Again!

Sunday OCTOBER 28, 2007 Last modified: Tuesday, October 23, 2007 9:44 AM CDT

Visiting Paris: Free-lance French journalists Gilles Bouvaist (front) and Antione Agasse spent four days in Paris last week asking residents about the issues likely to come up during the 2008 Presidential election.

French journalists visit Paris to take community's pulse

Two free-lance French journalists were in town last week wanting to find out how people in rural America, specifically in communities named Paris, define the issues likely to dominate next year's Presidential election campaign.

Antione Agasse and Gilles Bouvaist spent four days in Paris taking the community's pulse. They arrived here from Paris, Tenn. and left Friday for Paris, Tex. They had previously visited Paris, Ky.

"Our idea was to talk with people about the main issues in the Presidential election and see what the concerns were of people in rural America," Bouvaist said. "We visited towns named Paris because that would be a good introduction for French readers."

While in town, the two journalists visited with officeholders and residents, shop owners on the Courthouse Square and students. They also took a lot of photographs because they also plan to write articles from a tourism perspective.

"All of the towns are very nice," Agasse said. "I liked your town quite a lot and I got a lot of pictures. I particularly liked the architecture. These are some towns that Frenchmen might want to visit."

As for the issues, they're what you'd probably expect: the economy, the war in Iraq and health care. The two journalists said those were the topics most mentioned in each of the communities they visited.

"The economy is the main concern. People are quite pessimistic," Bouvaist said.

"People are very afraid there's going to be a recession," Agasse said. "That may be because the media keeps talking about it.

"People seem to have a big concern about the future," Bouvaist added.

People here also mentioned the war in Iraq, which is understandable considering that the Arkansas Army National Guard unit based in Paris is preparing to be deployed to Iraq early next year.

The economy, the war and health care -- issues that, one could argue, favor the Democrats. The French journalists were prepared to draw that conclusion.

"President Bush got 59 percent of the vote here in the last election," Agasse said. "The issues should help the Democrats, but you can't say that for sure.

And, the leading contender for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., could become an issue, as well. Sen. Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton are, of course, known to people in Paris.

"People here have good memories of the Clinton years," Bouvaist said. "But, they don't particularly like Hillary. She's very polarizing."

"People here see her as being far left," Agasse said. "That's quite funny for us because in France she'd be seen as middle of the road and maybe even a little to the right."

The two journalists also had nice things to say about Paris and the people they met.

"We were afraid this would be the least interesting town we visited because it was the smallest," Bouvaist said. "Actually, it was the most interesting town we visited Everyone was very friendly and you have beautiful scenery."

"One of the interesting things is that everyone knows everyone," Agasse said. "That made it really easy to find people."

From Paris Express.