Editing Jean-Pierre Raffarin (section)

==Raffarinades==
Jean-Pierre Raffarin was often teased for his optimistic [[aphorism]]s, known colloquially and ironically as ''raffarinades'', the best known being ''La route est droite, mais la pente est forte'' ("The road is straight, but the slope is steep"). Some consider that the word ''raffarinade'' was created in reference to the other French word ''mazarinade''. However, ''mazarinade'' refers to the songs that the ''frondeurs'' (French revolutionaries during the ''Régence'' of Queen Anne – Archduchess of Austria – and chief minister [[Cardinal de Mazarin]], before king Louis XIV's personal reign) sang to mock the unpopular chief minister.

Raffarin also tried his English prior to the referendum on the European draft Constitution but this turned out to be an ill-advised idea, as shown in this famous excerpt<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4118142947508150872&q=raffarin&pl=true&#93; |title=Archived copy |access-date=24 April 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111107051149/http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4118142947508150872 |archive-date=7 November 2011 |url-status=dead |df=dmy-all }}</ref> from his speech: "Win the yes needs the no to win against the no." The referendum itself was eventually nicknamed ''le Raffarindum'' by its opponents while ''[[Journée de solidarité envers les personnes âgées]]'' (''Day of solidarity with the elderly'') is sometimes referred to as ''la Saint-Raffarin'' by discontented workers (following a decision by Raffarin, French workers are supposed to work on [[Whit Monday]] for free, but public transportation still uses its "Sundays and holidays" timetable).