French children went back to school today after the long summer break. The event was accorded the usual fanfare, with television and radio reporters at the school gates. My 15-year-old daughter is starting Lycée at a weekly boarding school near Paris tomorrow. What follows is a slightly expanded column that I wrote for the newspaper today --
Late this month, my son will be among thousands of British teenagers who are starting university. His arrival at Exeter would not justify a mention, except that James is fairly unusual. In his 18 years, he has spent only a few weeks in Britain. Born in New York, he has lived mostly in France and Belgium so his English sounds like Inspecteur Clouseau. I am taking him across the Channel for his first visit to a pub. He is worried about the food but he has heard that les petites anglaises are fun. This idea that English girls are charming and rather naughty lingers from the 1970s when the young Jane Birkin and other cross-Channel starlets appeared in French comedy films.
James is excited and anxious about making contact with a nearby home country that he hardly knows. We never planned it like this, but a chain of postings outside Britain has meant that the children have grown up in a slight no-man’s land. If they had to define themselves, they would say they are Franco-American Britons with a Scottish-Australian father and an Iranian-American mother.
For kids, the territory of the long-term expatriate is an odd place, even in the age of Facebook and Google. They have the privilege of enjoying a wider world but also the drawback of not really belonging anywhere. British families traditionally avoided this by packing off their young to board in the home country. [click below to read on]
Continue reading "Bringing up French Anglo-Saxons" »
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I did not envy my son this morning when, along with 331,575 teenagers across France, he sat down at 8am for the four-hour ordeal of le bac philo.
The philosophy test, or rather torture, is still the "royal subject" of the baccalauréat, the national high school examination that opens the way to university and adulthood. Apart from students in trades and technical schools, all pupils are obliged to take the philosophy exam.
Literacy may be declining in France like everywhere else but it says something about the intellectual skills still required of the young that about half of all late teenagers in France earn a baccalauréat that includes philosophy.
The bac, with its centralised, simultaneous examinations is a ritual of a rare kind. For weeks the media have built up to the big moment of the bac philo -- the opening test -- with tips on subjects and handling stress and bac memoirs from celebrities. Today, television and radio are reporting from the school gates.
The philosophy questions have just been released. My son, who's just 18, was required to dissert on one of the following two questions: What is gained by exchange ? (Que gagne-t-on à échanger) and Does technological development transform mankind? (Le développement technique transforme-t-il les hommes ?). [More questions below]
You can't just wing it with a ramble around the subject. Like most French disciplines, structure and method are vital. The reasoning has to follow rules and you must cite the appropriate great thinkers as you set out your argument.
The baccalauréat has demanding equivalents in other countries. But the continuing rigour of the system helps explain why the average French person is more articulate, more able to express him or herself on abstract subjects, than, say, average Britons or Americans.
The baccalauréat, inaugurated by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1808, was designed to promote the post-revolutionary ideal of a nation of rational citizens. Luc Ferry, a philosopher who served as Education Minister from 2002-2004, explained it on the radio this morning as the kids were drafting their philo answers: "When the bac was created, the idea was that in order to become a citizen and be capable of voting, you had to be able to sort out ideas and argue them in public. That remains true today," he said (I wonder how many professional philosophers have served as Education Minister in the UK).
There is much that can be criticised in the baccalauréat and a system run by a Ministry of Education that commands an unbelievable 1.2 million staff. The baccalauréat is too elitist, some say. Fewer than half the children of working class parents earn the certificate that gives passage to university. Others say standards have been dumbed down too far now that 63 percent of all teenagers earn the bac, compared with just 20 percent in 1970.
It's also true that the French education system emphasises information and rules rather than imagination and that secondary students perform modestly in international comparisons, such as that of the annual OECD ranking. Another point, from which my two teenagers have suffered in childhoods in French schools; is a teaching culture which relies more on criticism than encouragement.
Xavier Darcos, the teacher who is current Education Minister (and is probably about to be replaced) has been warring with the unions over redeploying resources and cutting teaching staff. Something must be wrong, he says, if France spends more than the European average on education but scores mediocre results. The unions answer that by saying the OECD rankings -- which routinely put Finland top in Europe -- are biased towards nordic and and Anglo-Saxon methods and do not take account of French priorities.
President Sarkozy has run into resistance from the education establishment in his attempts to remedy some of the flaws. His latest idea, floated last week, is for schools to open outside classroom hours and at weekends to offer extra-curricular activities. Traditionally, French schools are teaching machines. Sports, hobbies and other youth activities are largely organised by other institutions.
