Charles Bremner - Times Online - WBLG

France gives up smoking (in theory)

 

To those of us of a certain age, the pungent scent of a smouldering Gauloise or a Gitane used to evoke all that was desirable about France and its sexy art de vivre: Paris cafes, clever conversation, Françoise Hardy, good wine and food.      

In those days, cigarettes were made and marketed by the state. Whether brunes (French tobacco) or Américaines, they were chain-smoked on the job by everyone from Serge Gainsbourg, the great balladeer, to President Georges Pompidou -- and his ministers like the young Jacques Chirac.   

Chirac stopped puffing in public years ago and from midnight tomorrow, the nation that invented the cigarette is taking a leap towards becoming a smoke-free zone.   

Many doubt that this drastic measure will become reality. Smoking is no longer sexy in France, but banning it is, well, un-French.

Ségo in Paradise

    

The scene seemed set in a parallel universe.  Ségolène Royal was praising la République and urging the voters, as usual, to give her ideas for her future job as president. The usual gendarmes held back the crowd and I used my mobile to dial a local number in Paris. Yet the sun was blazing down on palm trees and tropical flowers, Royal was speaking a few words in Créole and France was 7,000 kilometres away.

Such is the sense of unreality that stems from the concept that Martinique, where I have spent the past few days, is just as much part of France as the Dordogne or Lower Normandy. Martinique may be in the Caribbean but it is 100 percent part of France, not an independent member of a Commonwealth like neighbouring Saint Lucia and other former British islands. I watched Ségolène, as everyone here calls the Socialist candidate, juggling with this strange construct as she has campaigned in Martinique and Guadeloupe. I won't dwell on Ségo, who was happy to escape after a grim week for her in la Métropole, as France is always called here. I would rather make a point about these far- flung bits of France, or to put it another way, when is a colony not a colony?

Time Out

There will be a brief interruption in postings this week. I'm off for a few days, returning at the weekend. But please keep up the comments. They will be posted daily.

CB

Trouble on the home front for Ségo

Couples who work in the same business usually have a way of handling rivalry. Ségolène Royal and François Hollande, France's star power couple, were long admired for putting their relationship above the job but things have come apart this week. 

Royal, the Socialist presidential candidate, has fallen out publicly with Hollande, her party leader, partner of 26 years and father of their four children. 

The spur was a disagreement on tax policy (last Saturday post). But the spat has gone deep, exposing bitterness between their respective camps, with Royal's crew suggesting that Hollande wants to torpedo her presidential hopes.  Their troubles have added to a slump in Royal's previously charmed campaign for the April vote.

Paris water wars

   French advertising is usually pretty tame, except for its use of sex to sell just about any product. So I suppose we should congratulate the makers of Cristaline, the biggest-selling mineral water, for an aggressive campaign that has stirred the ire of Parisians, the government, the city council and environmental campaigners.

Cristaline's idea was to hit back at a city campaign to promote humble tap-water as just as tasty and healthy as expensive bottled H20. The company has plastered the Métro and billboards with this unappetising poster and others all suggesting that l'eau du robinet is undrinkable and polluted.  The message over the lavatory seat says: "I do not drink water that I use".

Behind the water war lies a decline in sales in a saturated market for a product which the French still drink more than the piped-in version. Until recently Parisians nicknamed their unloved municipal water Château Chirac -- after the Mayor of 1978-95 who became president.

The Franco-British wedding plan

The British media have been enjoying themselves for the past 24 hours with a story that sounds preposterous: Not so long ago, France invited Britain to unite with it as a single nation and when that did not work, it sought membership of the British Commonwealth.

In today's context, after decades of prickly Gaullism in France and British resistance in a French-designed European Union, the idea of a Paris-London marriage sounds like a joke. Yet it did happen -- twice: in 1956 in 1940.

Despite today's amazement, prompted by a BBC Radio documentary, the tale is not new. It came out two decades ago with the declassification of government papers and it has been well studied by historians. Dr James Ellison of Queen Mary's College, London University, called me to point this out yesterday while everyone was excited about the BBC's supposed revelation.

But it is worth revisiting the episode to see how different things might have been and how history can pivot around the events of a few months (Note to Frank Schnittger: This should answer your request for a post).

Sarkozy pinches from Mitterrand

 

Nicolas Sarkozy did rather well at his coronation by the Union for a Popular Majority. Some 80,000 party faithful turned out to cheer the centre-right candidate at the show at the Porte de Versailles yesterday but Sarko avoided the excess of his previous party rallies. He even managed a tone that was more humble than triumphant as he sets out to beat Ségolène Royal, the Socialist, in the Spring elections. Today's Libération is even worrying that Sarko has now got the edge on Ségo.

