France’s “Romagate”: The blessings of humour

I don’t know if humour is a divine gift, but it makes life easier on Earth.

Despite the sad events, some Euroblog writers have been able to find comic aspects surrounding the French government’s demolition of Roma camps and mass repatriation of EU citizens.



The European Tribune community presented and translated into English a “news report” depicting France as a rogue state (état voyou) or “-stan”, with warring clans and corruption. It was originally written by Daniel Schneidermann and published on Arrêts sur images.



Berlaymonster imagined a new gravy train, this time repatriating Brits with second homes in France, leading to angry reactions from London and Brussels.



The Brussels Jungle purported to detect moves by 24 French UMP (EPP) members of the European Parliament to restore the ‘gloire’ of France by defecting to the Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) group, where they would join the British UKIP, the Italian Lega Nord and other interesting elements.



On L’expérience européenne, J S Lefebvre described the hard life of a freelance journalist, who has to find interesting stories and market them to editors in order to get money for the rent. Suddenly – thanks to the French government, Chantal Brunel and Viviane Reding – everything became so much easier. They changed his life (at least for a few days).


A “Romagate” with a silver lining.




Ralf Grahn