But putting aside the problems, the baccalauréat remains a sterling asset for France. It's internationally admired and its international -- less Gallic -- version is taken in many other countries. Perhaps I am out of date and I certainly would not have fancied doing le bac philo myself. But it remains impressive that so many kids reach a level at which they can hold forth for four hours on existential matters such as the following from today's other general baccalauréat streams.
For science students: 1) Is it absurd to desire the impossible? 2) Are there questions which no science can answer?
For the literature stream: 1) Does objectivity in history suppose impartiality in the historian ? 2) Does language betray thought ?
My son's two questions came from the economics and social science stream. He choses the one on exchange and reassures me that he wrote a suitably leftwing answer which did not sing the praises of commercial exchange. He kept it broad and talked about moral matters (The French curriculum and teachers are slanted solidly to the left). As well as the essay, the students have the option of writing a commentary on a short unprepared text.
President Sarkozy has been at war with much of the intellectual world since he began running for the presidency so it is not surprising that anti-Sarko thinkers and teachers seize every chance to get at him. As France has celebrated its annual Week of the French Language, he has come under fire for verbal sloppiness and his fondness for talking like a regular guy.
Presidents of the French Republic are not supposed to start speeches by saying: "To everyone who's important here, bonjour."They also supposed to conjugate their verbs and use pronouns correctly. Sarkozy won the 2007 election playing fast and loose with the rigorous rules of the language but his failure to slip into the verbal mantle of the monarch is helping those who cast him as a Philistine.
The trouble, everyone will recall, began last year with "Casse-toi pauv'con" [Get lost, jerk], his admonition to a hostile bystander. It sounded coarse and unpresidential.
"Molière must be turning in his grave," le Parisien said on Sunday, reporting on the fuss over the latest Sarkozysmes, as his syntactical abuses are called. Fanny Capel, head of a campaign group called Sauvez les Lettres (Save Letters), told us: "We have un beauf at the head of the state." (Un beauf, or brother-in-law, stands for ordinary, opinionated and ignorant).
Sarkozy jangles purist nerves with colloquial tics such as dropping the "ne" between pronoun and verb in negative sentences. "J'écoute mais je tiens pas compte," he said the other day. (I listen but I don't take account.. It should have been je NE tiens pas...) He often uses the slangy "ch'ais pas" for "je ne sais pas" and "ch'uis" instead of "je suis" and he throws the intimate "tu" around with abandon. It's not just friendliness. Eschewing the formal vous is a way of intimidating people, say those have had dealings with Sarko.
Defending an income tax ceiling last week, he told factory workers: "Si y en a que ça les démange d'augmenter les impôts..." A London equivalent might be be "If there's anyone 'ere that's itching to put up taxes..." [I'm sure people can suggest better versions]
Like Tony Blair and his pseudo estuary-speak, Sarkozy is a lawyer and rhetorical ace who uses low-class tones as a way of sounding like an ordinary bloke. The style grates because of France's attachment to language as a unifying symbol of the Republic. Most previous leaders have cultivated a literary side, including military ones such as Charles de Gaulle and Napoleon Bonaparte. The President is being accused of setting a poor example when he is trying to stem the decline in literacy. Jean-Marie Rouart, a distinguished writer and member of the Académie Française, accused Sarkozy of pandering to youth "by apeing their vulgarity".
Jean Veronis, who wrote a study called "The Words of Nicolas Sarkozy," said that the President's speech was natural to him. "He is not very cultivated and does not read much. Usually politicians correct themselves when they arrive at a certain level, but Sarkozy does not give a hoot. It's his nouveau riche attitude," Veronis told us.
Capel says that Sarkozy's "virile and brutal" language "shocks the working classes most of all because they still believe that they can rise in the world through education." In Le Monde this month, Barbara Cassin, a philosopher and philologist, accused Sarkozy of undermining democracy with his loose grammar. "Every time that President Obama opens his mouth, his subjects and verbs agree," she said. "That is the best, and only respectful way..." Cassin was shocked "by the spelling mistakes which litter the website of the Elysée palace." These would be amusing "if they did not testify to a worrying off-handed attitude towards culture," she said.
 [Left: Sarkozy chose the palace library for his first official portrait]
Sarkozy's image as a Philistine has not been diminished by recent attempts by Carla Bruni to depict him as a closet lover of belles lettres and fan of antique philosophers. The President has published his memoirs and political texts as well as a biography but, a little like George W. Bush, he plays up his uncultivated side.
