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The English-speaking world can never fathom the French and continental passion for comic strips. That disparaging expression does not do justice to the Bande Dessinée, the genre more respectfully known in English as the graphic novel. In the French-speaking countries and beyond, the BD, with its heroes from Belgium's Tintin to Switzerland's modern Titeuf, are not just for kids. They are revered and treated as a serious, ninth art of a kind that mixes the novel and cinema.
La BD (pronounced bédé) is big business. Last year 34 million albums were sold in France. As further proof, a Paris sale of original comic art broke world records last weekend. A cover illustration for a Tintin album went for 764,200 euros (1.22 million dollars). The indian ink and gouache, bought by an anonymous French collector, was drawn in 1932 by Hergé for Tintin en Amerique, the third adventure of his intrepid boy reporter [picture above]. The previous BD record was 177,000 euros, paid a year ago for a drawing by Enki Bilal, one of the titans of the French BD [picture below]
The ecstatic Artcurial saleroom said the auction of 653 items earned 3.4 million euros. "This marks the veritable consecration of the bande dessinée," said Eric Leroy, the house's expert. "People are no long ashamed to say that they collect BDs. The market is expanding fast."
As an honorary Gaul, I have long been a Tintinophile. The nostalgia-inducing tales have a certain magic. Like many French, I recognise lines from his adventures that have passed into the language. For example, everyone knew what le Monde meant the other day when it noted that the bad reputation of one of President Sarkozy's ministers "clings to him like Captain Haddock's Band-Aid" (Le sparadrap du capitaine Haddock). This refers to a running gag involving the whisky-soaked mariner in Tintin's Affaire Tournesol and Vol 714 pour Sydney. On a flight to Beijing with a French Prime Minister a few years ago, I noticed that his staff were briefing up by reading Le Lotus Bleu, Tintin's tale of late 1930s China.
I can also understand the attraction of some of the masters like Bilal, who created post-apocalyptic world that draws heavily on old Soviet bloc life. And yes, Art Spiegelman has shown in the USA how the comic strip can be used to high brow ends. Yet... I still find it hard to take the bande dessinée as serious art, with its high-brown criticism, annual festival at Angoulême and venerated stars. In the past week, the media have feted the publication of the latest adventure of Blake and Mortimer, a pair of old world military Englishmen who exclaim "by Jove" on every second page. Le Monde's literary supplement on Friday ran a cover on a new BD version of Dickens' Oliver Twist.
A lot of creative work goes into the art and plot of a BD album. They have come a long way from the American comic strips for kids that inspired them in the early 20th century. It's also fair to note that the thriving genre is accessible to young creative talent in a way that the movie industry and classical publishing are not. But I still see them as fast food beside entertainment that takes more mental effort to consume. I'm happy to be contradicted by my French regulars and anyone else, so fire away....
PS: I see that Steven Spielberg is likely to cast Thomas Sangster, a 17-year-old English actor as Tintin when he makes a long-awaited movie version of the cartoon hero this year. Movies of comic strip heroes are rarely as good as the original. I'll stick to the cardboard and paper version.
[Blake and Mortimer's latest]
Bilal's Bleu Sang sold for record price in 2007]
Europe is in a tangle over this summer's Olympic games in Beijing. Foreign Ministers of the Union are trying to reach a consensus today in Slovenia over the matter of using them to apply pressure on China. They will not manage because opinion is divided. This is a good moment to find out what readers of this blog think.
France and Britain have taken opposite sides, as President Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, made clear in London on Thursday. For Brown there is no question of even thinking about a boycott or staying away from the opening ceremony. The Olympics are purely about sport and London wants the best games possible, not least because it fears trouble when it hosts them in 2012. Sarkozy, however, is threatening to cancel his trip to the opening ceremony unless Beijing mends its ways, towards Tibet in particular.
There are other European approaches. In Poland, Donald Tusk, the Prime Minister, has canceled his trip to Beijing and he urged other democratic politicians to do the same. Germany's Angela Merkel said that she is not going to the ceremony but had never intended to.
It's all a bit of a mess. The subject produced lively argument in a French TV show in which I took part today (Canal+ here. Click on 'L'émission de la semaine). In France, a country that prides itself on its sensitivity to human rights, the political world, media and public favour some gesture of disapproval towards Beijing's conduct in Tibet and to register distaste over the nature of the Chinese regime. They do not support a sporting boycott but a CSA opinion poll this week showed that 53 percent want national leaders to stay away from the opening ceremony. Sarkozy's threat was the least he could do after two weeks of public pressure. Despite the posturing, it is obvious that he will turn up in Beijing in August because he is as reluctant to incur Chinese displeasure as other leaders with heavy commercial interests at stake. A campaign for boycotting French goods is already under way at a site on SOHU.com, one of the big Chinese internet portals.
For the moment, though, France will make a little trouble. When French-led protesters flashed a banner at the lighting of the Olympic torch in Athens, the act was largely cheered here. It was seen as a grain of sand in the Chinese propaganda machine and there will be a lot more protests when the torch reaches Paris. Leading politicians from the Socialist opposition will take part.
