On the night of the election in 1948, The Chicago Tribune famously printed up and distributed a front-page story on the victory of Thomas Dewey over Harry Truman in the presidential race. The only problem was that the vote hadn’t been counted yet — the paper had relied on the final opinion polls. Whoops!
Newsweek did something similar a few days ago — it printed up and distributed its commemorative election edition with “Madame President” on the cover, congratulating Hillary Clinton on her great victory over Donald Trump. Whoops!
And now France has its own version of the “Whoops!” moment: staffers for President François Hollande prepared only one letter of congratulation to the winner of yesterday’s presidential election — a letter to Hillary Clinton.
Many thanks to Ava Lon for translating this report from RTL, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
Transcript:
| 00:00 | “Many questions are coming to mind after the very probable Trump victory.” —Says Minister | |
| 00:04 | of Foreign Affairs Jean-Marc Ayrault. The National Front didn’t wait for the official results | |
| 00:08 | to offer their congratulations to the Republican candidate. A couple of minutes ago | |
| 00:12 | on RTL we heard Jean-Marie Le Pen, who is delighted with those results, | |
| 00:16 | and in his opinion it’s proof that, I quote: “the de-demonization is nonsense, a dead end” | |
| 00:20 | His daughter, Marine Le Pen, another candidate called an ‘outsider’, | |
| 00:24 | cannot contain her euphoria. —Pauline de Saint-Remy —Yes, Marine Le Pen | |
| 00:28 | is the first French presidential candidate who officially reacted | |
| 00:32 | to the victory of Donald Trump, before 7am. A sober tweet, but heavy with meaning | |
| 00:36 | from Marine Le Pen: “Congratulations to the new president of the USA, Donald Trump | |
| 00:40 | and to the free American people!” Exclamation point. Signed: Marine Le Pen. | |
| 00:44 | Not surprisingly the voters and party members have been sharing their celebration | |
| 00:49 | on social media, for a couple of hours already. | |
| 00:53 | The tweet posted by Marine Le Pen’s family, much less calm than hers, | |
| 00:57 | “Hope changed sides, on Monday May 8, 2017 we could be | |
| 01:01 | champagne, at 7am today the USA, tomorrow — France”. | |
| 01:05 | that last one was from Jean-Marie Le Pen. The French ambassador to the USA | |
| 01:09 | was incendiary on social media. His tweet, Jerome: Gerard Haraud who wrote: | |
| 01:13 | “The world is collapsing”, and then he erased the tweet, —yes, and even a senator close | |
| 01:18 | to Nicolas Sarkozy judged this tweet “excessive and out of place”. It’s Roger Carocci, he reproaches | |
| 01:22 | the ambassador for forgetting his duty of restraint, I quote: “Outside the FN | |
| 01:27 | the politicians are rather discreet, except for an anti-system vote.” The former minister | |
| 01:31 | from the UMP Nadine Morano, was happy to see the people slapping the MSM in the voting booth, | |
| 01:34 | and I quote, the same for Christine Boutin, who talks about “a slap in the establishment’s face”. | |
| 01:38 | And in the Élysée, Pauline, in a few words, what reaction? —Look, it’s total silence at the moment. | |
| 01:42 | I was telling you, that François Hollande’s inner circle weren’t even, to say the least, | |
| 01:46 | taking into consideration a Trump victory, not one little hint about it: one letter, of congratulations | |
| 01:50 | one and only one, was prepared by François Hollande’s entourage, addressed to | |
| 01:54 | Hillary Clinton, to congratulate her on her victory. —Oops, fail. Thank you, Pauline. |
Sounds like his staff is either arrogant or ignorant. But as Harry Truman said of his own desk, “the buck stops here”. So that’s where the blame for this stupidity lies – with Hollande.
I have a copy of the St. Petersburg Times – delivered to my door – from 2000 declaring Al Gore winner of the Presidency.
The French media is going into overdrive misunderstanding the reasons why Trump won, if you could hear some of their reasons you would be laughing your head off like me, they are totally clueless in the main.
I noticed Hollande and various EU idiots talking about values, and the media I just watched showed a clip of Trump saying he loved France and Paris but what they are doing over there is terrible, it was no longer France, he was of course referring to the uncontrolled immigration that resulted in the Bataclan massacre.
So the French media defined that as ‘French Bashing!”
I could imagine a phone call with Hollande, it would go like this.
Cher Mr Trump you need to respect certain values, free movement of people and human rights blah blah blah.
Dear Mr Hollande, I am interested in America and the American people, if you want to commit suicide then it is fine by me, but just don’t expect me to waste US lives saving you from your own decisions.
And I can tell you that Juppe that brought and paid for scum bag said the same as Hollande effectively.
Trump does not need to do any French bashing, the French elites are doing it themselves…
When PC muffles free speech and silences debate over ideas, people soon learn, to keep their opinions to themselves. So when a pollster asks you how you are going to vote… you don’t make waves and you say whoever the media are feting. Then, when its just you and the polling booth, you are free to choose. Free as democracy allows you to be. The votes are counted and. as democracy dictates, the canditate with the majority of votes wins.
Then the toddler tantrums start from the minority, let me repeat, the minority, who did not get their way. They cry and throw themselves to the floor kicking their heels against the carpet. Are we to allow these petulant products of arrested development to dictate to the majority? I sincerely hope not.
Hollande and his inner circle; arrogant and out of touch.