Charles Bremner - Times Online - WBLG

Swiss fireman score rap hit

 

Say 'Swiss fireman' and you probably think of a straight-laced type, as serious as his wholesome country. That's what makes this video (below) all the more funny. The Geneva fire service, a military organisation, decided for some reason to use French ghetto rap to alert the Swiss to confusion over emergency phone numbers.

The result has become a YouTube phenomenon, especially in France, which likes to mock les Suisses as slow-witted bumpkins who speak quaint dialect as they milk their cows.      

    

Sex and the Paris bicycle

My last post on Paris self-service bikes turned into mega-debate on everything except transport. So it is time to get back to the point of Mayor Delanoe's wildly successful scheme: romance.

Since its launch on July 15, the grey Vélib' bikes have taken over from cafes and art galleries as the best place in Paris for flirting with strangers.  It should have been obvious from the start that the bicyclettes would be a good plan de drague -- pick-up wheeze.  They created an instant club of mainly young people who share complicity in a new venture.

The emergence of this generally clean-cut urban tribe, classic bobos (bourgeois-bohème) in French parlance, has inevitably caused a backlash. More on that below. 

A name has been invented for members of this new dating circle: vélibataires -- a play on célibataire, or single. The internet has been brought in on the act with Vélib' forums, blogs and over three dozen Vélib' groups on Facebook . 

You can join outings, find mates and leave lonely heart messages.

Adieu to Marcel Marceau

   

Sad news on this sunny autumn Sunday in Paris. Marcel Marceau has died. The genius who invented modern mime was 84, but Bip, his white-faced character, never aged.

Marceau was adored in France, where he was a wartime resistance fighter before creating Bip in 1947 and going on to a lifetime of honours. But his influence was even greater abroad than at home.

For those born in the post-war years, Marceau was perhaps the most famous Frenchman and ambassador for his country. I had never been to France when I saw him as a teenager in Australia. I imagined then that Paris must be full of graceful silent men with stripy shirts who could mesmerise audiences by walking against the wind.

Wistful and playful, Marceau was very much a product of post-war Paris, admired by Jean Cocteau and the high-brow arts world.

Trust me, Sarkozy tells distrustful France

   Nicolas Sarkozy has been all over the news this week with his plans for a new social contract and cultural revolution -- his terms for overhauling the state apparatus that drags on France. For those who weren't listening, he invited himself onto both main TV news shows last night [story here].

Super Sarko the Commander-in-Chief sat with legs crossed casually in his new small office in the Elysée Palace ground floor and held forth for 40 minutes. As usual, he was the virtuoso salesman, ultra-confident as he set out simple facts and defied anyone to disagree. He had a line for those who thought he was overdoing things with his hyper-active style: "I was elected to find solutions to the problems facing France, not just to comment on them."

Sarko makes no bones about the fact that he is out to transform the French mentality. More precisely he is aiming at those who cling to the idea that France can prosper as an exception, with a quarter of workers employed by the state with guaranteed jobs and protection from pressure to perform. "Nobody can say they have been taken by surprise," said Sarko, pointing out that he is doing exactly what he promised in his campaign last spring.

Outside observers still believe that Sarko will eventually back down, as most previous governments have done, when the strikes paralyse transport and demonstrators take to the streets. The first rail stoppage is planned for October 18. It is intended as a warning shot against Sarkozy's plan to end the special retirement privileges of the state industries. I'm prepared to bet that Sarko will win through.  The appetite in the public sector for a war is no longer there.   

Score-settling in the French Socialist ghetto

Nicolas Sarkozy is wading into treacherous waters today when he explains how he will dismantle the astonishing retirement privileges enjoyed by France's public sector workers. The last attempt at broad pension reform, in 1995, led to national strikes and the downfall of Jacques Chirac's government. This time, the climate has changed. Here's my story

Sarkozy is being aided by the absence of any serious opposition to his all-singing, all-dancing reign. Rather than holding the president up to scrutiny, the Socialist party is wallowing in confusion and bloodletting. They are very very far from beginning their recovery.

The latest extraordinary eposide has seen Lionel Jospin, the austere former prime minister who brought France the 35-hour working week, pouring vitriol on Ségolène Royal, the party's unsuccessful presidential candidate.   

How to feed foreigners, French-style

 

Don't remind the British and the Americans that their meat comes from animals and be friendly when you serve them. The tip comes in a brochure for French restaurateurs that has just been issued by the Ministry of Tourism for the Rugby World Cup.

In advising how to deal with foreigners, the booklet, updated from a 2003 version, is not only a handy guide to national habits but also a useful mirror for the French hospitality industry.

Among the meal-time dislikes of nearly all the main visiting nationalities are unfriendly service, "French ethnocentrism", poor hygiene and undercooked meat. Foreigners are also turned off by the quantity of butter and fat in French food, it says. The information was drawn from surveys of foreign visitors. 