Here is the Sarko report, but first, take a look at the new campaign poster. Sarko stands against a blue sky and the reassuring rural background that one assumes is la France profonde. "Together, everything becomes possible," says the new slogan of the man previously known for his promises of a "rupture" with the past. Something leaps out for anyone who remembers the campaign of 1981 that took François Mitterrand to the presidency. Sarkozy's people have copied the legendary poster that helped the late Socialist win that year. [below]

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Ségolène puts down her man

  This is Nicolas Sarkozy's big weekend. The centre-right favourite for the French presidency is at last being crowned by his own family, the Gaullist-dominated Union for a Popular Movement. But there is a damper on the festivities. President Chirac is refusing to make way for him. For the rest of the story, read here.

Also fun -- and revealing about France -- is the spat between Ségolène Royal, Sarkozy's leftwing rival, and François Hollande, leader of her Socialist party. The glamorous candidate tore a strip off Hollande after he promised that her administration would slap a big tax rise on the well-off once she is elected. Added spice comes from the fact that Royal and Hollande have been a couple -- at least officially -- for most of the past 25 years and they have four children together.

Winter sales, Paris style

At 8am this morning, store doors across France opened for the winter sales. On the Boulevard Haussmann, home to the two biggest Paris department stores, the mob of bargain-hunters was joined by two very French forces: a government minister and sales staff who urged their colleagues to go on strike. 

Like everything else in France, the seasonal sales are political and regulated by the state. The government sets the dates for two annual sales periods and selling goods below cost price is illegal the rest of the time. The idea is to shield smaller retailers from competition from the big ones. This year's pioneering innovation was to allow stores to open at 8am rather than 9.30.   

The sales have become caught up in the rear-guard battle by staff unions against the extension of France's tightly regulated trading hours into Sundays and evenings.  Hence the strikes that were called today by unions at Le Printemps and Galeries Lafayette on the Boulevard Haussmann, and Le Bon Marché, the old Left Bank store that has been taken up market by the LVMH company.

No manners, we're British

Since we have been having fun with rude Parisians, it might be a good moment to lament a new menace in our midst: the loud Brit.

I wonder if others are struck as I am by the uncouth behaviour of many British visitors to France and the rest of the continent. I am not just talking about Little England characters or young football supporters who get plastered before their Eurostar train has left Kent. The offenders are from the comfortable classes, though they tend to be on the younger side, under about 45.

This is not the rant of an expatriate gone native. Friends, French and otherwise, comment on the trend. I am talking about the way that some Britons -- and not just the English -- act as if they own the place when entering shops, cafes or just walking down the street. This attitude is replacing the older stereotype of the British middle class abroad as unassertive and overly apologetic. Possession of the all-powerful English language and more spending money seem to confer a sense of superiority, as they did for Americans in Europe before Vietnam and, more recently, Iraq.

French cars fade

The French are turning away from their Renaults, Peugeots and Citroens in record number and buying foreign cars. After years of declining interest, only 54 percent of French car buyers bought the national marques in 2006. Hardest hit was Renault, which lost 10 percent of its national sales and four percent globally.

Two or three decades ago, eight out of 10 French bought the native product. Even if the cars of the time -- such as Renault 5, Peugeot 305 and Citroen GS were poorly made, they had flair. Before that, in the sixties, Europe marvelled at the style and inventiveness of Citroens' spaceship DS [pictured] and humble 2CV, Peugeot's solid estates and dashing cabriolets and Renault's clever hatchbacks.

Buying French until recently was a patriotic duty and opting for une voiture étrangère was a little eccentric. You can still see garages in the countryside with signs that say "foreign cars serviced", as if they were something exotic.   

Of course Britain, which has almost no brands of its own any more, would love to have France's problem. But what has happened?

[great old Citroen]

Practising Paris attitude

If you ever wondered how to do one of those expressive French shrugs or tell a Parisian to get lost with a gesture, the capital's tourist authority is offering lessons.

The tongue-in-cheek So Paris campaign is an attempt to combat the city's reputation for unfriendliness; especially among British visitors who do not speak French. You can be just as rude as the Parisians, without even learning the language, says the guide.  Learn these "best known Parisian gestures to blend in with the crowd," says the Paris, Ile-de-France tourist authority. "People will start mistaking you for a native in no time."

Chirac muddies the waters

Following up on Sunday's post, thanks for the useful suggestions, and for the kind greetings.

Chirac spoke as expected and left his own side feeling more queasy than ever. We are in a bizarre situation. The governing UMP party began today to endorse Nicolas Sarkozy as its candidate for the elections and yet they do not know whether or not their President plans to stand for a third term in the Elysée Palace:

Sarkozy, 51, leader of the Gaullist camp that Mr Chirac dominated for three decades, is due to be anointed  on January 14 after two weeks of voting. As the only contender, he is certain of backing from the 336,000 members. 

Sarko has presented his own New Year's wishes, using the internet. In typical provocative style, the champion of la rupture reassured his viewers that "France is not finished".