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While political meetings on the European Constitution took up quite a bit of our time, we also managed to attend quite a number of other seminars, mostly of a political nature, but not exclusively.

"Free Florence Aubenas" Rally, Palais de Chaillot

Florence Aubenas and her translator had been kidnapped in Iraq and by the time we got to France had been in captivity almost a hundred days. The fact of her captivity was kept in the public eye by her fellow journalists on the main TV news shows with a daily reminder of how many days she had been imprisoned. As time went on, the publicity intensified and before we left Paris she had been released undoubtedly in exchange for some enormous sum of money. Unfortunately that money will just as undoubtedly be used to finance more acts of terror and barbarism, and its payments will only encourage more kidnappings. The rally depicted in the photograph above included several important French politicians as well as members of Mlle Aubenas' family. At the end of the rally a huge horde of purple balloons were released.

ESCP-EAP Students meet Mayor Jean Tiberi

This was our first political seminar and took us to one of France's premier economic schools. Mayor Tiberi is famous, or infamous perhaps, for having been accused (and convicted?) of taking bribes or some such. We found him articulate and determined to clear his name and perhaps even to run for mayor of Paris again.

Julia Kristeva, Author, Philospher, and Feminist At Auditorium of Old National Library

Julia Kristeva is a Bulgarian born citizen of France who spends much of her time in the USA. The lecture we attended was part of a series to honor her as part of an award that she received for her work as a feminist philosopher. Neither of us is well-enough informed to express an opinion on Ms Kristeva's work but we could tell quite easily that like most academics Ms Kristeva is on the left of the political spectrum.

French Labor Unions, Laws, and Strikes At Sorbonne

Jan in particular was excited to finally be attending a lecture at the famed Sorbonne. As a student in Paris in the late '60's she had never done so. Sadly, attendance at this interesting seminar on how and whether the government could protect the public from strikes by public service workers in general, and transport workers in particular was very low. Still we found the presentations interesting and even managed to ask a question.

Saad Eddin Ibrahim: Democratric Reform in Egypt with his wife and host

We found out about most of the lectures we attended from Le Monde, to which we had a subscription. That was the case for Mr Ibrahim's series of three lectures about the struggle for democracy in Egypt. Each lecture was attended by about twenty people with about half of them attending all lectures.

Saad Eddin Ibrahim audience At EHESS - Institute of Islamic Studies and the Moslem World

Gerry managed to place a couple of questions about Iraq and the efforts toward democracy there that might have born fruit because he recently read that Mr Ibrahim has come out in favor of the electoral process in Iraq. Hurrah!

Fight Famine in Darfour Town Meeting At City Hall, 19th Arondisement

We were certainly impressed by the turnout for this meeting which appeared to be the entire left community of this part of Paris. They clearly seemed to know one another pretty well although we recognized none of them. There is no doubt of course that we all feel great compassion for the poor people of Darfur.

B. Dey: The origin of sonoluminescence at Curie Institute

This is one lecture that Gerry attended alone! We had just visited the Marie Curie laboratory museum at the Pasteur Institute. Another tourist there turned out to be a professor of Physics and when he and Gerry started talking he told Gerry about a lecture series going on in a nearby building and invited Gerry to attend. Jan happily sat in the cafeteria and listened to a recording of a German novel on her ZEN MP3 player.

Current European Economic Problems at CEPII, La Defense

It is always hard to say whether Gerry is more interested in politics or economics. Perhaps it is the intersection of the two that grabs his attention most. He was delighted therefore to listen to a panel from CEPII (Centre d'Etudes Prospectives et d'Informations Internationales) talk about the problems that Europe has been having competing in the new globalised economy. Jan was also happy to get a chance to offer her services as a translator/proofreader to such a distinguished gathering.

Multi-culturalism in the Mediterranean At Paris Institute of Political Studies

America, Europe, and the World At EHESS (School of Social Studies), Bd Raspail

France and Europe: A Mismatch of Goals? At Sci Po (School of Political Sciences)