The Hindu : Act locally, think globally, says Danielle Mitterrand

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 15, 2004

National

National

Act locally, think globally, says Danielle Mitterrand

By Gargi Parsai

NEW DELHI, JAN. 14. Danielle Mitterrand,, wife of the former French President, Francois Mitterrand, believes in "acting locally and thinking globally," and this is what got her involved with grassroots international organisations on water privatisation.

She wants to interact directly with international NGOs which, she believes, will make a difference as the current policies followed by governments worldover are harmful to public interest.

Ms. Mitterrand, who speaks only French, is here to attend the People's World Water Forum and later the World Social Forum in Mumbai.

She is the president of France Liberty, a non-governmental organisation, which runs multi-faceted projects in health, education and water near Kolkata and in Bangladesh.

The 79-year-old former French First Lady told today that she first became involved in grassroots struggles when as a regular visitor to her husband's constituency, Morvant, in central France, she saw how a multi-national company came in, cut traditional trees and planted new resin-based ones that grew fast and more profitable. "This created problems as the pesticides and fertilizers they used to make the trees grow faster impoverished the soil and resulted in pollution of the groundwater. France is a rich country and this was worrying."

Later, in Chile, she was told how a big lake was getting polluted and being drained because of an MNC's work there.

She realised this was a worldwide problem and decided to join hands with international movements.

Asked whether as a person interested in people's issues of health, water and education, she influenced her husband during his tenure, she smiled and said if "not influence him, she kept him informed about such movements globally."

Incidentally, most of the water giants that are forcing governments to privatise are Europe-based. Asked whether movements such as the PWWF and the WSF could influence governments into changing their direction, she said, "whether such struggles make a difference results will show. The current politics followed by governments the world over are harmful to public interest. As a result people have started protesting and are finding other means of handling such situation. The objective of meets such as this is for concrete action."

Although Ms. Mitterrand has accompanied her husband to India before on official visits, her impressions of the country are not so defined as she recalls only Embassies and residential areas which she says are not the "real India."

She has been to Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh as a supporter of the Tibetan movement, but hastens to add that she is not a Buddhist. "We are with the people of Tibet, not their religion, though we admire its principles of peace."

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