Hollande (Elysee.fr)If the traffic in Georgetown this afternoon strikes you as particularly bad, even for the neighborhood’s notoriously clogged roadways, feel free to use that most brazen of pro-American excuses for the world’s problems and blame France.
Seriously, blame France. This afternoon, the Embassy of France is hosting a reception for President François Hollande, who took office this week and is already making his first official visit on behalf of l’Hexagone. As such, the roads around the embassy, located at 4101 Reservoir Road NW, will be especially snagged with traffic, making it difficult to navigate around Georgetown University, reports the Georgetown Patch.
Hollande’s reception doesn’t begin until 5 p.m., but guests—about 2,000 French citizens who live in the D.C. area—will be arriving beginning at 2:30. “Reservoir Road may be difficult to traverse and may hinder traffic near campus,” a campus email warned this morning.
To top it off, Hollande’s visit to his country’s D.C. outpost comes in the middle of Georgetown University’s graduation weekend, no doubt itself an added burden on the neighborhood’s crowded streets. This morning, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius addressed graduates of the university’s public policy school in a commencement address that was criticized by some Catholic Church leaders for her support of abortion rights.
Hollande, who beat now-former President Nicolas Sarkozy in a run-off vote on May 6, is visiting the United States this weekend to take part in the G-8 meeting of world leaders at Camp David and the summit of NATO leaders in Chicago beginning Sunday.
