In the video below you’ll see Marine Le Pen, the leader of the Front National in France, deliver the coup de grâce to the French media. Note the calm, relaxed, offhand way in which she expresses her utter contempt for her interviewer and the media the latter represents.
Many thanks to Ava Lon for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
Transcript:
| 00:00 | You say: “Turn away from the traditional media, go and find news on the Internet!” | |
| 00:04 | Aren’t you aware that it could be dangerous, talking like that? —Why? | |
| 00:08 | On the Internet you can find conspiracy theories, all types of things… it’s not necessarily | |
| 00:13 | verified information… —Don’t you think that the traditional media have conspiracy theories? | |
| 00:16 | I have read a ton of things about Russia intervening in the presidential campaign | |
| 00:20 | and other things like that. I mean, there is at least as much | |
| 00:24 | fake news in the traditional media as on the Internet! | |
| 00:28 | But tomorrow all sorts of things could be written, for example about you, on the Internet, and | |
| 00:32 | you incite the people to go and find information on the Internet! | |
| 00:35 | About things that weren’t verified! It could never be worse | |
| 00:38 | than what you guys are saying or what you write in the traditional newspapers, | |
| 00:41 | you know? —This little anti-media song, this little Trump-like aspect of yours: | |
| 00:44 | it worked in the United States, so you are applying it here, in France? | |
| 00:48 | Madame, French people have no confidence in the media whatsoever, are you aware of that, or not? |
Talk about a slap down!
“Madame, the people have no confidence in the media – are you not aware of that?” I do believe that media people are not aware of the contempt that many have for them. They live in a bubble – the non-comprehending expression of this dumb journalist speaks volumes.
Indeed! Just another reason to defund and then sell off all of our taxpayer funded media. I wonder how they would then fare in the real world!
It really is about time these people were told.
There has been far too much kowtowing to these poisonous, halfwitted [epithets], it’s about time they were put in their place.
Ah, you’re letting me down, Baron; I only left that in to see what you would insert in its place – you’re such a talented insult-replacer I was expecting a typically hilarious [insert] from yourself, LOL
It was late; I was tired. My automatic synonym generator tends to shut down late at night.
You just have to love this woman. It was fun to watch her with a leftie BBC, Stephen Sackur – she was totally unflappable with his numerous attempts to show her as an outright racist. I was also intrigued to read to comments of another Beeb leftie when reporting on the Dutch elections. She interviews a Moroccan-Dutch writer, Hafsa Mahraoui, wanting to get her take on the elections, but not before describing her “trendy black trainers and matching hijab” and follows on to say that Hafsa is “the quintessential image of a modern Muslim woman”.? quintessential ? The trendy Amsterdam woman she fawningly describes is make-up less, and dressed head to foot in black with a head scarf – how trendy can that possibly be in a European City?
Mary, I’ve just watched the Sackur interview with Le Pen (it was originally on BBC World Service last October). I don’t think he was notably tougher on her than other guests; the programme is called “Hard Talk”.
Like you, I was most impressed with her responses.
Touché.
” Madame, French people have no confidence in the media whatsoever, are you aware of that, or not? ”
As well they shouldn’t! Man, I love LePen. She is unflappable and does not sugarcoat.
I love her too – Viva la France. She isn’t exactly my cup of tea, nor is the Front Nationale but the French have suffered these fools long enough!
Marine LePen is a true patriot.
Yes, she is. Good for Marine LePen – hope she wins. It’ll be fun to watch the media and the present administration there have a melt-down.
About the term “coup de grâce”, as explained in
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coup_de_gr%C3%A2ce ,
“A coup de grâce (/ˌkuː də ˈɡrɑːs/; French [ku də ɡʁɑs] for “blow of mercy”) is a death blow to end the suffering of a severely wounded person or animal. It may be a mercy killing of civilians or soldiers, friends or enemies, with or without the sufferer’s consent.”
I have heard this term pronounced (on NPR?) as “koo d’ GRA”, but that is a fake French pronunciation. From the Wikipedia article, “The final /s/ is sometimes omitted, as a hyperforeignism.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperforeignism
Strangely, my desktop dictionary (Webster’s New World Dictionary, Third College Edition) gives the pronunciation as “koo’de GRAS’h”. What that “h” is doing there, I don’t know; I count this as a misprint.
Two more hyperforeignisms:
“Londger Ray” for lingerie
A sure that young woman never heard anything like that in her journalism course.
It appears that thishere “TRUTH” thingy is totally lost to the ‘press’ these days………and just about EVERYWHERE, it seems to me.
I didn’t do all that well in my American History major back in the day because I couldn’t stop myself from mentioning it over and over again. (Maxed the boards, though–but they were graded elsewhere.)
Typical. There is only one member of our species worst that “journalist” it is school teachers. ARRGH!