The same incident was treated quite differently in the British media. They talked of "anti-China protesters" disrupting the Athens ceremony and they ran headlines on "fears" for the torch's passage through London.
The Times delivered an unequivocal endorsement of the games in an editorial today: "The newspaper ardently opposes any suggestion of a boycott, which would be unfair to the athletes ... self-defeating for those who want to see greater freedom in China and malicious towards a country and a people who have traveled so far to celebrate their achievements as a nation and their re-engagement with the world."
Our editorial was a response to an internet campaign in China against Jane Macartney, our Beijing correspondent. She reports today that she has become the most hated person in the country after the Government cited a Times commentator (not her) who had compared the Beijing Olympics to Nazi Germany's 1936 games.
In her report, Macartney, a Mandarin speaker who knows the country well, makes a strong anti-boycott case: The Chinese see the games as "a moment when they want to celebrate, with the world, their achievements, development and prosperity of the past three decades."
As no expert on China I bow to those with knowledge, but I recall that similar arguments were used about the Moscow Olympics of 1980. President Jimmy Carter and Margaret Thatcher, the US and British leaders of the time, led a sporting boycott that caused misery for the sportsmen and turned the games into a fiasco. That prompted a less effective retaliation by the Soviet bloc against the 1984 Los Angeles games. The Russians were understandably angry in 1980, but the message of international disapproval struck home. I was in Moscow in the run-up to those games and then for three years in the aftermath. The boycott -- ostensibly over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan -- added to the pressure that eventually unraveled the Soviet Union and ended the cold war.
Those were other times. China is a whole different story and I am not naive. But there is a similarity. Moscow's ruling communist party regarded the 1980 games primarily as a vehicle for political propaganda. They invested in them massively as a showcase for the Soviet state. Beijing's communist government is doing the same for its system.
I read in the US media today that Coca Cola and the other big Beijing games sponsors are now worried about possible damage to their image from their association with China's great event. It's odd that they did not see this coming a long time ago.
You may already have seen this picture of the stunning observation deck that is to be built around the top of the Eiffel Tower to mark the 120th anniversary of the Paris monument next year. The photographs flashed around the world after a Paris architectural firm won a contest staged by the tower's management. The New York Times and the London Guardian have already reported the story.
The trouble is that the tale is false. It was just a publicity stunt but it does offer a nice lesson in the power of the internet to disseminate nonsense and the danger that this poses for traditional media. In our business dog is not suppposed to eat dog. We don't like criticising one-another. But I'll make an exception. None of my Paris colleagues were involved.
Continue reading "Eiffel Tower hit by fantasy" »
France is a little bemused today by the collective swoon of the British over Carla Bruni and her husband since they arrived on their shores. All those superlatives from overheated broadcasters and the the comparisons with Grace Kelly and Princess Diana suggest that les anglais have lost their sang froid. "The English conquered by Carla," said a headline in le Parisien, under its story on "L'Opération séduction du couple Sarkozy à Londres". The British only had eyes for the Italian Madame Sarkozy, noted France2 television.
There is an interesting precedent. When JFK landed in France in 1961, he joked: "I'm the man who accompanied Jackie Kennedy to Paris."
That is of course exactly what Sarko was aiming for when they decided to dress Madame Bruni-Sarkozy in the 60s-retro Dior outfit with pillbox hat -- even if she looked a little like an airline stewardess. Since the night of his election last May President Sarkozy has been trying to remake Kennedy's Camelot. He boasted then: "If you liked Jackie Kennedy, you're going to love Cécilia (His wife at the time)." The idyll started well with JFK style-photoshoots of young Louis Sarkozy playing in the Elysée Palace like the late John-John Kennedy. Their summer holiday in New Hampshire was a nod at the Kennedy clan's New England compound. "Sarkalot" vanished when Cécilia walked out last October taking Louis with her, but she was swiftly replaced by an even more Jackie-looking consort.
Sarkozy, as we predicted, is revelling in all the adulation, not just for his wife and the style of his travelling court but also for the "new honeymoon" that he has opened with Britain, as le Figaro put it today. His speech to Parliament, a love letter to the British unlike anything heard from a French leader, is deemed typical Sarko -- over the top. It's all very well embracing the Brits, but they have to give something in return, I heard from French politician friends. His line about the faltering Franco-German motor was clearly meant to needle Chancellor Angela Merkel. "He stuck the knife in the decades-old contract between Paris and Berlin," France Soir said. "The Franco-German couple might find it hard to get over this infidelity."
Read here for an opinion piece on psyching out Sarko that I wrote in today's newspaper.
