The day after tomorrow Francois Hollande will arrive in Yerevan. There are some surprising similarities between the current France and Armenia.
In both countries, the significant portion of the people are extremely unhappy with the government, the promised economic growth in the two countries has not been provided, in both countries the government resigned weeks ago. Simply, the opposition in Armenia only threatened with organizing mass protests, whereas the opposition in France was just celebrating the victory over the local elections, which caused a change in government.
And there are more similarities, but first about the “Armenian” million offered to Francois Hollande.
The matter, of course, is not about bribe. On May 24, Paris is expecting a “global event” – Kim Kardashian is officially getting married to her boyfriend Kanye West. And by the Western media, the couple has offered one million dollars to Francois Hollande so that the President will allow to use his the so-called Republican Guard to provide security for many well-known guests arriving at the wedding.
The Republican Guard, which has 3,200 members, usually provides the security of French officials and their high-ranking guests, the presidents of different countries, the prime ministers, and other public officials.
According to some sources, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West have gone even further and have offered to close the airspace of Paris on their wedding day. This time, it’s not about security. Simply, the couple fears that paparazzi would rent helicopters and would shoot the wedding ceremony from the above, while the right to it has been already sold to some companies at a fantastic price.
The fact is that the commentators strongly doubt about agreeing to close down the Paris airspace, and with regard to the offer of using the Republican Guard, so far there is no response from the President’s office.
But let’s get back to the Armenian parallels. Armenians, of course, remember that just a few days ago, Armenia’s NSC Secretary, who announced his resignation, at the meeting with the journalists, candidly admitted that he cannot survive and support his family with 250 thousand dram registered salary. On the same days, Francois Hollande came up with the same sincerity. On the second anniversary of the President’s tenure, during A&Q live broadcast, a 61-year-old French woman referred a question to the President, “I’m a retiree and receive € 662 pension a month. Will you be able to live with this amount?” The President bluntly responded, “No”.
In fact, during this in the air conversation with the French, there were so many personal questions that one of the commentators derided on her social network, “Mr. President, I have bought a new cabinet from the furniture store. If you have a No 4 screwdriver, will you help me to assemble it in our house?”
And the TV announcer asked the following question to the French President that might be probably asked to some of the Armenian leaders, “If you were a voter and voted to you, wouldn’t you be disappointed now?” “I would be impatient, but not disappointed,” responded the President suggesting to refrain from drawing conclusions after his second year in the office, but to wait until the year of 2017, when his mandate will end.
Indeed, the French voters have nothing left but to wait, because so far the results of the socialist government’s activities, to put it mildly, are inconsolable, the economic growth in the last year was only one percent, while unemployment reaches a record level of almost 10 percent.
And like the Prime Minister of Armenia, during the his press conference of last year, explained the poor condition of the economy by previous government’s wrong policy, so as Francois Hollande complained about receiving a very heavy legacy because “Nicolas Sarkozy has brought the country to the verge of bankruptcy.”
However, it is known that both in Armenia and in France, the ordinary man is reluctant to accept the excuses and explanations by the government. According to recent surveys, 75 percent of the French believe that Francois Hollande is unable to solve the problems facing the country. In the modern history of France, no president of the country had such a low rating.
ARMEN DULYAN