May 5, 2009
Dear Mr. President,
You certainly know that all American eyes are on you, watching to see how these first 5 months have rolled out, watching to see if the hopes you inspired, the energy you exuded, the honesty and the concern about people you oozed with, if all these things were more than mere promises and electoral speeches. But are you aware that people from France are also carefully watching you, expecting you to achieve what you claimed you would so as a President?
That’s our case as we are 3 French women and an American who has lived in the Paris area for 7 years.
We believe in your ability to listen to people and take their thoughts and worries into account.
That’s why we’ve written this letter to you, hoping that you would be so kind as to do us the great favor of spending a few moments reading it and figuring out what some French people expect from you as the President of the United States of America.
A couple of weeks ago my 7-year old niece Juliette, who is a very sensitive little girl, came home after school: she looked aghast, almost crying and she told her concerned parents that she could hardly believe what she’d been told. She said: “Children died in Germany. Someone shot them and killed them. An older boy from a higher grade claimed that these sorts of awful things have already happened in the US and that these incredibly violent events were rather common, that bad or crazy people often managed to get weapons and weren’t prevented from killing other innocent human beings.
I answered him a liar!
Children cannot die like that…
Children are safe when they are at school. People can’t buy guns so easily and shoot anyone they want to…
I don’t want these things to be true. Tell me these things are not true!
Tell me I’m right to feel safe and secure when I’m at school.”
That’s what she said.
Mr. President, what would you answer to comfort her?
With all due respect, this boy wasn’t wrong. Unfortunately this boy didn’t lie to my little niece: these things happened in the US and are still happening…
What are you going to do against the liberalization of selling and buying dangerous hand weapons?
What are you going to say to well-thinking American citizens who firmly believe that they need guns to protect their families, who are convinced that they have the right to take the law into their own hands?
What are you going to do to increase security in school, colleges and universities?
What are you going to do to be able to answer a scared 7-year old little girl: “Don’t worry, this boy lied to you. These things can’t happen.”?
“Mum, you know that a meager polar bear is not pretty at all and it’s even sad to see it like that!”
That’s what my daughter told me coming home from school a few days ago.
I was so disappointed to see this young child entering life with such sadness about wild life in her eyes.
The contrast between hope that is linked to childhood and the threat that reckons on our planet make me feel worried and guilty.
Your position as a President allows you to make decisions and give the direction you think to be the most important.
Could you tell us if trying to transmit to our children the beautiful planet we’ve been living in by fighting “planet destructors” belongs to your list of priorities?
Walking down the street the other day, listening to my son coughing, watching all the other people out and about on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, it dawned upon me that perhaps the reason my son was coughing was thanks to the exhaust coming out of all the exhaust pipes of idling cars in the 5 pm traffic. Asking my son if he was okay, his response was, “yes mom, but what is so smelly?”. Well, it became clear at that moment that 1) strollers are just at the right height to really breathe in the pollution from cars, 2) that if he could smell the pollution then what is it doing inside his body, and 3) that this pollution certainly wasn’t helping my son get over his cough.
My wish, Mr. President, is that the USA, being the richest and most powerful nation in the world, would set the example, and move one step closer to respecting human beings in their environment.
For instance, Americans should not be allowed to buy European cars that pollute, forcing the European car factories to improve their methods, from which we would all profit.
Here we are at the end of the time we will borrow from you.
This letter could go on forever…everyone could write a book to express their worries, hopes and the great expectations they put on you. But we won’t be selfish enough to believe that ours are the most important ones, even though we are very grateful to you to give us the opportunity to have our voices heard.
Once again we would like to thank you for your time and receptiveness, for what you represent for your country and ours, and for what you inspire in people all over the world. And, if you may, would you accept our congratulations and our strong support for your task ahead.
Respectfully yours,
Béatrice Berthelot, Danielle Carnat-Grenon, Martine Stieg, and Jennifer Meuret
French mothers (and an American one) who are very concerned about our children’s future.