And back to the froth: Jackie Kennedy-Onassis did not feature naked in French papers on the morning of her arrival in Paris. Carla's appearance, reproduced in certain British media (last post), was deemed un peu shocking on this side of the Channel. Once again, the British are managing to puzzle the French with their oddness -- that mixture of formality, irreverence and eccentricity. The royal outfits are an example of the eccentric side. The Queen's hats were described on France Inter radio this morning as inverted saucepots. Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, seemed to have perched a partridge's nest on her head, said another radio station.
The British Royal family, for all its centuries of refinement, does bling-bling much better than Sarko, especially with his new demure style, others noted. Reporting from Windsor, Libération had a go, describing the scene at the castle as "l'Angleterre eternelle et kitsch". Its flag-draped streets had a feel of Mickey Mouse, Libé added.
There will be general relief in government circles here late tonight when Mr and Mrs Sarko fly home after another protocol-packed dinner, with the Lord Mayor of the City of London. This was the trickiest foreign trip so far for the French president. So far, at least, it seems that he has not put a foot wrong.
[Today's Figaro : Franco-British Honeymoon]
One of the most common French searches on the internet lately has been "Carla Bruni nue". The former super-model posed in her previous life for numerous nude sessions with well-known photographers. By now sets of their work must have done the rounds of just about every French office. Next month, Christie's saleroom in New York is offering the chance to buy an original, at an estimated 4,000 dollars.
The snap, taken by Michel Comte, dates from 1993. The photographer made the future première dame de France, then 25, mime a famous painting by Georges Seurat called les Poseuses (below).
Christies said that it had no qualms about exposing the French president's wife to the public gaze. She was, they said "one of the most beautiful women in the world" and the picture is a work of art. "It was taken when Mademoiselle Bruni was a model and it is a naked portrait in good taste taken by a well known and respectable artist," the Christie's spokeswoman told Agence France-Presse.
The photograph comes from a collection which includes works by Helmut Newton, Herb Ritts, Richard Avedon et Leni Riefenstahl. Other nudes in the collection include Kate Moss et Naomi Campbell. The sale is to be staged on April 10 -- unless Sarko's image-minders pre-empt it. In the meantime France has spent the day clicking onto the Nouvel Observateur site which is showing the picture. This, you may remember, was the site that incurred Sarko and Bruni's wrath by publishing the text message in which the president was supposed to have asked Cécilia, his last wife, to come back a week before he married Bruni. They seem to be asking for trouble.
France and Britain are engaging in an ancient exercise this week: dazzling one-another. The occasion is Nicolas Sarkozy's first state visit to Britain. The current monarch of the Fifth Republic arrives on Wednesday with Carla Bruni and a glittering retinue to stay with Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle, west of London.
For nearly 800 years, the English and French took out their rivalry on battlefields in Europe and then around the world. But admiration was always part of the old enmity, with each side envying the other's superior qualities. The frogs had more style, refinement and dash. Seen from the other side, the perfidious rosbifs were a stodgy bunch with an infuriating habit of getting their way.
The feuding cousins last fought at Waterloo in 1815 and they officially became friends with the Entente Cordiale accord in 1904, but the rivalry and admiration never faded. State visits -- meaning the full pomp with military salutes and palace banquets -- are an excellent occasion for staging the old contest and both sides are again out to impress the other, in a friendly way of course.
Just like French kings before him, Sarko wants to dazzle the down-to-earth Anglais.
Continue reading "Sarkozy's royal visit to the Queen" »
Meet the young man they are calling Monsieur Buzz. Nicolas Princen, aged 24, has just been given a job at the Elysée Palace in which he will monitor the internet to keep tabs on what is being said about President Sarkozy.
In three days, Princen, a graduate of the ENS and HEC, two of the grandest universities, has gone from nobody to a figure of cyber-mockery as the blogosphere has laid into him. He is being called "Sarko's spy", "the Sheriff", "Little Brother", "Cyber-cop" and so on. Three Facebook groups have already assembled around him, one of them called Nicolas Princen est sexy.
Princen's newly-created job is a response to the damage that Sarko has suffered from stories, parodies and videos that have blazed on the net and then reached the main media. In the past month, the president has been zapped hard by two such items: the notorious "pauvre con" video of his outburst at the farm show and the affair of the text message. We've already been through both here.
Sarko yesterday dropped the charges against Airy Routier, the Nouvel Observateur reporter who posted the text item claiming that the president tried to get Cécilia, his former wife back, only a week before marrying Carla Bruni on February 2. At the same time, Bruni signed an article in le Monde denouncing le Nouvel Obs for pedalling scurrilous gossip unworthy of "real journalism" [my story here]
The Elysée says there is nothing sinister in Princen's appointment. The president's staff is just catching up with the new media. "He will be a sort of monitor of the internet, watching everything that is making a buzz about the President," the Elysée explained. "He will be keeping under surveillance... less-known sites, blogs etc. Everything that is moving on the net. [The presidency was breaking a few linguistic rules there (last post), since they said le buzz and le net in French]
The presidency may insist that his only job is to "observe and alert", but the heavily anti-Sarko blogosphere does not like the idea that this clean-cut young man who worked on the president's election campaign last year (video above) will be sniffing them out and reporting them. There are too many sinister precedents in France, from anonymous informing in the wartime occupation to the late President Mitterrand's secret phone surveillance unit at the Elysée in the 1980s. The sarcasm has been flying thick and fast, with bloggers saying they will report themselves to him with RSS feeds and so on. "Turn your pals in... and help your new friend", said one quoted by le Monde this afternoon.
