Foreseeing a likely question, Ségolène Royal and Marine Le Pen are two ladies with the opposite offerings.  Ségolène Royal is a lady with a fabulous appearance, but awful policies (socialism that has kept France in an economic quagmire for so long), Marine Le Pen is a lady who does herself a huge injustice by carrying large amounts of surplus pounds, but she has some policy ideas that may bring France out the doldrums.

All sorts of things could happen with Brexit and we will see how events transpire.