When dealing with Dutch tourists, "pay attention to the cleanliness of your premises and personnel. French hygiene rules are not strict enough to their taste," it says.

With all foreigners, French restaurateurs are advised to explain when a dish comes from offal or includes meat with blood still visible.  "Americans like their meat de-animalised," it says. "Its origin with a living animal must not be visible. Offal dishes, frogs' legs and snails disgust them. Nevertheless certain adventurous Americans like to try them out."

Sarkozy's honeymoon fades -- video

Here's a little chat on Super-Sarko's slight sag this week. Daniel Finkelstein, our comment editor, has begun staging these two-way talks on his Comment Central blog.  Spot the missing topic. I forgot to mention the hit that French morale and Sarkozy's standing took from the rugby World Cup and European football losses this week. Sarkozy identified himself so closely with the French rugby team that their unexpected defeat by the Argentines has rebounded on him. Bernard Laporte and his boys are now under collossal Sarko pressure to avoid falling out in the first round. But French spirits have lifted again with England's rugby massacre by South Africa last night. 

 

Please ignore the tinny sound and poor lighting on my side. I went down to the Surkouf shop near the office and bought a fancy new mike and webcam but they obviously have to be adjusted.   

The top 10 topics of French conversation

We may all be one European village nowadays, but it's interesting to note how people in each country are often preoccupied by completely different events.

Take the case of Madeleine McCann. A French TV show* has asked me on to explain the British media's fascination for what has seemed -- until this week's developments -- to be a sad but banal case of child abduction.

The story has intrigued France because of the way that, seen from this side of the Channel, the British have gone out of their minds. How, they are wondering, can one sad fait divers -- random news item -- drive such a tidal wave of media cover ? I won't court trouble here with my own view, but it's worth noting how news for one country is sometimes meaningless for another. Look at the affair of Janet Jackson's nipple in the USA -- or France's obsession in the early 1990s with the case of le Petit Gregory, the drowning of a village boy whose killer was never identified.

To illustrate the point, here is the list of the top 10 topics that the French are talking about. The Ifop polling company keeps tabs on this for Paris Match, asking the question: Which subjects have you talked about most this week with those around you at home and in the work place?"

1 -- The Rugby World Cup
2 -- The death of Luciano Pavarotti
3 -- The closure of 11,200 jobs at the Education Ministry

4-   Plans for raising the retirement age
5 -- President Sarkozy's new scheme for tackling Alzheimer's disease
6 -- The utilities merger between Gaz de France and Suez
7 -- The possible introduction of a four-day school week
8 -- Cecilia Sarkozy's refusal to appear before a parliamentary inquiry on her mission to Libya
9 -- Gang fights at the Paris Gare du Nord rail terminus.
10 - Government plans to raise value added tax to pay for social security.

Final note: A campaign is under way to have the French media stage a Sarko-free day next month.

* The TV show is Un cafe, l'addition, Pascale Clark's talk show on Canal + at 13h55 on Saturday. 

Sarkozy is too friendly for the Germans

 

This is not a shot from a romantic movie or a new Singin' in the Rain. It's a glimpse of the Franco-German couple in action and part of why Nicolas Sarkozy gets on Angela Merkel's nerves.

In the picture, the French President is giving the German Chancellor his usual warm embrace when he arrived in Berlin for one of their regular summits on Monday. Sarko is a physical guy. He comes in close. Grabs, hugs and back-slaps are his tools for connecting with people -- like Bill Clinton. Presidents Bush and Putin have both been subjected lately to the Sarko hand-pump with arm around the shoulders.

When you receive the Sarko treatment, you sense the desire to dominate as well as the friendliness. I experienced it backstage in a TV studio after interviewing him in May. The slight menace and Sarko's small stature inevitably bring Hollywood gangsters to mind. With women, there is a patronising side.

[Sarko welcomes yachtswoman Maude Fontenoy]

Merkel feels that Sarkozy has been pushing her around since he won the presidency in May and began trying to impose himself as boss of Europe. She has now had enough of his Tigger-like antics and her people are making it known that she resents the excessive greetings.

Young Gaddafi becomes Libya's Al Gore

   

Taking time out from France, I have just spent a couple of days as a guest of the Gaddafi family, sleeping in a tent in eastern Libya.

This was not a retreat for reflection -- although a jump from Paris into the burnt ochre brushland of Cyrenaica puts perspective on our Euro-centric life. We were part of a slightly surreal operation which would have been unthinkable a few years back, when Muammar Gaddafi and his rogue state was the bogey of the western world.

