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Charlemagne(/??ɑ?rl?me?n/; 2 April 742/747/748[1]– 28 January 814), also known asCharles the Great(Latin:CarolusorKarolus Magnus) orCharles I, wasKing of the Franks. He united much of Europe during the earlyMiddle Agesand laid the foundations for modernFrance,Germany, and theLow Countries.

Fran?ois Fillon’s presidential race will appeal to those who watch for the crashes

弗朗索瓦·菲永競選總統將吸引那些期待碰撞的人

弗朗索瓦·菲永以勇于改革和善于與社會各界對話著稱。他喜歡文學，愛好登山活動，并對賽車情有獨鐘。其所著的《法蘭西能夠承受真相》一書，頗為暢銷。

When a British television show, Top Gear, was marketed to the French a few years ago, it seemed an improbable proposition. The hit programme, which appeals to petrol heads and the nation’s inner laddishness, was not an obvious fit for Gallic sensibilities. More improbable still, when the French version was launched in 2015, was the choice of an early special guest, whose challenge is to set the fastest time possible when driving an ordinary car round a race track: it was the rather dour, besuited, centreright former prime minister, Fran?ois Fillon.

當英國電視節目“Top Gear”幾年前向法國推廣時，那似乎是一個不可能的想法。這個吸引了熱情的汽車愛好者，激發出國家內部好勝心的熱播節目，和法國人的感性不那么匹配。當2015年節目的法國版推出時，最初選擇的一位特邀嘉賓讓人更難以置信，他就是相當嚴肅的，西裝革履的中右翼前首相弗朗索瓦·菲永。他面臨的挑戰是在賽道上駕駛普通汽車盡快完成任務。

As it turned out, Mr Fillon, who is now the Republicans’ beleaguered presidential candidate, did rather well. Strapped into a specially adapted Dacia Sandero, equipped with a crash helmet and an internally mounted camera recording his every move, Mr Fillon was unerringly calm and focused at the wheel. His lap time earned him a highly respectable fourth place. Fillon devotees were not surprised. He is an amateur racing driver; his brother, Pierre, runs the 24-hour race at Le Mans, which lies in his rural former constituency of La Sarthe, in western France. For anybody else struggling today to understand why Mr Fillon has defied insistent calls from his own team to quit the French presidential race, despite a judicial investigation into alleged misuse of the parliamentary payroll, his Top Gear appearance offers an insight. This is a man who—alone, impervious to distraction, unafraid of risk, and under pressure—has an unwavering faith in his capacity to hold steady and make it over the finishing line.

近期備受批評的共和黨總統候選人菲永，出賽時的表現相當不錯。戴著防撞頭盔，裝備了記錄一舉一動的內置相機，固定在特別改裝的Dacia Sandero牌汽車里的菲永表現得沉著冷靜，操控精準，駕駛全神貫注。他的單圈時間為他贏得了令人敬畏的第四名。 他的崇拜者并不感到驚訝。他是一名業余賽車手; 他的兄弟皮埃爾在勒芒經營著一項24小時賽車賽事。這里位于他以前所在的鄉下選區，法國西部的拉薩爾特（La Sarthe）。司法調查指控菲永濫發工資；自己的競選團隊也堅決要求他退出法國總統競選。這種情況下，為什么他并沒有屈服？ 對于很難理解菲永這個決定的人來說，他在Top Gear節目中的表現提供了一個深入的視角。他是一個獨立的，不受外界影響而分散注意力，無懼風險，習慣在壓力下工作的人 -對自己能力的信心從不動搖，立場堅定，總能想辦法完賽，沖過終點。

The Dacia Sanderois a subcompact car produced jointly by the French manufacturer Renault and its Romanian subsidiary Dacia since 2007, currently at its second generation. It is also marketed as theRenault Sanderoin certain markets, such as Russia, Egypt, South Africa, Mexico or South America. It was introduced in September 2007 and is based on the Logan platform.

Mr Fillon’s troubles have turned an election that was difficult for the centre-right to lose into one that will be difficult to win. Last November, the politician once mocked as Mr Nobody surged from poll outsider to grab his party’s nomination, with a sweeping 67% of centre-right voters. Overnight, Mr Fillon became the favourite in the election on April 23rd and May 7th. The sitting Socialist president, Fran?ois Hollande, was so unpopular that he bowed out before he was pushed. L’alternance, or the habitual rotation of power between the left and the right, meant that centreright politicians just assumed it was their turn.