One of his favourite targets, as we've seen here before, is a 17th century novel called The Princess of Cleves. He suffered from the book, by Madame de Lafayette, in his school years and loves mocking it as an example of cultural baggage that is irrelevant for most people in modern France. He joked recently that only a "sadist or an idiot" could have inserted questions on the book into an entrance examination for civil servants. (Sarkozy has removed the culture test from that exam). The book has now sold out. Protesters are staging public readings and visitors at the Paris book fair last week were wearing badges saying "I am reading the Princess of Cleves."
[UPDATE SATURDAY: As predicted in the final paragraph of this post, the site has just closed after only a day in operation. The founders said they were overwhelmed both by the criticism and the volume of visitors that they received.] One industry doing well in France these days is private tuition for school pupils. One in six receives coaching outside the classroom, often from moonlighting teachers or one of the big firms that charge hefty fees to give kids an academic edge.
So we should not be surprised that two bright young entrepreneurs have come up with the idea of an internet homework service. It's not exactly coaching. They do the work for you.
My 17-year-old son thinks that Faismesdevoirs.com (DoMyHomework.com), which went online today, is great and insists that it's an "educational idea". Le Petit Nicolas, the fictional schoolboy whose 50th birthday is being celebrated this week, would have loved the scheme. The schools and government do not.
Xavier Darcos, the Education Minister, joined in a chorus of condemnation for the service, which says that it has a team of students from grandes ecoles, the elite colleges, standing by to help out their customers. In return for payment they guarantee to supply A-grade essays, class projects, maths solutions and so on. The answers to three maths problems costs five euros while a full-length essay can cost more than 30 euros. Pupils send the questions by e-mail and receive the completed copy within 24-48 hours. They can also scan their own work and send it to have it corrected.
"The place to get educated and have your work corrected is in the nation's schools," said Darcos. "In no way do I encourage paying systems which provide this kind of service."
Le Monde devoted its main editorial today to attacking the start-up as "terrifying and scandalous," because it "empties education of its basic principle -- learning, with all its rigour and satisfaction." There was already enough trouble with cutting and pasting and unfairness with well-off parents who pay for private tuition for their children, it said
All the free publicity -- which has included cover in the main TV news -- has been great for the founders Stéphane Boukris and Romain Benichou, recent graduates of two top Paris business schools. They are defending themselves by saying that they are merely extending the possibilities of outside coaching. Parents help out with homework so why shouldn't they, they say. Pupils would learn from the comments from the experts when when their work is corrected and returned to them, said Boukris.
The key to their scheme is an elaborate payment system. Apart from borrowing the parents' credit card or Paypal account, kids can buy pre-paid cards online and in certain Paris shops. Mobile phones can also be used via the method of sur-taxed text messages. They will even accept pocket money in the form of postal orders.
Boukris says that he had recruited dozens of eager students as well as a number of teachers who wanted to top up their state school salaries. Here's their Facebook entry.
The state will no doubt find a way to outlaw the service, as they have done with other internet ventures involving education. Last year they used France's privacy laws to close a site in which school pupils could rate their teachers.
[Below: TV cover of homework service]
We have been given more evidence that France, despite its reputation for rigorous schooling, is no exception to the decline of literacy.
A teachers' campaign group gave a 1976 spelling and grammar test to a sample of 1,348 kids who began lycée -- high-school -- last autumn. Only 14 percent of the 15-year-olds could scrape beyond the 50 percent mark. Fifty-eight percent scored zero. When they set the identical 1976 test in 2000, 30 percent passed.
As a father of two teenagers who have done all their schooling in the French system, my first reaction was to blame the harsh marking methods. My daughter, who starts lycée next autumn, has often come home with copies of the dreaded dictée (dictation) in which she has 0/20. A few forgotten accents quickly pull down the marks. The children are also held to high standards on the rules of grammar. But I took a closer look and found that the dictation text and the related questions were not really very tough in the 1976 test, which was from the brevet -- the certificate needed to qualify for the lycée. [See dictation text below]
Commenting on the findings, the Sauvez-les-lettres group said the results showed a disastrous collapse in comprehension and grasp of the language. It is not just a case of the notoriously tricky spelling of French, with all those accents and unpronounced letters. After eight years of school, half the 15-year-olds could not recognize a simple adverb or the direct object of a verb. That might sound complicated in countries where grammar is not taught, but these things are dinned into French children from from the start.