Luc Mandret, who runs a successful site called Ma vie en Narcisse, addressed Princen with the familliar tu, to offer his welcome: "I wish you courage. If you know a minimum about the world of blogs, you must know that there are several thousand blogs in which you will find unpleasant things about Nicolas Sarkozy."
This of course is not one of them. And I would also add a warm bienvenue to our new reader.
Now you can do your bit to save the French language. Christine Albanel, the Culture Minister [above] has just opened a site on la toile (better known as le web) which seeks French equivalents for the American-English jargon that has invaded the language. Featured words today are coach, gender and podcasting.
Franceterme.culture.fr is a new weapon in an ancient battle. Les Anglo-Saxons, whose own vocabulary has been part Gallic since the 12th century, are always amused by the attempts of the French state and its language police to defend the purity of the tongue. Why, wonder smug foreigners, don't the French just laissez faire like the Anglophone nations and allow people to use foreign terms if they think they sounds more chic.
After living for some time on the front line in this war, let me defend France's rear-guard campaign. Yes, I share "Anglo-saxon" antipathy to the idea of policing language. It's silly, smacks of oppressive regimes and it costs a fortune -- hundreds of millions of euros a year are spent on the language bureaucracy and promoting the French language abroad.
Yet... why shouldn't a country seek ways to resist pressure from more powerful cultures -- in this case the USA? Sometimes it works. In honour of tomorrow's International Day of the French-speaking World, I shall explain:
Continue reading "Help save the French language" »
Le Sarko nouveau has arrived. Nicolas Sarkozy is out being presidential today, officiating at the grand funeral of France's last world war one veteran. This is the kind of statesmanlike image that he wants to project now that the French have slapped down his administration in nationwide local elections.
French voters are as fickle as those anywhere so it was no surprise that they swung against Super Sarko in the voting that ended yesterday. Here briefly is the fallout and a few lessons as we wonder how long the impulsive, slightly manic, president can stick to a new script in which he does dignified and distant.
The expected vague rose -- pink wave -- enabled the Socialist opposition to take 15 big cities from centre-right control, including Toulouse and Strasbourg, but not Marseille as they had hoped. One of the left's more impressive victories was the capture of the eastern city of Metz, which had been under rightwing control since 1848. The left now run a handsome majority of large towns. They comfortably held on to Paris and Lyon, the two biggest.
François Bayrou, the centrist who made such a strong run for the presidency last year, is consigned to history after failing to take the Pyrenean city of Pau for himself and letting his MoDem party self-destruct.
Of historical note was the fall of three Communist bastions -- the channel port of Calais and Montreuil and Aubvervilliers, on the eastern edge of Paris. Montreuil was won by Dominique Voynet, a veteran Green party figure who becomes the first écologiste to run a big city. On the other fringe, Jean-Marie Le Pen's Front National got nowhere. With the old bogeyman nearing 80, it is unlikely that his movement will survive.
So what conclusions are to be drawn from the battering of Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement ?
Continue reading "Sarkozy season II: back to basics " »
I
Some news scoops are too good to be true. I hope that this one is not false because it will solve one of the great mysteries of aviation -- and wartime history. A former German fighter pilot has claimed to French researchers that he shot down Antoine de Saint Exupéry, author of Le Petit Prince and legendary French pilot-author.
Horst Rippert, 88, who lives in Wiesbaden, said that he had suffered remorse all his life after discovering that Saint Exupéry was the pilot of a P-38 Lightning of the Free French Air Force that he blew from the Mediterranean sky on July 31 1944. "If I had known that it was him, I would never have fired," Rippert told the authors who traced him and have produced a book.
[Saint-Ex at the controls of his Lightning, 1944]
Continue reading ""I shot down Saint Exupéry" says German ex-pilot" »
A cargo ship that runs ashore in a storm is not usually good news or a source of fun. The French port of Sables d'Olonne, a resort, port and sailing mecca on the mid-Atlantic coast, has made an exception this week.
The town (whose name means 'Sands of Olonne') was appalled when it woke on Monday morning to find the Artemis, a Dutch freighter, marooned like a whale on its pristine beach. Tugs were brought in to haul it off but failed because of falling tide levels. Now they will have to wait to try again with the high spring tides from the second week of April. Luckily the ship is in good condition and is not carrying anything dangerous.
