PARIS LETTER/LARA MARLOWE: Brice Lalonde is so proud of his American cousin, the US presidential candidate John Kerry, that he has festooned his homes in Paris and Brittany with campaign stickers and colour photographs of the senator from Massachusetts.
Mr Lalonde (57) was a politician himself. He stood for president of France in 1981, winning 4 per cent of the vote, and served as minister of the environment from 1988 until 1991. These days, when he isn't waking up at 3 a.m. to learn the result of the latest Democratic caucus, Mr Lalonde campaigns to save forests in Africa.
John Kerry's French connection started in 1910, when his and Mr Lalonde's grandfather, James Grant Forbes, brought his bride Margaret Winthrop to the continent. "One of her ancestors founded Boston," Mr Lalonde explains. "That's why they call Johnny 'patrician'." Mr Lalonde can't get used to hearing his cousin called 'John' instead of 'Johnny'.
James and Margaret Forbes had 11 children, including Mr Kerry's mother Rosemary ("Aunt Rosie") and Mr Lalonde's mother Fiona. "He was a lawyer and a partner in a bank, and they moved back and forth between the US, France and Britain," Mr Lalonde explains. "Their children were born in all three countries, and they took the nationality of whatever country they were born in. My mother was English."
The Forbes bought a big house overlooking the sea in the Breton resort town of Saint-Briac. Warmed by the Gulf Stream, it was the second French town to build a golf course. In the 1950s and early 60s, Mr Kerry and Mr Lalonde, who is three years younger, spent summer holidays there together. Just before Mr Kerry sailed out of San Diego en route for Vietnam, he telephoned the cousins in Paris. Mr Lalonde recalls the anguish of their farewell "as if it was yesterday".
Perhaps John Kerry's strongest qualification for the US presidency, Mr Lalonde says, is that "he knows the world." They share childhood memories of the house at Saint-Briac being rebuilt after it was destroyed by the Germans in the second World War. Their grandfather worked with Jean Monnet and René Pleven, early advocates of European union.
There were often 30 grandchildren in the house at Saint-Briac in the summer. "Johnny was very athletic and everyone adored him," Mr Lalonde recalls. "We played 'Capture the Flag' - Johnny was the organiser - and 'Kick the Can'. We rode horses and played tennis. It was idyllic." That is why Mr Lalonde became mayor of Saint-Briac, where he spends two days every week. "I wanted to give something back," he says.
Today there are more than 80 descendants of James and Margaret Forbes.
"They married people of all races and nationalities. We have a family newsletter; it's very cosmopolitan," Mr Lalonde says. The whole family follow the Kerry campaign closely; John Kerry looks so much like Abraham Lincoln, one uncle insists, he can't possibly lose.
Mr Lalonde says he and Mr Kerry inherited their love of nature from their grandmother Margaret. They spent a day together at the Kyoto summit on global warming in 1997. Five years earlier, both attended the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. "That's where Johnny got together with [his second wife] Teresa," Mr Lalonde says. "She said a French word, because she'd retranslated the speech of a Portuguese official in a huge rush; it had been badly translated. Kerry answered her in French. My understanding is that foreign languages are at the origin of their interest in each other."
Franco-American relations have been abysmal since the Iraq war, and Mr Lalonde is anxious that his cousin's 'French connection' not hurt his presidential chances. "He has more cousins in the UK ... than in France," Mr Lalonde kept insisting.
Mr Lalonde says the fact that speaking French and having French relatives could be considered a flaw by some voters saddens him greatly. "We have a monument in Saint-Briac that says, 'To the Americans'. We were liberated by American forces on the 15th of August 1944. Every August, we still have a celebration on the village square, and the women who danced with the GIs there as girls come out. Three American soldiers were killed by a shell explosion in Saint-Briac. So we suffer from this misunderstanding."
No wonder the French are secretly rooting for John Kerry - not too loudly, so they don't hurt his chances.