President Sarkozy's government is trying, like its predecessors, to stem the slide in basic skills. Its reforms to the huge centrally-controlled education system are largely opposed by teachers' unions, a group that have fought just about every change for the past 30 years. School hours have recently been cut for primary schools, with most pupils doing a four-day week and special remedial classes for the poorest performers.
The Sauvez-les-lettres group says that this will not help. The answer is to go back to teaching French in the old fashioned way and for as many hours as it was taught in 1976, they say. That seems unlikely to happen.
The decline in language skills is worrying France as much as anywhere else. Employers say that job applications from university graduates are often riddled with basic language mistakes. Another depressing account of the problem has just been produced by Danièle Sallenave, a novelist. She spent time in two collèges -- junior secondary schools -- and wrote up her experience in Nous, on n'aime pas lire (We don't like reading).
Even parents with good education read few books, so it is not surprising that their children do not, she says. "There are even people from the elite classes who boast that they don't read," she told le Monde. "If you don't read regularly, you forget how to...The word 'culture' nowadays, has come to mean the national heritage and its use for commercial and tourist ends. That is not what people need."
After spending time in the schools, one private and affluent and the other poor, she concludes that "our schools exist in a society which no longer believes in the power of art or words."
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Here's the dictée of 1976. Note: there are no subjunctives or pesky participles with avoir. For the subsequent questions go here.
L’atelier 76.
Gilles ouvrit le battant d’une lourde porte et me laissa le passage. Je m’arrêtai et le regardai. Il dit quelque chose, mais je ne pouvais plus l’entendre, j’étais dans l’atelier 76.
Les machines, les marteaux, les outils, les moteurs de la chaîne, les scies mêlaient leurs bruits infernaux et ce vacarme insupportable, fait de grondements, de sifflements, de sons aigus, déchirants pour l’oreille, me sembla tellement inhumain que je crus qu’il s’agissait d’un accident, que ces bruits ne s’accordant pas ensemble, certains allaient cesser. Gilles vit mon étonnement.
- C’est le bruit, cria-t-il dans mon oreille.
Il n’en paraissait pas gêné. L’atelier 76 était immense. Nous avançâmes, enjambant des chariots et des caisses, et quand nous arrivâmes devant les rangées des machines où travaillaient un grand nombre d’hommes, un hurlement s’éleva, se prolongea, repris, me sembla-t-il, par tous les ouvriers de l’atelier.
Gilles sourit et se pencha vers moi.
- N’ayez pas peur. C’est pour vous. Chaque fois qu’une femme rentre ici, c’est comme ça.
Je baissai la tête et marchai, accompagnée par cette espèce de “ Ah ! ” rugissant qui s’élevait maintenant de partout.
A ma droite, un serpent de voitures avançait lentement, mais je n’osais regarder.
Claire Etcherelli, Elise ou la vraie vie.
President Sarkozy faces the broadest revolt in his 20-month reign this week when state workers and other disaffected groups vent their discontent by staging a day of strikes and protest that they hope will paralyse France
Sarkozy has faced down public transport, school and hospital strikes before, but this time he is worried that the usual ritual of disruption and street marches could herald more general unrest.
The stoppages on Thursday are being led by the usual conservative crowd -- the public transport, teachers and hospital unions who are resisting Sarkozy's cost-cutting reforms. But all the main trade unions are piling in, along with students, some private sector workers and the slowly-reviving Socialist opposition. The idea is to register a giant ras-le-bol, a display of anger towards Sarkozy, his reforms, falling incomes, the economic crisis and the system in general.
The hardliners, such as Christian Mahieux [top picture] and his SUD union, want nothing less than old-fashioned insurrection and the overthrow of France's semi-capitalist state. Libération gave pride of place today to Alain Badiou, a philospher, who said: "My dream is that Sarkozy will be chased from office by the street."
Badiou is indeed a dreamer, but remarks like that are striking a chord beyond the usual radical world. As I reported last week, the hard times are breeding sympathy for the the old revolutionary devil, though in a limited way. People feel that they are bearing the brunt of the crisis while Sarkozy's friends, the bailed-out bankers, are walking off with their money. This explains why, according to a CSA poll last weekend, 70 percent of the country sympathises with a day of strikes that will disrupt their lives.
Sarkozy is said to be fearing a flare-up driven by unions and students of the type that came from no-where in the peaceful France of 1968 and almost overthrew President de Gaulle. Some members of his UMP party say that there is a dangerous mood afoot. Sarkozy is doing his best to sound reasonable. He dropped into a factory near Chateauroux today and said that he found it normal that people were protesting to express their fears but that he had to keep up his reforms.
