Yes to the Turkish Eiffel Tower

Starting from tonight, the Eiffel Tower will be in red-and-white for five days to celebrate the Season of Turkey in France.

This nice gesture is a sign of historical friendship between two countries, emphasizing the fact that not all the French people are prejudiced and hostile against Turks.

Though, Jean-Marie Le Pen's racist/populist National Front has unsurprisingly started a campaign with a sauce of hate speech, simply defending that "the Eiffel Tower is French and it will remain so." (The Armenian diaspora in France has another hate campaign with the same motive)

After naming themselves as the defender of the French colors, Le Pen et al show that they are as stupid as anyone can be by accusing not only Bertrand Delanoë, the Mayor of Paris, but also his accomplice Nicolas Sarkozy, the President of France.

For them, it may be a reasonable political tactic to try to grab a slice from the xenophobe voting base of Sarkozy, but this one still sounds idiotic. Socialist Delanoë and conservative Sarkozy fighting together for promoting Turkish culture? Come on!

Yes, Sarkozy couldn't keep his promise to stop the EU membership negotiations with Turkey, but it's not that he doesn't want it. It's because he just can't do it. On the other hand, he still does everything against Turkey, especially by blocking several negotiation chapters alone, even though the rest of the EU is almost in a consensus to move on.

All in all, the Eiffel Tower gesture is yet another visionary and non-populist opening by M. Delanoë who is as progressive as Sarkozy can never dream of. I am not sure if Delanoë would be the President of France in 2012, but I'm glad to see that he still can contribute to the long-term interests of his country and the world as a mayor.

And Sarkozy? Like Le Pen, he just can't realize that France doesn't lose anything by projecting red and white colors on the Eiffel Tower for five days... After all, you can add the blue in the next day and have your flag back again, including the tones of ours as well.