In the meantime, the 88-metre (290 feet) Artemis, has turned into a magnet, pulling thousands of visitors from the region to gaze at it and fill the tills of sea-front businesses in a usually quiet season. That explains why the town website is now marketing the Artemis as a tourist attraction with a live webcam of the beach and a jokey new slogan: "Les Sables d'Olonne: Once you have tried them, you will never want to leave." The last line in the picture says: "World famous welcome for sailors"
If they don't get the Artemis out on the spring tide, the poor ship will no longer be amusing. The mayor wants to cut it up and have all 2,000 or so tonnes taken away in pieces. But for now they have even put a video on the municipal site here.
[Below, shoring up the Artemis till the spring tides come]
After camembert and the decision to redraw the map of champagne country, it is time to take a look at another highly successful celebration of France's terroir, or its rich rural roots.
What does it take for a television network to beat a big football match in prime time ? Manchester United was knocking Olympique Lyonnais, France's top side, out of the European Champions' League the other night, but the French preferred to watch a yarn about a bigoted 19th century widow and her search for virtue.
Seven million people tuned in to the episode from Chez Maupassant, a costume drama that has pulled off the seemingly impossible feat of drawing a mass audience to high-quality television. At the start of its second season, the setting of Victorian-era short stories by Guy de Maupassant, is such a hit that President Sarkozy is using it as an argument to convince broadcasting bosses that the French will watch high-brow television if they do it right (Unfamiliar with modern Britain, he usually cites UK television as his model).
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Continue reading "France flocks back to good old days on TV" »
Riot police are out in force today for the opening of the annual Paris book fair. They are not there to calm the latest French literary spat but to prevent trouble when President Shimon Peres opens the show, which this year is hosting Israeli writers as guests of honour. This may be more a news item than a blog post, but I want to record it, in the absence of much media attention.
About 10 Arab states and Iran have cancelled their attendance at the annual showcase of the French publishing industry. The Hebrew-language theme of this year's fair, which coincides with the 60th anniversary of the creation of Israel, has upset the Muslim world and drawn criticism from some leftwing French writers and rights organisations.
Writers' unions in usually Francophile Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Lebanon have refused to take part in the event because they say that it condones a country that violates the rights of Palestinians. The Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization called on its 50 member-states to stay away because of Israel's "atrocities, oppression and imposed starvation and siege against the Palestinian people."
Some French commentators have also joined in deploring the invitation, especially the failure to invite Israeli Arab-language writers.
Arab boycotts of Israeli events are hardly new. What is surprising about this one, near the heart of Paris, is the lack of indignation from the usually vocal French literary establishment.
Continue reading "Paris book fair opens with row over Israel" »
I've been having fun lately with France's penchant for regulating everything, but here's a rule worthy of support. It concerns camembert, the pungent Normandy fromage that springs to mind in much of the world when people say "French cheese".
A decision has just been made that will bar producers from using the coveted "appellation côntrolée" (AOC) label that designates genuine camembert if they make it with heat-treated or micro-filtered milk.
If you are outside France, this is theoretical since exported camembert is mostly the chalk-like industrial product that is made from fully pasteurised milk. Real, ancestral camembert, which goes gooey and yellow and carries a whiff of the Norman farmyard, is made only from raw milk. It accounts for a minority of the market even in France, which has only lately rediscovered a taste for authentic cheese. Lait cru (raw milk) is used to make only about 10 percent of the 650 cheeses sold in French supermarkets.
The "camembert war" was started a year ago by the Lactalis dairy giant and a cheese cooperative at Isigny, in the Calvados département of Normandy, the cheese's home region.
Continue reading "Don't mess with the camembert, say French cheese experts " »
Thirty years ago today, Claude François was taking an afternoon bath at his home outside Paris to wash off suntan oil. Standing in the water, he tried to straighten a metal light fixture and the electric shock killed him.
Cloclo, as he was known, was 39 years old and France's biggest star of the pop-disco style. He was a slightly-built, light-voiced singer with a huge following of girl fans. Thanks to an alchemy that takes a little explaining, his death turned him from teen idol into a cult. His albums and DVDs are still selling at a rate of nearly 400,000 a year, making about 10 million euros for Claude junior, his son and the other heirs. Half his 60 million albums have been sold since his death, helping a younger generation ape his kitschy ballads and jaunty tunes in karaoke bars. Provincial clubs are full of professional Cloclo impersonators wearing copies of the 500 sequined suits that he left behind.
But don't laugh yet, François' best-known composition was the most popular song played at British funerals until it recently gave way to James Blunt's dirge Goodbye My Lover. I am talking about Comme d'Habitude, which François wrote in collaboration with Jacques Revaux. Paul Anka gave it English lyrics in 1969 and sold it to Frank Sinatra with the title My Way. [François' version in video at end of post]
Continue reading "Claude François grooves beyond the grave" »
As expected, France has vented its unhappiness with the Sarkozy administration in the first round of nationwide local elections. The Socialist party, still in a coma at the national level, looks as if it will be controlling most big cities after next Sunday's runoff. They have strengthened their hold on Paris and Lyon. They are on the verge of taking Strasbourg and possibly Marseille and Toulouse from Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement.