"I understand your difficulties. I understand the problems of rising costs, of paying for retirement, the kids' school.. but I have to see things with sang froid and not react to what is written in the newspaper or the person who is shouting loudest," he said.
Sarkozy may be right to be worried. It does not take much to spark one of France's regular upheavals against the ruling power. But the time does not seem to be right for revolution. Outside the job-protected state sector, which accounts for the overwhelming majority of French strikes, people are more worried about holding on to their work than overthrowing Sarko.
The President can take comfort from his latest ratings. The monthly BVA poll today reported that he remains relatively popular compared with his nadir this time last year. He slipped by only one point since December. Forty-seven percent approve of his performance while 45 percent disapprove.
Two items in a row about nudity are pure coincidence. This one is in the name of art.
Paris has just witnessed an odd demonstration. The life models who pose at the city's beaux arts schools went on strike and, despite freezing temperatures, demonstrated nude outside the municipal culture department [picture].
The 15 models, supported by teachers and trade union officials, were protesting against the end of the tradition of le cornet -- a rolled up paper in which generations of students have left a tip after their session. They are also demanding official recognition of a craft which they say is central to European art, with its devotion to the human form.
"We are as important as the teacher and the painter because without us they could not teach or paint," said Salvatori, one of the protesters. "Without Gabrielle, who would Renoir have been?. (Gabrielle Renard, the nanny of the child Jean Renoir, was father Auguste's favourite model)
Marianne, 50, another demonstrator, ran through a list of celebrated models who were their artist's muses. These included Lee Miller, who inspired Man Ray and Picasso, and Kiki de Montparnasse, Man Ray's companion and model, as well as Dina Vierny, the muse of Aristide Maillol, the sculptor ( Vierny, a fascinating woman, is still very much alive at the age of 89. I interviewed her a few years ago).
Although there are no qualifications for becoming a model at the ateliers (studios) of the Beaux Arts, most of them have studied art or dance. About 30 work full-time and 60 more part time. They are paid the minimum wage for the hours worked but with no benefits like holidays and special retirement funds. They say they can't manage without the tips, which added up to 20-30 euros after a three-hour session.
Christophe Girard, Deputy-Mayor in charge of culture, was sympathetic to the demonstrators, who put their clothes back on to talk to him. The city banned the tips because students were complaining and because it's against French law to tip public servants, which is what the models technically are. Girard was nevertheless sympathetic to their cause and promised to seek a ruling from Christine Albanel, the Culture Minister, on a statute for them. The Deputy Mayor was himself once a model. He posed for pocket money when he was an art student in Angers.
[picture: Henri Matisse at work]
As if to underline the importance of the models, a show called "Figures of the body, an anatomy lesson at the Beaux Arts" has just opened at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts," the top fine arts school.
Le Figaro wondered this morning: Without the models what would be left of what we admire here: the drawings and engravings of Leonardo, Durer, Géricault.. the sculptures and mouldings of Michael Angelo. Without getting on to the photographs. Just white pages?
Footnote: Artists have always painted from the life in Europe. But 19th century modesty required women to drape their faces when they posed nude. European arts academies did not allow women to study the nude until the early 20th century.
Here's some good news for anyone applying to be a Gardien de la Paix -- an ordinary French police officer. You will no longer be expected to know the imperfect subjunctive or name the author of les Fleurs du Mal. And if you are aiming to be a Garde Champêtre -- park warden -- you can forget about defining the Jurassic era.
On the orders of President Sarkozy, France's vast civil service is greatly lightening the tests of general knowledge that are compulsory for entrants to all its branches. New tests and interview methods are to replace the old-style "concours de culture générale".
Sarkozy is no doubt right when he says that the competitive tests discriminate against poorer applicants and those from immigrant backgrounds. The critics of course see the new Charter Against Discrimination in the Civil Service as another act of dumbing down by a President who has had a bee in his bonnet over culture for years.
One of his set-pieces as candidate was to mock a question from a civil service promotion test that asked clerical workers who wrote La Princesse de Clèves, a 17th century novel. Sarkozy's secretary at the time had failed the test. "I don't know if you have often had to ask the woman at the reception desk what she thinks of the Princesse de Clèves," Sarkozy joked in 2006.
The competitive culture quizzes have long been a rite of passage into the haven of a lifetime job in the police, ministries, post office and other branches of a fonction publique that employs over 20 percent of all workers. With vastly over-subscribed demand, the 3,000 different tests have been used to whittle down the candidates.
