Parti Communiste Français (French Communist Party). We start with the far left-wing parties in red (the colors are the opposite of the USA parties), the French Communist Party obtained 1.93% on the first round of the 2007 French Presidential, so it’s not a big party but it’s important to know it. Its leader is Marie-George Buffet.

Lutte Ouvrière (Workers’ Struggle). Another far left-wing party, this is the party of Arlette Laguiller who is knows for begin all her speeches saying “Travailleurs, travailleuses !” (Male workers, female workers!). It’s a communist party which obtained 1.33% on the last French Presidential.

Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA) (New Anticapitalist Party). It’s the most important far left-wing party. It was found in 2009 by Olivier Besancenot, who was the leader of the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire (LCR) (Revolutionary Communist League) which obtained 4.08% in the 2007 elections. Olivier Besancenot is an important opposition leader in France. Apart from his political life, he’s also a postman, he serve the Neuilly-sur-Seine area, one of the richest commune of Paris.

Parti Socialiste (PS) (Socialist Party). The main left-wing party in France. Its leader was Ségolène Royal for the 2007 Presidential Election. On the first round it obtained 25.87% of the votes and 46.94% on the 2nd round (~17 million of votes). Today it’s a hard time for this party, as the right-wing won the election in 2007, it should be the main opposition party, but a lot of French peoples claim that the PS is inactive.

Les Verts (The Greens) A centre-left Green political party. They obtained 1.57% in 2007.

Mouvement Démocrate (MoDem) (Democratic Movement). Founded after the Presidential Election by François Bayrou, who obtained 18.57% in 2007 with the Union pour la Démocratie Française (Union for French Democracy). It’s a centrist party, maybe the French party which looks like the most to the Democratic Party of USA.

Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP) (Union for a Popular Movement) the main right-wing party. It obtained 31.18% of the votes on the first round of the presidential in 2007, and 53.06% on the 2nd round (~19 million of votes), with its candidate Nicolas Sarkozy.

Mouvement pour la France (Movement for France). A far right-wing party which obtained 2.23% in 2007.

Front National (FN) (National Front). The main far-right party in France. His leader was Jean-Marie Le Pen. He’s know to have been convicted of racism, inciting racial hatred, and for minimizing the Holocaust. He also admitted on the French television that he practiced torture during the Algerian War. The nationalist party obtained 10.44% in 2007. But in 2002, Jean-Marie Le Pen obtained 16.86% of the votes beyond the Socialist Party (16.18%). The presence of the FN in the 2nd round of the presidential election give rise to street rallies and Jacque Chirac won the election with 82.21% of the votes. Today the spokeswoman of the FN is the Jean-Marie Le Pen daughter’s: Marine Le Pen.

I wanted to post a song I had translate for you but I have problem with culumns for the moment… So here is a little video from The news Puppets .

What is one of the better way to discover a country ? Watch its TV. And the most interesting would be to see some satirical shows. One of the most important in France is broadcast on Canal+ channel, and its call: Les Guignols de l’info (The news Pupetts).

Everyday, the puppet of the news anchor Patrick Poivre d’Arvor (from TF1 channel) follow the current events like the regular TV news, except that everything is parodied, exaggerated, and criticised. The show can be see as a left-wing outlook, but keep in mind that it’s use to attack everything and everyone, always with humor.

Most of the personalities have their puppet in the show, with its own character and habit. Some guest are fictional like my favourite character: Sylvestre, a puppet based on actor Sylvester Stalone, which represent a stereotypical offensive American in different role (American soldier or commandant, leader of a multinational company, boss in the CIA, etc…). This one can be badly received by American peoples, don’t worry, French know it’s a parody, it’s just for fun for us .

All that to say that I will try to fansub some episode of this show for you, but it takes time :p. For the moment, I upload an old episode I subbed from May 6, 2008. Enjoy :

French News Puppets (May 6 2008).

More info about the show on the Wikipedia’s page: Les Guignols de l’info.

Hello everybody, welcome on my first post on my first website! \o/

My name is Maika, I live in France and I’d like to speak to you about France, for everybody it might interest . I don’t want to write sort of a book… Wikipedia and other websites can help you to learn a lot about France better than me. What I want to do is to show you something different, for you to discover things really matters:

• Does French peoples eat cheese all day long?
• What is French saying for 5-0?
• Discover some French music or movies.
• What are the current events in France?
• Etc…

The fact is, I really enjoy to learn that type of things on other countries. So I had though that I could do it for mine too . However, I have to admit, my English is not really good :s. So if I make mistakes feel free to correct me. But please, be nice, I do my best . I plan to live in USA one day, so it’s important to me.

Well, have to write another post right now (a real one this time), I just hope you’ll enjoy to read me as I’ll enjoy to write for you .