Category: Politics
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Simone Veil, den mektigste franske feministen siden Simone de Beauvoir, døde forrige fredag.
Husk: Simone Weil (1909-1943) var en fransk filosof – en mange forveksler med Simone Veil (1927-2017). En annen Simone (de Beauvoir) var også filosof. De hadde samme fornavn – Simone – et vanlig navn å gi franske jentebarn født i første del av det 20. århundre. Hun jeg skriver om heter Simone Veil, og hun…
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Why did Anders Behring Breivik officially change his name to “Idiot”?
Every now and then, the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik comes up with new ideas to get the press talk about him. Last year he filed a complaint, claiming that he was being tortured by the Norwegian authorities in jail. Now he is changing his name to something quite unexpected. For those who need…
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5 Reasons Marine Le Pen can win the French election against Macron.
Tonight the results of the French Presidential election were made public: Emmanuel Macron, the head of the center-right party En March!, and Marine Le Pen, head of the National Front (far-right and nationalist) are both qualified for the second round with respectively over 23% and 21% of the votes. Many voters including myself are relieved to…
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Is France’s Next President a female Trump after all?
French people are confusing. They drink wine at lunch and don’t think they are alcoholics. They each lots of fat cheese and stay slim. And their political life is full of mistresses and other surprises. One of the things foreign journalists do not seem to understand about French politics is that nobody can predict…
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What to do with Roma People in the Winter?
The first time I saw Sunita she was begging on the street below my office. Like many others she had a little paper cup and a picture of a baby, waiting for a few kroners to fall in. But unlike those I see around my office in central Oslo, she was young. She had beautiful green eyes…
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2015. The Year that Traumatised France
One’s first first reaction in these circumstances is to make sure one’s family members and friends are fine. The 7 areas of Paris where the attacks occurred started turning around in my head: is any of my friends likely to have attended the rock concert at The Bataclan last night? Could any of my family members…
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Morals in Politics: What if French DSK had been Norwegian?
Do you remember Dominique Strauss Kahn? Or DSK like we call him in France? He was a high profile French politician, once the Head of the International Monetary Fund, French Ministry of Finance, and one press release away from becoming a serious candidate to become France’s President in 2012. He was basically one of the most…
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Rich and Poor: Oslo is a divided city.
I am standing in the street, looking at it: at the people, the cars. I know something is different. But what? This is just another street in Oslo, like those I’ve been looking at for the past 5 years I’ve been living here. But I look closer, forgetting about my list of things to buy…
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How to be a Happy Immigrant in Norway?
Credit image: Shutterstock license 1. Accept things and people as they areAccept that this is another country with its own culture. Sure, half of what Norwegians do is new and strange to you, but for them that is the norm. It is the same all over the world: people do things in a certain way…