Charles Bremner - Times Online - WBLG

Hollywood hammers again...

The year-end has produced some fuel for my contention that the lavishly subsidised French film industry turns out many poor movies and outright duds. American films took half the French box office for the year, compared with 43 percent for 2004. Only four out of the 12 top grossing feature films were French. The best they could do was third place for Brice de Nice, an inane comedy about a big-talking surfer that attracted teenagers and critical scorn in about equal measure. Then in ninth place with 2.8 million audience came Les Poupées Russes, a quality romance, sequel to L'Auberge Espagnole , directed by Cédric Klapisch.

Saint Sylvester pushes the price

France's restaurant and cabaret managers have erred on the greedy side this New Year's eve. From Nice to Deauville, passing through the Paris area, bookings for Saint Sylvester's night are down heavily on recent years. With tables expected to sit empty even at some of the country's poshest establishments, the bosses of quite a few night spots have decided to cut prices for their réveillons. These can be found for the whole of France on ely1212.com. Click on "SOS Réveillon" or go to the English version.

Sir Elton et la 'Britattitude'

Sir Elton John's nuptials caused a stir in Paris. After France led the way with non-binding civil contracts between gays in 1999, the concept of full homosexual union has become hostage over the past couple of years to the eternal feud between left and right.

Libération, house organ of the "progressive" classes, devoted its first four pages today to Le mariage gay superstar and, in passing, came up with a nice definition of that odd culture across the Channel that never ceases to puzzle the French. "The follies of Sir Elton are emblematic of la britattitude," said Libé. "Britain has always managed to make eccentricity one of the pillars of the identity of the kingdom. It is the indispensable ingredient of that pudding of tradition and transgression, of liberty and conformity, in which the taste for business and austerity often go slumming with unbridled sexuality."  Britain had once again shown up France and its social blocages, it added.

Enjoying the Gallic good life

Philippe, the owner of the news kiosk on the corner of the Boulevard des Italiens was sporting a wide grin the other day. "I'm off," announced Philippe, whose little enterprise has supplied The Times' office with daily papers for years. "Another skiing trip or a cruise?" I enquired. "No. La retraite -- retirement -- and I can't wait. How long have you still got to do ?". Philippe is a fit and active 53-year-old. Like many French, he had wangled early retirement and has headed off to the countryside where, statistically, he can expect to enjoy about 25 years more life.

Philippe's case illustrates the challenge facing the Chirac Government as it tries to convince citizens to stay longer in work and stop dreaming of retiring as soon as they enter their 50s. The French attitude is, however, understandable.

A Christmas card from Paris

Some Christmas rituals never change in Paris. Apart from the lights on the Champs Elysées, the season is heralded by the television rebroadcast of le Père Noël est Une Ordure (Santa Claus is a bastard). This cult 1982 film by Jean-Marie Poiré is a much-loved institution but it is hardly a life-affirming feel-good fable. It is a dark comedy about suicide-counselling, violent death, homelesseness and being stuck in a Paris lift on Christmas eve.

Then we have the Interior Minister's visit to inspect the yuletide police presence on the Boulevard Haussmann, home of the big department stores. Nicolas Sarkozy, Monsieur law-and-order and would-be president, performed the ceremony with his usual panache, descending this morning on the Galeries Lafayette and Printemps, the two grandest grands magasins, around the corner from The Times' office on the Place de l'Opéra. While the crowd gaped at his muscular entourage, the pint-sized heavyweight of the Chirac Cabinet went into his tolérance zero mode and told police officers: "I wish you could all have Tasers." These are the stun guns that temporarily paralyse the target with a high-voltage shock and which Sarko is supplying as fast as he can to the national police.

Tripping on false friends

Some of the Paris-based Anglo media have just committed a French howler that gives me an excuse to tackle a pet theme: the pitfalls and quirks of translation. The offending print and broadcast outlets -- including two prestigious newspapers -- were reporting a national rail strike in late November. The unions had stopped to protest against what they fear to be la privatisation rampante of the rail system. In English, this means creeping privatisation, from ramper, meaning to crawl. The offenders fell into the trap and reported that the unions were resisting "rampant privatisation". This  made no sense because no rail sell-off is planned. The unions were worried that it is creeping in. 

Such faux amis -- false friends -- lie in wait for anyone moving between languages, dialects and even slang.

Paris Pavement Hogs

A new hazard is plaguing the Paris pedestrian. In the past, you mainly risked being mown down by fast traffic on the avenues and boulevards that had been turned into arteries by the councils and governments of the post-war decades (Much of the damage was done by Mayor Jacques Chirac and Georges Pompidou, the early 1970s President and Chirac mentor who wanted to blast a freeway through the city).

Now, thanks to Bertrand Delanoe, the environment-minded Socialist who has been Mayor since 2001, you risk being knocked over on the pavement (sidewalk) or in the park by motorbikes, scooters and road-raging motorists. I am reporting this after repeated near misses with big motorcycles while on the morning jog through a garden and an underground passage between the Avenue de la Grande Armée and the Bois de Boulogne.  Lethal off-road motorcycling is an unintended consequence of Delanoe's campaign to cut traffic by shrinking roads and obstructing through routes. Like many motorists, especially the two-wheeled kind, the motards were using pedestrian space to beat the rush-hour mega-jams created by the Mayor's policies. Not only are motorbikes and scooters weaving along walkways thick with adults and children, but four-wheel drives are also getting into the act. They drive the wrong way up bus lanes and climb pavements as short cuts around gridlocked intersections or for parking. This all stokes pavement rage. In its extreme form, it is inspiring anti-4x4 activists who are sabotaging expensive offroaders that are left out overnight.

France serenades the awful English

Alain Chamfort, a French singer song-writer, came up with a good observation about the contrasting mentalities on each side of the Channel. The French, he said, cannot stand the law but they respect authority. The British respect the law but cannot stand authority. Anyone who knows both countries would agree. The French hold the highway and tax codes in low esteem unless gendarmes and inspectors are around. They do not treat the state or its president with the contemptuous irreverence that Britons apply to Tony Blair and his nanny Government. 

Chamfort's line was quoted by Philippe Meyer, a radio commentator of the old-fashioned school who broadcasts an elegant Saturday morning show on France Inter called La prochaine fois, je vous le chanterai (The next time I'll sing it for you). His musical theme this weekend was the eternal love-hate relationship between France and Britain, or more precisely England. (You can listen to it on http://www.radiofrance.fr/chaines/france-inter01/emissions/prochainefois/). Meyer started with the obvious point that cross-Channel feelings are mutual.  "The habits of the English annoy us as much as they intrigue us, which is about the same amount as they inspire our admiration. We suspect them of being even more arrogant than us." 

The Monster Returns

The people slay the monster but it keeps coming back to sow terror in the land. I am not talking about some antique legend but Frits Bolkestein, a Dutchman whose name haunts the French psyche, frightening the faint-hearted like Frankenstein's creation. France's bogeyman is the former European Commissioner who drafted a law that was supposed to open the single market to cross-border services. The Bolkestein directive, suspended last spring, was seen in France as an evil concoction designed to open the frontiers to an invasion of cheap Polish plumbers and Czech carpenters. Now the dreaded Bolkestein is back and inside one of France's great national institutions.