Thursday, December 21, 2017

Bonne anniversaire Emmanuel Macron!

Emmanuel Macron has been president of France for six months and today he just turned 40. What did you do with your life before age 40?


Which means "top 10+ gift ideas for Emmanuel Macron, happy birthday Manu!!!"

It includes two popular Macron tropes. The first is the now-infamous incident in the documentary about Macron's presidential campaign Les coulisses d'une victoire in which he was denied cordon bleu at an IKEA-like establishment because it was only available on the children's menu. I talk about how much they love that here. The documentary is on Netflix and I might have to watch it again for the 20th time.

The second trope is "poudre de Perlimpinpin" a phrase that Macron used in his one-on-one debate with Marine Le Pen. The phrase is considered hysterical in part because it's an old-fashioned term for, essentially, "snake oil." The French TV show Quotidien discusses the issue and points out that the phrase has not been used in public life since 1979, when Macron was 2 years old. Quotidien talks about the documentary here, including the cordon bleu incident.

The French Wikipedia says:
...Emmanuel Macron utilise cette expression pour qualifier la proposition de Marine Le Pen d'expulser tous les fichés S et de « fermer les frontières » d'illusoire pour contrer le terrorisme en disant « Il y a des pays, nombreux malheureusement, qui ne sont pas dans Schengen et qui ont été frappés par le terrorisme. [...] Ce que vous proposez, comme d'habitude, c'est de la poudre de perlimpinpin. ». Le passage est notamment repris par le vidéaste Khaled Freak, dans un morceau diffusé à la radio.
Translation (approximate and abridged ):
On May 3, 2017 during the second round presidential debate Macron used that expression to characterize Marine Le Pen's proposal to close France/Europe in order to fight terrorism, and Macron said 'as usual your proposal is powder of perlimpinpin.' The phrase was used in a music video by Khaled Freak.
Here is the video of Khaled Freak.