Last year, 65,000 people, many with university degrees, sat the test for 1,000 posts as junior clerks. The goal is the lifetime guarantee that comes with being a servant of the state, however humble. I have a friend, a double bass player with a music degree, who is thrilled to have scored a post as a uniformed maintenance man at the Senate. He spends his day changing the lightbulbs but says he values the short hours and great retirement benefits waiting for him in about 25 years time.
As a sample of questions, candidates for fonctionnaire catégorie C, the lowest level, at the Finance Ministry, were this year asked which divinity was not Egyptian: Anubis, Isis, Hathor or Thor?
They were also expected to know whether "the artiste Arthur H (a pop singer) is the brother of M (another pop singer), the son of Jacques Higelin (an older pop singer), the son of Françoise Hardy or the grandson of Jimi Hendrix" (He's Higelin's son).
André Santini, the Civil Service Minister, sounded off against the general knowledge tests in le Figaro. "What is the point of a history examination for firemen or police constables with university degrees? We have reached the limit of sterile elitism," he said. Santini, who does not hail from the caste of hauts fonctionnaires, said the general knowledge tests were "being used as a form of invisible discrimination". (On the police, France recruits a superior officer class with university degrees and much tougher entrance tests)
He added: "The applicants are being asked questions that are too academic and ridiculously difficult and which indicate nothing about their real aptitude for filling a post." From now on, questions would be aimed at testing common sense and aptitude for the job, he said.
Here are recent questions from a recent Culture Générale entrance test for Gardiens de la Paix. Candidates have to hold the baccalauréat high-school leaving certificate.
Into which sea does the Danube flow ? Aral, Azov, Caspian or Black. (Black)
Who sculpted the Statue of Liberty ? Maillol, Buren, Rodin, Bartoli (Bartholdi)
Which country does not have a frontier with Iraq? Syria, Turkey, Iran, Egypt (Egypt)
In what year was Israel founded 1940, 48, 58, 61 ? (48)
Harpagon is a character from a play by Corneille, Racine, Molière, Beaumarchais ? (Molière)
Inevitably, the reform is being seen as another step away from the educational rigour upon which France used to pride itself. Ivan Rioufol, who is news editor at le Figaro and an author, tore into Sarkozy on his blog for dumbing down France.
A basic knowledge of history and the culture is vital for civil servants to be capable of civilised communication, he said. "It's appalling to see the government trying to accelerate this mutation into a world with no differentiation."
____________
PS: Charles Baudelaire wrote les Fleurs du Mal, a collection of poems. La Princesse de Clèves, regarded as the first French novel, by Marie-Madeleine de La Fayette, was published anonymously in 1678
 [update: Sarkozy ceremony story here]
The Prince of Wales is dining with President Sarkozy at the Elysée Palace tonight ahead of tomorrow's 90th anniversary of Armistice Day. We are taking a train in the early morning to watch them mark the event at Verdun, site of one of the most terrible battles, along with Peter Müller, President of the German upper house. Sarkozy is breaking with tradition by visiting the battlefield rather than just presiding over the ceremony at the tomb of the unknown soldier under the Arc de Triomphe [Picture above updated after Tuesday ceremony]
Nine decades on from 1918, older people have been voicing surprise at the lack of concern among the young for la der des ders -- the war to end all wars. A large village in Brittany could not raise enough young volunteers to represent symbolically the 699 dead whose names are inscribed on the local memorial. Nothing brings home the butchery of the Great War than those sad lists on the monuments aux morts in the villages and towns across France.
The last French poilu -- Great War soldier -- died last February. There are two surviving veterans in Britain. As Sarkozy has said, the war is passing from memory into history. My 17-year-old son asked over breakfast what was the point of the ceremonies, since it was was a long time ago and those who took part are nearly all gone. It was hard not to express surprise at the question because the Great War was so much part of our lives, even though we were born after the Second World War. My grandfather drove a tank on the western front with the Seaforth Highlanders and survived. His brother James was killed at Ypres. We grew up knowing survivors. They didn't talk much about it but we were aware of the horror of the shells, machine-guns and gas.
Like all French lycée pupils, my son has studied the la Grande Guerre. My 15-year-old daughter reels off the basic facts. In France, as in Britain, there has been a literary fascination over the past two decades for the war. But it is understandable that the emotion has faded.
