For months now, I’ve been fighting the morning dread, the inertia, my distaste for gyms in general, to regularly attend classes at a local gym. My doctor needled, my neighbor importuned and my own guilty conscience nagged me into finally signing up. I hate it. But I go.

As far as salles de sport go, it is a good one. Clean, not smelly, fresh towels at the ready, it offers a gamut of classes terrestres and aquatiques. The class quality is top. I can follow most of the instructions, too, when I can hear them over the effingly, insistingly awful music pounding out. Twistez! Accelerez! Stoppez! Alternez!

How long will this last? It’s doubtful that I will become a gym rat but I am noticing a previously occult muscle peering out here and there so that’s some motivation, until I get hurt.

My other, more recent endeavor, was volunteering as part of the large effort by Democrats Abroad to get out the vote. There are millions of American expats all over the world, and only a tiny percentage vote. Many don’t even know if they are registered to do so. Cue DA and VotefromAbroad.org volunteers. My job was to sit at a table in a popular area for foot traffic surrounded by signage to capture the attention of Americans who might need help getting registered. I heard that the drive is going gangbusters. This is not nothing. In 2016 votes from abroad made the difference in a couple of important states.

As usual, the French are worried that the Republican US candidate will win. But they have their own political problems taking most of their attention. At least now there is a Prime Minister, a center-rightist, which really irks the four-party Leftist alliance which has responded by putting up a disunited, shambolic front against him. Today the PM will announce his policy recommendations and everyone is on tenterhooks, anticipating more demonstrations against the expected social services cuts and tax increases. By demonstrations, I mean what I witness with some regularity, a parade festooned with party flags, music blasting and an angry voice over a megaphone, all of which is over after a few hours.

I’m not trying to diminish the political realities facing France. They are complicated and serious. They risk an unpleasant political future for the country and for Europe. Without feeling complacent, however, I am reassured by the electorate’s behavior in the election earlier this year, wherein the populace voted with a collective mind to block the far right from reaching a governing majority. At that moment, France behaved like a more serious country than some others.

And, former President and Socialist Francois Hollande, possibly France’s most disliked Presidents by the time his term was up, is back as a popular member of the National Assembly and sure to make a Presidential run in 2027. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose?