lesfleursetlesbougies-blog

[lesfleursetlesbougies-blog]

The ugly girls in overalls sulking on the streets

Here is my translation of an article from lapetiteclaque called “LES MEUFS MOCHES EN SALOPETTE QUI TIRENT LA TRONCHE DANS LA RUE”.

It was published on 17.11.2015

“I’ve had it up to there of these morons who are bugging us with the chicks on the streets, the pretty gals smiling, the hotties wearing mini-skirts as the last bastion of French culture, while having the front to pompously curse Daesh about how, back home, “our women” have loads of freedoms so that certainly means we are the nice guys in the story.

Before you take the liberty of giving lessons, I’d like to remind you that “our women”, the ones you are convinced live a golden life because you’re so very happy to check out their legs when the first ray of sunshine breaks through, it is in our beautiful country and our beautiful Paris that they are harassed on the streets and groped in public transportation, it is in our flats and our homes where we toast with our good wine that they are raped as kids by their grandfathers and adults, by their boyfriends and mates, and beaten up and killed by their husbands or exes. 

And when you write us a text about wonderful France THAT is not obscurantist because WE check out CHICKS on the streets, you get on my nerves, because you are not even capable of realizing that your text on France and it’s victory against sexism IT STINKS OF SEXISM. 

“We like watching pretty girls passing by in short skirts”, that’s your post-sexism country? That’s when you write a text pretending to gather French together while excluding half of the population? * The freedom of women that you dig, it’s the “freedom” they have to make YOU hard, that’s all. And oods that if the pretty girl wearing a mini-skirt that you come across does not have neately shaved calves, you’d be sulking pronto.

This creeping sexism that is pissing me off since Saturday, it’s also this other guy talking to his son and feeling the obligation to tell him he’s really happy to live in a country where his mother is HOT. Seriously, where is it completely chill to tell you kid how much you want to bang mummy? After that, he says nice words on mummy who has the right to disagree with daddy, it’s fucking beautiful. He must not remember that he lives in a country where, if mummy disagrees with daddy and daddy beats the shit out of her, there is 9 out of 10 chances that nothing ever happens to daddy; and if daddy rapes mummy, statistics are even more unbearable and certify that he will never be bothered about it. But no, let’s talk about the fact that mummy is HOT! We’re happy she’s free because it makes her BEAUTIFUL and that’s still the most important! That shuts you up, doesn’t it, Daesh! 

Your French culture, if IT is French culture, it is shit. I beshit this culture. And your shitty texts shared a thousand times on FRENCH CULTURE, fucking delete them. You know the “we are wine, we are non religious, we are mini-skirts”? Hey there, you bunch of idiots, first, if we celebrate French culture we could start by writing this fucking text in French; second, you who’s repeating a thousand times that you want to unify your country and especially don’t want to mix things up, are you not under the impression that when you say “alcohol, mini-skirts and atheism” IT SORT OF EXCLUDES A PART OF THE POPULATION? And apart from targetting Muslims directly, it tells a lot on the pluralistic vision you have of our beautiful country.

France is drinking wine, or Schweppes, or coffee, or an infusion, or water, I don’t give a dman, it’s drinking what I want because, seriously, do we give a fuck? And instead of celebrating your fucking wine and your fucking beer, you could maybe start by stopping to force alcohol on everyone and to give a funny look to anyone who’s not getting your fucking wine or your fucking beer at the bar, may it be because they don’t like it, they don’t see the interest of it, they don’t have the cash, they’re trying to stay sober, or it is in contradiction with the religion. 

The freedom you keep harping on about, it’s wearing mini-skirts, trousers, sarouels, djellabas, long skirts, jeans, headscarves, kippas, dresses, suits, hats and moon boots, and not JUST mini-skirts, and if we wear mini-skirts, be sure that it is certainly not to please some guys sipping their beers with their mates at the bar, who are happy to have a hard-on while looking at us and drooling and who freak us out if we catch their eye because we know there’s a chance they will start following us.

The freedom is to be a Muslim, a Christian, a Jew, an Agnostic, and Atheist and to leave the rest of the world alone. It is to not give a fuck of seeing on the streets a guy with a kippa, or a chick with a headscarf, or a kid with jeans on, because, frankly, who gives a fuck? It’s being able to say that we pray for others without being given hell because “enough with religion, WE do not need that right now”! But who do you think you are? “We”, once again, “we” is you, it’s always YOU. There’s tons of people for whom praying helps feeling betting, for whom knowing people pray for them helps feeling better, and who are you to judge them, to claim that it is useless, to decide for the rest of a country of sixty million inhabitants that they have to fuck off?