Britain tries to keep the memory alive, mainly with the ritual of wearing Flanders poppies. In France, November 11 is a public holiday and every town and village has its wreath-laying. Most people are just happy to have the day off and do some early Christmas shopping, le Monde noted today. "Very few people could tell you exactly what happened on that marvellous November 11," it said. "The majority celebrate the beauty of autumn, the pleasure of going to the cinema and lying in late...". Le Monde's commentator concluded that even if people knew little about it, the war was inescapable. It had left an indelible mark on the collective conscience of France. He used a quoted from William Faulkner that Barack Obama cited during his campaign: "The past is never dead. It's not even past."
There is a little row going on today because a government-appointed expert has concluded that France has too many memorial days, including an excessive number covering World War Two. André Kaspy, an historian, recommended down-grading annual days commemorating such things as the world war two deportations, the abolition of slavery, the dead of the Algerian war and six other historic events. He wants to keep as national events just November 11, May 8 -- the Victory over Nazi Germany -- and the July 14 celebration of the 1789 revolution.
Downgrading the days linked with past shame -- slavery, deportation and Algeria and so on -- is in keeping with Sarkozy's belief that France repents too much for past sins. But Sarkozy is also enthusiastic about keeping wartime memory alive.
Kaspy's proposal has prompted anger from those involved in the lesser commemorations and the Government appears to be ready to back down. It has also abandoned a reported plan to end the national holiday on May 8 and turn it into a simple Europe day. That is not such a revolutionary idea since General de Gaulle got rid of the VE day holiday in 1959 in the name of reconciliation with Germany. President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing revived it in 1975 -- at about the time that France was beginning to examine its record under the occupation.
Readers here may remember the episode from Fawlty Towers, the BBC comedy series, in which Basil warned his hotel staff how to deal with German guests: "Whatever you do, don't mention the war." He then ignored his own advice.
I'm going to commit the offence here because of a confluence of news events involving the town of Vichy and I am passing through there today. I'll be off for the next week, so excuse the long read. And if any of Sarah Palin's crowd is still here, what follows is not about who saved whom in World War Two.
Vichy, a once great spa town in the Massif Central, has never managed to shed the blight from which it has suffered since the collaborationist state of Marshal Philippe Pétain made it the capital of Nazi-occupied France.
Its beautiful Second Empire heart, built when Napoleon III made it a high society resort, remains intact, as do its parks and lake. Business at the thermal springs has declined but it has redeveloped as a centre for conferences, sports and fitness. Vichy looks pretty and is relatively prosperous, but it has never shaken off the melancholy of its wartime disgrace.
Now, 64 years on, two efforts are being made to lay the ghosts of what was one of the most fashionable resorts of pre-war Europe. But they also raise questions about President Sarkozy's own approach to the still troubled memory of France's war.
For the first time since ministers and ambassadors roamed Vichy's grand hotels in the 1940s, the town on the Allier river is to host foreign statesman. Ministers from the 27 EU nations are to gather on November 3 to harmonise immigration policy. They are to meet in the same opera house where the parliament of defeated France abolished the Republic in July 1940 and handed power to the aging Petain.
[Read on below]
Continue reading "Vichy strives to shed its wartime stain " »
Two major Nobel prizes in one week is not bad for a country that is anguishing about its cultural decline.
France has just pulled it off with the literature award for its novelist JMG le Clézio after Luc Montagnier and Françoise Barre-Sinouss (below) shared the medicine prize with Germany's Harald zur Hausen for their discovery of the HIV virus.
It was only the third time that a French writer has won the Literature Nobel since Jean-Paul Sartre was anointed but refused the honour in 1964. Not since 1952 had it won two prizes. They went that year to Albert Schweitzer for Peace and François Mauriac for literature. There was even an outside chance that this week could have produced a hat trick. Ingrid Betancourt, the Franco-Colombian former hostage, was thought to have been in the running for the peace prize and had even tempted fate by reserving a hotel room for a victory news conference.
Here's my story from today's newspaper. One of the first conclusions is that Le Clézio, 68, was well qualified for a Nobel. His style may be avant garde, but he is not one of the navel-gazing introverts who have given a bad name to the modern French novel (see last month's post on Christine Angot). He is seen as a big picture writer, dealing in universal human themes in the tradition of Hugo and Zola. He is also an apostle of the environment and specialist in endangered cultures -- qualities that play well with the Stockholm committee.
Le Clézio, whose father had British nationality, is a polyglot globe-trotter who lives mainly in New Mexico after a life travelling in Latin America, Africa and Asia. He was one of the signatories of a proposal by a group of authors last year to save the Gallic novel by uncoupling the language from France and turning French literature into "world literature" written in French.