But the "red tide" towards the left was not as strong as the Socialists hoped. François Fillon, the Prime Minister, is out campaigning to limit the damage in next Sunday's run-off while the unpopular Sarkozy is lying low, with only one outing planned.
In the meantime, here's a fascinating paradox. The French believe by a strong margin that women make better political leaders than men, according to a CSA poll for le Parisien newspaper. Yet France has one of Europe's lowest levels of female representation in politics.
CSA listed qualities desired in a politician and women won hands down. The French believe that women are more sociable, more in touch with reality, better listeners, more honest, more modern, more brave, more dynamic and more competent, according to the poll. French men rate women politicians as superior, ranking them almost as highly as women do themselves. The only quality in which men give their own kind a slight edge is the "more competent" category. [The poll will be online later today]
France has imposed gender parity rules on candidates in local elections since 2000, yet only 11 percent of mayors are women and only three out of 97 presidents of département councils are female (these county councils are not yet subject to gender parity). The picture for parliament is not much better. Nineteen percent of members are women. This compares with 33 percent for Germany, 36 percent in Spain and 45 percent in Sweden. But it is still slightly better than Britain's 18 percent.
The CSA poll also asked why women did not make it more in politics. The two main reasons given were the difficulty of combining public and private life (51 percent) and the misogyny of male politicians (47 percent).
Politics is still seen very much as a boy's club, say women politicians. Catherine Achin, a Paris university professor who has written a book on women in politics, says that everyone agrees that women have strong qualities for the work. "But when they start getting near senior posts, they are accused of incompetence." That happened with Ségolène Royal, the Socialist who ran against Sarkozy for the presidency, she noted.
Royal [below] has been making a comeback, using her public popularity to promote her campaign for the party leadership next autumn. Hostility towards her remains strong in the party's upper ranks, especially among the other plausible successors to François Hollande, the outgoing leader. They are all male of course.
Nicolas Sarkozy has been taking credit for the extraordinary decision by the US Defense Department to buy a fleet of Air Force refuelling tankers worth at least 35 billion dollars from EADS, parent of the the European Airbus company, rather than from Boeing.
The French president said that the deal, which has sparked a political storm in the USA, would have been unimaginable if he had not repaired the damage to relations with Washington that had been inflicted by President Chirac's opposition to the Iraq invasion.
"Could one think for a minute that the contract which EADS has magnificently won... would have been signed in the climate of tension that existed between the Americans and French?" Sarko asked in le Figaro.
Sarkozy is right that his warmth towards the US has eased the chill that prevailed under Chirac. This undoubtedly helped the deal with the European Aeronautic, Defense and Space company. But he could be a little more modest. EADS' American contract was the fruit of years of effort, most of it before he won office last May. On top of that, the US order conflicts with his own doctrine of "economic patriotism".
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Continue reading "Sarkozy's dubious glory in American Airbus deal" »
It's not surprising that the French are gloomy these days if you look at the news items that are getting their attention. Paris Match offers a regular glimpse with an Ifop poll on the top subjects of conversation at home and in the work place.
Here are this week's top 10 and an interesting detail from Ifop. Ninety-one percent of people with university degrees said they had discussed President Sarkozy's verbal assault on the man who would not shake his hand at the farm show but only 65 percent of those without higher education did so. Only one topic (Cotillard's Oscar) is straight good news. It's also worth noting how little sport or entertainment makes the list. The performance of the national rugby team ranked 15th.
1 -- Rising prices and (falling) purchasing power (discussed by 87 percent)
2 -- Sarkozy's exchange with the man at the farm show (77)
3 -- The campaign for local government elections (68)
4 -- The sixth anniversary of capture of Ingrid Betancourt, half-French hostage of Colombian rebels (65)
5 -- The Oscar for best actress won by Marion Cotillard (61)
6 -- The debate over how children should be taught about French Jewish children who died in the Holocaust. (57)
7 -- Racist behaviour by supporters during football matches (53)
8 -- Sarkozy's decision to end advertising on public television (49)
9 -- Sarkozy's law allowing certain dangerous criminals to be detained indefinitely (delayed for 15 years by the Constitutional Council) (36)
10 -- The Obama-Clinton duel for the US Democratic nomination (36)
A couple of days ago, I spent the morning following Rachida Dati around the Left Bank district where she hopes to become a town councillor. Dati is Justice Minister and one of the stars of Nicolas Sarkozy's executive, so what is she doing handing out leaflets and chatting with shop-keepers in the chic VIIth arrondissement -- and bothering to spend time over a drink with me ? Here's the story from today's paper.
Beyond Dati and Sarko's other debutant politicians, it's worth a look at the way that France clings to a tradition that allows -- even encourages -- politicians to hold two or more elected jobs at a time. This promotes baronies, especially when city bosses hold parliamentary seats. Jean-Claude Gaudin, the conservative Mayor of Marseille, for example, is also a Senator (He might be out of the city job in a couple of weeks though). Defenders of the system say that it ensures that national politicians keep close to le terrain, or life on the ground. France likes its mayors so much that it has 36,000 of them. That's not a typo. There are 36,000 town and village councils and they are all up for election over the next two Sundays.
