La Parisienne of Cafébabel.com

“Our house is burning and we are looking elsewhere”. What if these words pronounced by Jacques Chirac, in office at the time, during the third World Summit of 2002 in Johannesburg (South Africa) were about to change. What if the citizens of Europe became aware of the shape of their “house” and took responsibility for it… That’s what the results of a Eurobarometer survey published last March untitled “Attitudes of European citizens towards the environment” let think.

On the path leading to the construction of ‘Europe’, our leaders often look for common values through which everyone can feel united. What if this were to also be achieved through sport? “Sport and Citizenship”, a young Franco-Belgian association, has given itself the objective of assembling and representing all those who contribute to sport as citizens of Europe.

The day after the Italian elections, my mailbox is set upon by continuous emails full of deception, incredulity, despise (for the Italy of Berlusconi-Bossi) and resignation to the centre-right leader’s results, who has been in the limelight of the political scene for the past 15 years.

There is something particular in having bright blond hair in Paris. I have always thought that people with goldilocks enjoy as special status in this city, but now I am convinced we are not only considered eccentric but nearly as endangered species. I was once walking on the street when a car stuffed with guys passed by. The comment was as eloquent as it was profound: “Look, there is a blond walking on the street!”

This year, the NATO summit took place in Romania from April 2nd to April 4th.  . Besides the membership agreements which ended up with the entrance  of Croatia and Albania and the refusal of Georgia and Ukraine, this should have been a crucial event of international policy. After the Nicolas Sarkozy’s statements concerning, on the one hand, France’s reintegrating NATO’s integrated command structures and, on the other hand, the common destiny of NATO and the EU, we expected revolutionary declarations… but “revolutionary is not part of the international language.