[Picture: Seif Gaddafi announces new green Libya]

The object was the launch of a grand -- or maybe grandiose -- project to convert a few hundred miles of wild Mediterranean coastline and its hinterland into a world-class destination for well-heeled eco-tourists and a model for sustainable development. Driving the so-called Green Mountain scheme is Seif al-Islam, the European-educated son of Muammar Gaddafi, the eccentric ruler who has just celebrated 38 years of power.  Here's the story in today's paper.

"Surreal" sprang to mind with as the sun went down on Sunday evening by the spectacular temple of Zeus, built by the Greeks 2,600 years ago.  There we were, journalists plus investors, eco-experts, architects, heritage officials, lawyers and archeologists, all feasting -- alcohol free -- to music in a tent village in a field. Outside the fence, vehicles with dozens of police and soldiers kept guard as sightseers from mud brick shacks stared at the aliens within.

    [our  green accommodations beside Temple of Zeus]

[The camp guards]

France bans anonymous informing

French tax inspectors, judges and police are upset over an attempt by Nicolas Sarkozy to break an ancient national habit. It is covered by the ugly word délation, which means denouncing people to the authorities anonymously.

Sarko is to outlaw the opening of tax and criminal investigations on the basis of anonymous tip-offs. "What is the point of explaining to our children how the Vichy state and the wartime collaboration is a dark page in our history and then accepting that tax audits and criminal investigations be launched on the basis of anonymous denunciation?" he said.

I don't want to come over righteous. People have ratted on their enemies, rivals, ex-spouses and neighbours everywhere since the beginning of time. In other places, informing on wrong-doing has been given the honourable term of whistle-blowing and it is encouraged by bodies such as United Nations and the US Justice Department. The US Sarbanes-Oxley act makes informing a corporate duty.

This is not the case in France because malicious, anonymous informing has been such a big part of the country's history. [Cartoon: Woman tells present-day policeman: My neighbour listens to English radio every night (a common wartime denunciation)]

A million French teachers can't be wrong

   

Why are French school teachers always so miserable?

I will not be popular with my teacher friends for taking another shot at an education world that seems permanently angry, defensive and resistant to change. But it's time for a new swipe because most of France's 12 million school children returned to classes yesterday -- including my two teenagers -- and Nicolas Sarkozy used the occasion to upset the teaching establishment with a call for a change of attitude.

If you know the set-up, skip this paragraph: France has a uniform national education system commanded by a single Ministry. Almost 850,000 primary and secondary teachers are civil servants, and 145,000 more work in private schools. They all impart a national syllabus that is heavy on knowledge but light on encouraging imagination. There is little sport or other non-classroom activity. Despite Europe's second highest per capita spending on primary and secondary education (after Sweden), French kids perform modestly by European and world standards. French teachers, who largely support leftwing ideas, see themselves as guardians of the egalitarian republic. They complain but hate anyone touching their status quo. 

Sarko did that yesterday, dropping in on a Loire valley school at Blois. He delivered a lecture that was guaranteed to anger the unions who despise him as a rightwing philistine.

[Above: Renaissance King Sarko, as seen by  Plantu of  le Monde. Note Cécilia Sarkozy as Marie-Antoinette saying 'What the hell am I doing here?'] 

France cuts Britons' health care -- What's the story?

This is a call to British and other European expatriates in France. Over the past week, there has been a flurry of alarming reports about British residents losing coverage under the French health care system.

It turns out that the story springs from a new law that bars Europeans from joining the French state system if they are not working, not retired and not covered by a temporary home-based arrangement. Barring some exceptions, they must take out private insurance. Here's our article today.

The change was well known, but it appears that some regional authorities may be acting with Sarkozy-style rigour and cancelling Cartes Vitales (the entitlement card) held by Britons already in the French system. The Paris Social Security ministry tells us that this is impossible since the change applies only to new applicants.

The UK authorities were unaware of a problem. Despite the rumours of trouble, we only found one case of an existing Carte Vitale being revoked. It would be useful to know if there are other cases and also how non-working expats are affected by exclusion from the French universal health cover scheme. Let's hear if the horror stories are true.

 

France fêtes rugby, Sarko orders victory

Pulling the cork from a bottle of rosé last night I realised that I had been caught up in the rugby madness that has taken over France as it prepares to host the World Cup from this Friday. When I bought the wine, from the southwestern town of Gaillac, I hadn't noticed the name on the label: Bernard Laporte.
   
Laporte, as we saw last week, is the national rugby manager, businessman and television personality who has been co-opted by President Sarkozy as sports minister after the cup final in Paris on October 21. With his usual flair for seizing the mood of the moment, Super-Sarko has adopted rugby as the symbol of his invincible, can-do presidency.

Rugbymania has been building since France discovered a taste for a minority sport that is played traditionally in the foie gras and armagnac country of the southwest and in Paris. The English "game for hooligans played by gentlemen"  has now become a metaphor for French values and team spirit.