The great majority of députés, or members of parliament, sit on county, regional or municipal councils and many of them are mayors of cities. It is not surprising that the National Assembly has one of the lowest attendance rates of any parliament. Its members are busy in their other jobs.
Continue reading "Sarkozy's stars go local" »
 You remember the uncomfortable appearance of Mikhael Gorbachev in those glossy advertisements for Louis Vuitton, the French leathergoods brand. The picture of the Soviet elder statesman was not just selling luggage, Vuitton told us. It was celebrating the company's corporate "core values" and projecting the notion of "travel as a personal journey".
One wonders what kind of trip the company is trying to celebrate with its latest recruit to its "exceptional journey" campaign: Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. "Keef", now pushing 65, has lent his well-worn features to the camera of Annie Leibowitz in a New York hotel room. His pirate-look is enhanced with black make-up. A skull sits on the night table and death's heads adorn the black scarves draped on the lamps. Keith's guitar case is a custom Vuitton item. A book lies open with a magnifying glass of the kind that such senior citizens use to relieve elderly eyes. Physical sustenance is suggested by a coffee or tea-cup and pot, biscuits and orange juice. There is no hint of the more exotic substances which helped Richards rock through the ages.
The caption says: Some journeys cannot be put into words. New York. 3 am. Blues in C
According to Antoine Arnault, communications chief at Louis Vuitton, Richards is "a world icon, an inspiration for millions". In Le Monde, Arnault also managed a delicate allusion to Richards' more exotic journeys. "He has travelled in lands which I do not personally know," he said.
I wonder why Richards needed to sign up for the luxury goods campaign, produced by Ogilvy and Mather. Unlike Mikhael Gorbachev he surely does not need the money. I apologise for two Vuitton posts in a week, but I wanted to use the great picture.
A Paris court has just added a new ban to the long list of prohibitions in France. School pupils and university students are now forbidden to comment on their teachers on the internet.
The Tribunal de Grande Instance issued the order after teachers' unions sought the closure of note2be.com, a site that allows pupils to rate their teachers. Opened in January by Stéphane Cola, an entrepreneur, the site has been a big success, receiving up to 150,000 visits a day, with 50,000 teachers so far rated. It was modelled on the American ratemyteachers.com and similar sites which have sprung up around Europe.
Teachers have been upset by ratings sites around the world but none had been banned. Last year a German court rejected an attempt to have a local site spickmich.de closed. Provided that they were not defamatory, ratings were acceptable under the principle of freedom of expression, the German court ruled (more on that here).
No-one imagined that the French court would take that line. The whole French education world plus the government had piled in to denounce note2be.com as a gross breach of privacy and an "incitement to public disorder".
Continue reading "French judges ban internet teacher ratings " »
Let me balance the slightly caustic tone of some recent postings with praise for a book that sums up everything we love about France.
Dictionnaire Amoureux de la France is a love-letter to his country by Denis Tillinac, a prolific writer whose novels mainly celebrate la France profonde, especially his native Corrèze. Tillinac, 60, is an unabashed patriot. I know that he is seen as at bit "reactionary" and a friend of Jacques Chirac, the last and not greatly lamented president.
But Tillinac, a puckish, twinkling-eyed chain-smoker, has a sense of fun and an eye for the quirky side of the French character that is so endearing -- and exasperating. I have got to know him on a TV show that we take part in and I appreciate his eloquent, self-mocking manner.
His book is part of a series from the Plon publishing house, in which famous writers celebrate their passions. It is a collection of sharp little essays on the things and people that for him are the essence of France. His country, he says, is about flair and panache plus despair and pathos. "I love France in body and soul, as a transfixed admirer and a fulfilled lover," he writes.
Run through the index and you get an idea....d'Artagnan.. Bovary... le Coq Gaulois...Cyrano de Bergerac... les Départementales (country roads)... Deux Chevaux (Citroens)... Gares (railway stations), Grandeur.... May 68... Maigret... le Panache... Paris...la Province...Sub-prefectures...Ricard (pastis)... Zidane..le Zinc (local cafe)
Take le Zinc -- the corner bistrot:
"Le zinc offers the godsend of conviviality, silent or garrulous...It is very French, this decompression chamber. We like to linger in the bistrot. The atmosphere is not like a Viennese cafe, an English pub, a German tavern or even an Italian bar. In the Zinc, once you have your elbows on the counter, you are more than a customer. You become owner of a little part of the establishment...A mysterious connivence brings you close to your neighbour, to the neighbourhood... Whether it's in the countryside, in the provinces or in Paris, le bistrot français is the temple of inexpensive fraternity, of the meditative break, the road to the stars for solitary hearts, or lacking that, their oasis.