菲永的那些麻煩使得中右翼本來勝券在握的選舉變成難求一勝的局面。去年十一月，這位曾被嘲笑為無名氏的政治家從投票中脫穎而出，獲得了大約67％的中右翼選民的支持，取得了黨派提名。一夜之間，菲永成為4月23日和5月7日選舉重要時刻的寵兒。執政的社會黨主席弗朗索瓦·奧朗德（Fran?ois Hollande）太不受歡迎以至于他在被趕下去之前就退出了。習慣性的左右兩黨權利輪換意味著中右翼政治家認為該輪到他們了。

Such expectations have now collapsed. Investigative judges say they will put Mr Fillon under formal investigation on March 15th over alleged fake jobs for his Welsh-born wife, Penelope, and two of his children. The sums were bad enough. The payroll bill over the years came to €900,000 ($949,000); the average pre-tax annual salary is €20,670. But there was also an uncomfortable sense of feudal entitlement about the affair. The tweedy Mr Fillon lives in a historic manor house in La Sarthe, complete with chapel and horse. Paris-Match once published a photo of him, a practising Catholic, and his large family, taking tea on its sweeping lawn. Worse, Mr Fillon insisted on his own reputation for probity. As disillusion grew, and his poll numbers sank, Mr Fillon dug in. It was a conspiracy, he exclaimed, fingering the usual suspects: the media, the left, even the judiciary. The people, he cried to diehard supporters at a hastily organised weekend rally in Paris, had chosen him; they would be his judge. Mr Fillon hit the most discordant note of all when he sought to mimic the grandiose oratory of Charles de Gaulle, whose photo he kept on his bedroom wall as a child. “France”, he declared, “is greater than my errors.”

這種預期現已分崩離析了。調查法官表示，他們將在3月15日對菲永展開正式調查，關于他生于威爾士的妻子Penelope和兩個孩子拿空餉的指控。涉及金額夠糟糕。多年來支付的工資累計達到90萬歐元（約合949,000美元），平均稅前年薪為20,670歐元。但也有對于事件中的特權一種不爽的感覺。 優哉游哉的菲永住在位于La Sarthe的一座歷史悠久的莊園，有小教堂和馬。Paris-Match雜志曾經發表了一張照片，這位虔誠的天主教徒和他的大家庭，在草坪上喝茶。更糟糕的是，菲永還在強調自己廉潔的聲譽。隨著幻像的破滅，支持人數的下降，菲永開始負隅頑抗。他指著那些可疑分子-媒體，左派，甚至是司法機構，大聲說："這是陰謀"。在巴黎倉促舉行的一個周末集會上，他向死忠們大聲演說。這些人選擇了他。他們將是他的法官。從孩提時起，戴高樂的照片就一直掛在他臥室的墻壁上。但當他試圖模仿戴高樂的偉大演講時，他發出了所有音符中最不和諧的那一個。 他宣稱，“法國能夠包容我的錯誤”。

Nothing, it now seems, will deflect Mr Fillon from his course. Not the loss of his campaign manager, Patrick Stefanini, nor his spokesman, Thierry Solère, nor the scores of deputies who have also quit his campaign team. Defeat in the first round, said Mr. Stefanini, could no longer be ruled out. In their despair over the weekend, defectors appealed to the primary’s runner-up, Alain Juppé, another ex-prime minister, to take over as candidate. Somehow, anyhow. But Mr Fillon was having none of it. It was all “too late”, an embittered Mr Juppé replied: Mr Fillon had a boulevard in front of him, but has driven into a dead end.

現在似乎沒有什么能扭轉菲永先生的命運。他的競選經理Patrick Stefanini，他的發言人Thierry Solère，以及那些退出競選團隊的代表們都辦不到。史蒂芬尼（Stefanini）先生說，不能排除他一輪游的可能性。倒戈者們在周末絕望地呼吁阿蘭·朱佩-初選第二名，另一位前總理，接任候選人。以某種方式，無論如何。但是菲永先生沒有這樣做。一切都“太晚了”，朱佩憤怒地回應：菲永面前曾有一條康莊大道，但現在他已經窮途末路。

Besides the harm done to the image of democratic politics, one casualty of this sorry saga is an ambitious economic programme, gone to waste. For all his flaws, Mr Fillon grasps the need to shake up France’s rule-bound system to free up the creation of jobs, ideas and profits. He knows, having served as prime minister under President Nicolas Sarkozy, that reforms need to be spelled out before an election in order to secure a mandate to put them into place afterwards. But the damage now done to his credibility is such that, even were he to defy the odds and win, Mr Fillon would lack the authority to do what he has promised.

