by Bia Assevero
- USA / France -

Justine Henin was on top of the tennis world. Literally.

The 25 year old Belgian was number one in the Women’s Tennis Association rankings and despite her less than stellar form of late, she was still a serious contender for the French Open which began this week. It’s a tournament close to Henin’s heart as she’s won it four times. She is, in fact, the three time defending champion.

• Justine Henin at the 2007 US Open. Photograph by Ian Gampon. •

But Henin has and will continue to fiercely deny those speculations; at the press conference where she announced her departure, she admitted that she’d been considering retirement for nearly a year. There’s a strong probability that the troubles in her personal life (Henin divorced from her husband in 2007) haven’t helped, but Henin’s retirement is actually a sign of a different trend.

by Bia Assevero
- USA / France -

Ruud Gullit knows his soccer.

He’s Dutch for one thing, and the Dutch have produced some of the most spectacular talents that the modern era of the game has ever seen. From Van Basten to Bergkamp, from Rijkaard to Gullit himself, the Dutch have redefined the game more than once.

by Bia Assevero
- USA -

It didn't take a genius to predict that Nicolas Sarkozy was going to be a president, the likes of which France had never seen before. But no one, not even Nostradamus, could have predicted where things would stand after Sarkozy’s first nine months in office.

His approval ratings are plummeting, hitting new low after new low, but it’s not because of his politics. Truth be told, Sarkozy has made very little progress on the reforms that he swore he would execute, but he’s hardly the first politician to break campaign promises.

So why then, are the French people cringing in horror at their president’s behavior?

by Bia Assevero
- USA -

Are you bored yet?

Have you seen one talking head too many?

Does exit poll sound like a dirty word?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then fear not. You are very probably not alone. We are one year on from the launch of the party nomination campaigns. By the time the next President is elected in November 2008, we will have survived nearly two years of constant and intense political bombardment. In a country that is big on instant gratification and where attention spans can be shorter than one episode of American Idol, this is to put it mildly, a problem.

For as much as Republican and Democratic candidates have bandied about the word change - as if it was the latest “in” word, something a teenager might use in lieu of “whatever” or “as if” or “wicked” – the process itself is unchanged. The candidates’ policies and positions are forced to take a back seat because the elections process itself is flawed.

by Bia Assevero
USA/France

Nicolas Sarkozy’s election to the French presidency last May 6th, signals that the French people

That is the thing about Nicolas Sarkozy. He is a love-him or hate-him kind of guy and there is little, if any middle ground. He is a Machiavellian character; expediency may as well be his middle name. He is aggressive and brash, and political correctness is not high on his list of priorities.

Anyone who doubts that need only remember that during the 2005 riots in Paris’s poorer suburbs, he referred to those neighborhoods as slaughterhouses that need to be hosed down to rid the country of the racailles. In English, that word translates to “scum,” but in French it carries an even more negative connotation. It was a shocking statement to many French people, but Sarkozy stood by it, never once appearing remotely repentant.