On la Grandeur, Tillinac tries to put his finger on why France thinks it is so special. France excelled in no single field, he notes. Great western painting was Italian and Flemish. The music was Italian and German. The great philosophers were German and the three major western writers of the modern west were Dante, Shakespeare and Cervantes. France had no Darwin, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud or Einstein, he says. France's pride in its innate superiority is completely unreasonable, he says: "It is as if we only had this alternative: pride in being French, or grating, sneering morosity."
To justify this pride, France throughout history has striven to achieve unrealistic ambitions "far beyond its apparent capacity", from Joan of Arc through Napoleon Bonaparte and Charles de Gaulle. "France offers an exemplary and muddled irrationality, a mixture of dashing bravoura and missionary zeal which no sporting or economic victory really conveys."
France could not be France without la grandeur, whether we are the seventh or second last economic power in the world. French genius has to astonish the world. I think it is still alive, smouldering like an ember of the spirit under the cinder of mercantilism: this naive faith is one of the well-springs of my patriotism."
Tillinac's model of the French spirit at its best -- generous and reckless -- is D'Artagnan, the musketeer of Alexandre Dumas.
D'Artagnan is the older brother who I never had... At an age when my friends were seeking a cause between Jean-Paul Sartre and Che Guevara, I had read the Three Musketeers. My cause was that boisterous camp where the four jolly fellows served up their knightly heroism with epicurian pleasure.
It's a lovely book, a perceptive, easy study of Frenchness by an insider, not one of the Brits or other foreigners who presume to know the country.
There is nothing new about film stars who spout political nonsense or subscribe to wacky religions. But it is still worth a mention when the French winner of the new Oscar for best actress says that the World Trade Center was not attacked by terrorists but was blown up by its owners on 9/11 -- and that the Americans may never have landed on the moon in 1969.
Marion Cotillard made these points in a French television interview that was broadcast a year ago, before she achieved fame with her role as Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose. The video has just been revived by Marianne2, the site of a leading leftwing news magazine. I'm posting it here with the English text (below) because it is a useful glimpse of an outlook that remains widespread, especially in hip leftwing circles in France. I run into people quite often who tell me that they do not believe in the conspiracy theories but "of course" everyone knows that there was much more to the 9/11 attacks than "they" tell us.
French support for the idea that 9/11 was engineered by the US government was fed by the success of a 2002 book by Thierry Meyssan. This argued that no airliner crashed into the Pentagon. The book was ridiculed after a while but it reached the best-seller lists in France and several other countries. As Cotillard shows, the conspiracy theory lingers.
Marianne has attracted a torrent of abuse from conspiracy believers since it posted Cotillard's remarks on its site on Friday. It explained why it revived her views:
Our logic is simple. The remarks of Marion Cotillard are typical of a kind of excess which has affected the ranks of the left for several years.... The words of Marion Cotillard did not provoke the slightest reaction from the journalist who was interviewing her, nor from any of the television critics whose output fills our media.
Here in English is what Cotillard told Xavier de Moulins, her interviewer. The session took place in the Paris Catacombs. She mentions Coluche, a much-loved subversive comedian who was killed in a motorcycle crash in 1986.
Marion Cotillard: I tend rather often to take the side of the conspiracy theory.... I'm not paranoid. It's not paranoid because I think that they lie to us about an awful lot of things: Coluche, 9/11. You can see on the internet all the films of September 11 on the conspiracy theory. It's fascinating, even addictive.
They show other towers of the same type that aeroplanes have run into and which burnt. There is a tower, in Spain I think, which burnt for 24 hours... It never collapsed. None of these towers collapse. But there (in New York), the thing collapses. Then afterwards you can talk about it for a long time. The towers of September 11 were stuffed with gold. And they were swallowing up cash because they were built, I gather, in 1973. And to re-cable all that, to modernise the technology and all of that, it was much more expensive to carry out the work than to destroy them.
.... Did man ever walk on the moon ? I have seen a lot of documentaries on that and really, I wonder. In any case, I do not believe everything they tell me. That's for sure.
MONDAY UPDATE:
With the storm over Cotillard raging in the USA, we got the following explanation today from Bastien Duval, her agent:
Marion's reaction is that this video was filmed in special circumstances after a broadcast on Coluche (popular comedian killed in 86 motorcycle accident) and she was being asked to react to this broadcast. Marion then simply expressed the view that she wanted to form her own opinion (on 911) from watching various reports, but she never wished to call into question the events of 11 September.
This reportage has been taken out of context and one can only condemn such practises. Marion deplores that. She is currently filming in Chicago and has a lot of work. She is in an ocean of happiness and voila, this row blows up. It's rather strange. It's an old report, not at all current. Why bring it out now ?
I talked three times to Marion overnight. This is worrying her. She is still in shock and does not really know how to react. She doesn't have to apologise for a badly presented and badly interpreted reportage.... She hopes that the Americans will have enough distance to understand, but her career is not just American. She can make films everywhere.
Charles Bremner is Paris Correspondent for The Times and has previously reported from New York and Brussels.
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