除了對民主政治形象的傷害之外，這個可悲故事的犧牲品還包括雄心勃勃的經濟計劃被白白浪費。無論菲永有多少缺點，他抓住了法國需要動搖規則束縛的制度這個重點。這將增加就業機會，創新想法和產生利潤。作為曾輔佐尼古拉斯·薩科齊總統的總理，他深知，改革計劃需要在選舉前就清楚地表達出來，以確保日后落實的強制性。但現在對他的信任已經受損，即使他逆轉取勝，菲永也將缺乏權威去做他應允之事。

Tragédie fran?aise法蘭西悲劇

Another is political unity on the French right. When Jacques Chirac stood for re-election in 2002, he brought rival cliques from the centre and the right together under a broad umbrella, originally named the Union for a Presidential Majority (UMP). It helped him in the run-off, where he roundly beat Jean-Marie Le Pen, of the nativist National Front. Today, Mr Le Pen’s daughter, Marine, is likely to reach the second round, and Mr Fillon needs to keep those same constituent parts together in order to make it as well. Instead, the centrists are wavering. Many centre-right figures around Mr Juppé have quit the campaign. Mr Fillon is left with the socially conservative right wing, whose most organised element is a Catholic movement that mobilised vigorously against the legalisation of gay marriage.

另一個犧牲品是法國右翼的政治團結。當雅克·希拉克在2002年再次參選時，他將敵對的中間和右翼勢力團結在他的大旗之下，這個聯盟最初被稱為總統多數派（UMP）。這在總決選時助了他一臂之力，完勝本土主義者國民陣線的讓·瑪麗·勒龐。今天，勒龐先生的女兒，Marine，很可能會進入第二輪，而且菲永需要同樣把這些選舉勢力融合在一起，以便也能做走得更遠。相反，中間派正在搖擺之中。 朱佩先生周圍的許多中右翼人士已經退出了競爭。 菲永只剩下社會的保守右翼力量。其最有組織的元素是天主教運動，主張積極推動反對同性婚姻合法化。

?讓·瑪麗·勒龐? (法語:Jean-Marie Le Pen，1928年6月20日-)，法國政治家，極右黨派國民陣線領導人。他曾數次參加法國總統選舉，其中在2002年法國總統大選中，一度獲得17.4%的得票率，擊敗當時被看好的法國左派候選人利昂內爾·若斯潘。盡管他最終負于希拉克，但卻震驚了整個歐洲。不過他關于移民和二戰歷史等言論，卻常常遭受很大爭議。-360百科

This spectacle has blown the wheels off one of the few credible efforts to keep Ms Le Pen out of the Elysée. “If it’s a choice between Fillon and Le Pen, I’ll abstain,” said a retired Socialist voter in Angers, a cathedral town near his rural fief. The stakes are higher than at any other election since de Gaulle established the Fifth Republic in 1958. Mr Fillon may think he can still make the final lap. But hopes of defeating Ms Le Pen are increasingly turning instead to a young centrist untested behind the wheel, Emmanuel Macron. And he, against all the unwritten rules of French politics, has never run for election to any office before.

這種情形使得阻止勒龐入主愛麗舍宮的少數幾個可信的努力灰飛煙滅。Angers的一位退休社會黨選民說 “如果是在菲永和勒龐之間做選擇，我寧愿投棄權票”。那里是一座大教堂所在的集鎮，離他的農村封地很近。自戴高樂1958年成立第五共和國以來，這次各方的賭注超過以往任何一次選舉。菲永可能認為還有機會跑最后一圈。但是，擊敗勒龐女士的希望越來越轉向一個站在車后，沒什么經驗的年輕中間派，埃馬紐埃爾·馬克龍(Emmanuel Macron)。與所有法國的政治潛規則相反，他之前竟沒有競選過任何政府職位。

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