C'est le 14 Juillet: African Veterans to Get Same Benefits as their French Colleagues!

Over at Secret Defense, Jean Dominique Merchet reports that African veterans who served with French forces during WWII, Korea, Indochina, and Algeria will now get the same benefits as their colleagues. President Sarkozy (who is in need of some positive spin--have you read about the whole Bettencourt "affaire"? It's a trip), in honor of the Fete Nationale du 14 Juillet, has announced a 150 million Euro program to ensure that African veterans now receive the same level benefits, regardless of where they now live.

Why is this such a big deal? Because, as the BBC explains, until now, African soldiers were only payed a pension worth one tenth to one fifth of what their French colleagues got. Back in May, the Conseil Constitutionnel (the Constitutional Council) declared that practice illegal so now Sarko is presenting legislation to the Assemblee Nationale and the law should go into effect in January.

Oh, and did you see that soldiers from 13 African countries (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, CAR, Congo, Gabon, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritanie, Niger, Sénégal, Tchad and Togo) joined French forces today on the Champs Elysees for the Annual Defile du 14 Juillet? It was apparently pouring rain most of the time but this created a lot of buzz too--not all of those leaders have the best human rights records and Sarkozy was criticized both for colonial nostalgia and for granting them the honor of parading.

Bon 14 Juillet les amis!

Gallup Poll on Prospects for Peace in Eastern Congo

Gallup has a new poll out on Congolese views on the prospects for peace in the country. Gallup interviewed 1,000 Congolese adults in late 2009.

Gallup found that "Congolese surveyed late last year were optimistic about the future of the region; a majority (63%) agree there can be peace in eastern Congo within the next 12 months."

But before you get your hopes up, Gallup owns up to a major problem with data collection:

While Gallup could not interview people in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) because of security constraints, media reports document concern among people in the region about what will happen once U.N. peacekeepers leave as DRC President Joseph Kabila has requested. U.N. peacekeepers arrived in DRC in 1999 to help protect civilians and disarm and demobilize combatants, but the vast territory and lack of resources have hindered their role.

Congolese surveyed believe there can be an internal solution to the problems in eastern Congo, with residents most likely to spontaneously mention the government (51%) and the president (33%) when asked to name the party responsible for bringing peace. Despite its presence in the region for more than 10 years, relatively few Congolese view the United Nations as responsible for peace.

Gallup also asked about the role of Rwanda's role in bringing peace. A large majority of those interviewed (84%) said they did NOT think Rwanda was playing a positive role in bringing peace to the east.

My larger question is: why bother spending what I can only imagine is a lot of money polling if you don't even interview those most affected by the conflict? How exactly is this poll of any use?

Public view of the war in Afghanistan: France vs. USA (updated)

Over at Secret Defense, Jean-Dominique Merchet points out the results of this new poll. It basically shows that 36% of the French and 57% percent of the American people interviewed favor the military intervention in Afghanistan.

Just to give some trends on French public opinion, a nice table (p.6) reminds us that 58% of French people favored intervention in Kosovo in 1999, 55% favored intervention in Afghanistan in 2001, 19% in Iraq in 2003, 55% in Darfur in 2007, and 45% in Afghanistan in July 2008.

The rest of the poll then provides data by political party, age, gender and profession (PS is Parti Socialiste, Modem is Bayrou's center right party and UMP is Sarkozy's party--one thing to remember on the French political spectrum, I view it as generally shifted left from the US spectrum so if you look at political platforms, the UMP and Modem would basically be the different factions within the Democratic Party here). It then does the same for US responders.

It's interesting and it shows clearly that the French public is increasingly oppposed to military intervention in Afghanistan.

So go take a look--I think even if your French is limited you should be able to get the gist of it.

Update: As John Henninger points out in the comments (I didn't get a chance to put it up last night so thanks for the reminder), the ABC/Washington Post issued this new poll yesterday.