Your “we”, your “your mum”, it makes me want to puke to see this much egocentrism and rejection of others, this much self-absorption and refusal to question yourself, this much celebration of a society that is still crippled with issues while self-congratulating that BACK HOME, these problems don’t exist. And we pat ourselves on the back.

Because in France, everyone can do what they want in terms of religion! (But “we prefer atheists”, and “hide that kippa”, and “how dreadful, a headscarf”, and we tag mosques, and we attack djihadists with sausages, haha what a big laugh). Because in France, Thewoman is free! (But we write flights of lyricism about France without even citing women, we ask women we don’t know to smile on the streets everyday, and we criticize the ones who do not wear enough clothes revealing their bodies, and yeah they are free, but they are especially free to sleep with me). Because in France, we’ll keep on drinking alcohol for better and for worse, because we are the worthy successors of the resistants! (And we’ll keep on despising anyone who does not drink alcohol, especially if they make the mistake of not having a good excuse such as alcoholism or serious intolerance, come on let’s have a nice apéro with sausage and plonk!)

All these people with their filters of tricoloured flags in front of their Facebook pictures who scream for national union and solidarity and all-togetherness and who ONLY share texts that give one only vision of our society, their own, the one in which they live, them, with their little comfort, their social class, their alcohol, cultural, chicks-to-check-out consumption. So, so few texts celebrating the fact that what we need, is more “living together” (vivre ensemble), more tolerance, more openness, because there will never be enough, because we still lack so much of it!

Our comfort texts, I’d like them to be honest. Our solidarity, I’d like it to be plural. Not conditioned by standards that do not fit so many people.

Daesh attacked our freedoms? It should not be a reason to satisfy ourselves about them - when we set the bar as low as Daesh does, we cannot satisfy ourselves to do better than them. On the contrary, it should become a reason to go even further in our freedoms, our openness, our tolerance, our fights against all forms of oppression, sexism, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, antisemitism, islamophobia, and so many others on which we still all, all need to work a lot.

* Yes, because your “we” does not include women. Perhaps lesbians or bisexual women, but it excludes gay men in that case - but let’s be honest, you did not put yourself in the mind of anyone that is not a heterosexual guy when you wrote those lines, so I will not treat your text any differently”

#lapetiteclaque #tolerance #translation

[lesfleursetlesbougies-blog]

My English translation of this vibrant and beautiful podcast of the 20/11/2015 from François Morel, on France Inter : 

Don’t give up on anything! 

Especially not on theater, on the cafe terraces, on the music, on friendship, on red wive, on mint leaves and limes in mojitos, on walks in Paris, on shops, on Christmas lights, on the chestnut trees of the Arago boulevard, on bookshops, on cinemas, on birthday cakes.

Don’t give on anything!

Especially not on Chabli, especially not on Reuilly, especially not on spirit. Don’t give on anything! Neither on Paris bridges, nor the Eiffel Tower, nor the Place de la République, nor the statue of Marianne. Don’t give on anything! Especially not on Paris, especially not on kids, especially not on Bercy. Don’t give up on anything! Neither on Gavroche, nor on Voltaire, or on Rousseau, or on birds, or on streams, or on Nanterre, or on Hugo. 

Don’t give up on anything! 

Neither on the sunsets, nor on the empty hills, or on the deep forests, or on Barbara’s songs, or on the crowd of the big days, or on the pouring out of the holidays, on the Baiser of the Town Hall, on the embraces in the doorways, or on the kids playing on the sidewalk, or on the bikers, or the wine merchants, or the pianists.

Don’t give up on anything! 

Especially not on the desires, especially not on the whims, especially not on the impulses, nor on the masks, or on the feathers, or on the escapades, or on the plums, or on the wicker wine bottles, or on the brunettes, or on the writers, or on the sputters, or on the quarrels, or on the queues, or on the scattered rooms, or on the undressed girls, or on the hairy boys, or on the revolt, or on the joy to be together, or on the happiness to share the pleasure to love, or on lightness, or on carefreeness, or on youth, or on freedom.

Don’t give up on anything! Don’t give up on anything! Don’t give up on anything! Don’t give up on anything! Especially not on Paris, especially not on friends, especially not on life.

#françoismorel #nerenonceràrien #franceinter #dontgiveup #ne #renoncer #à #rien #françois #morel #dontgiveuponanything