An enigmatic character with the looks of a handsome adventurer, JMG le Clézio had been tipped for a Nobel for the past two decades and he was favourite yesterday. He is quite familiar in France from his television appearances and he has a devoted following but he has a reputation for being difficult and never been really fashionable. Most of his 48 novels have been translated, but he is far from a celebrity in the English-speaking world. Newsrooms scrambled yesterday to find background and commentary on him. I had to confess that I had never read him -- a shameful admission for a long-serving Paris journalist. All that will change as his work, ranging from his 1963 Procès Verbal (The Interrogation) to Ritournelle de la Faim (Same old Story About Hunger), published last week, reach global bookshops.
Here are some excerpts in English from Clézio's texts, in today's NYT
President Sarkozy was naturally quick to hail Le Clézio for bringing honour on his country. "He embodies the influence of France, its culture and its values in a globalized world," said the President's statement. "A child in Mauritius and Nigeria, a teenager in Nice, a nomad of the American and African deserts, Jean-Marie Le Clézio is a citizen of the world, the son of all continents and cultures." I would guess that Sarko, who is no great lover of fiction, may be among those inculte people who have not read him yet.
In the eternal contest of France versus les Anglo-Saxons, it has been a pretty good month for Gallic pride. As well as the Nobels, many in France have been saluting what is seen as the end of the "Anglo-Saxon" creed of deregulation and free markets which has held sway since the early 1980s.
Our nearest bookshop, on the Boulevard des Italiens, is doing roaring trade at the moment with everyone stocking up for the summer holidays. This year, there's a splashy new category of best-seller -- the phenomenon known as cahiers de vacances, or holiday revision guides
The idea is that, instead of wasting your beach time with Steven King or Marc Lévy (French pop novelist of the moment), you use it to bone up on Nietzsche, quadratic equations, molecular science or some other discipline.
The craze took off last year after the Chiflet publishing house produced a playful grown-up version of the revision manuals that French parents have long inflicted on their children during the very long summer holidays. The children's cahiers, of which over three million a year are sold, are supposed to keep their minds in gear for the new school year. Chiflet's Cahier de vacances pour adultes, was a runaway success, selling 150,000 copies last summer.
Almost everyone has climbed onto the cahier wagon this time, with at least 18 variations on the idea in bookstores, news stands and supermarkets. You can hone your skills in mathematics, history and even test your ability to pass the baccalauréat or brevet school exams. The CNRS, the state research body, has cashed in on the current popularity of philosophy to market an 88-page manual to get you back to speed on Hobbes, Spinoza, epicureans and so on. Le Cahier de Vacances Philo says that time on the beach or the campsite "is favourable to a return to the inner self and thought". That's Nietszche in the swimsuit in the picture.
At the other end of the spectrum is an erotic version. "The craze for cahiers de vacances for adults neglected a subject that is one of the main activities on vacation: sex," said Musardine, the publishers. The cahier's 48 pages, costing 9.90 euros, are full of supposedly amusing items of sexual lore, texts and tests. These include such things as a glossary of sexual slang and questions on the sexual "characteristics" of King Edward VII, Attila the Hun and Georges Simenon, creator of Inspector Maigret (Answer: Edward liked making love in a bath of champagne, Attila died on his wedding night and Simenon went regularly to prostitutes for inspiration).
Le Monde analysed the cahier boom the other day, saying that it benefited from two current fashions. One was the "regressive" craze for adult versions of children's pastimes. The biggest example is the "Cahier de gribouillages", a book for scribbling and doodling that became a hit with bored office workers. There is now even a Sarkozy scribbling book on the market. The other trend is the worldwide fashion for brain training, memory fitness and games such as Sudoku
President Sarkozy's government has joined the act, with a free online Cahier de Vacances on the European Union. It is meant for children and teenagers rather than adults. I cannot imagine kids anywhere wanting to spend their holiday time answering questions such as "In what year did Slovenia join the European Union" or "Which of the following celebrities is not Romanian: Eugene Ionesco, Constantin Brancusi and Emir Kusturica?" (Kusturica is Serbian, but you knew that).
The French Senate has just saved French identity from mortal threat. No, the legislators did not outlaw that usual villain, the English language. The menace this time came from the traditional tongues of France's regions -- Breton, Occitan, Alsatian, Basque, Corsican and so on.
This is not a laughing matter. The Académie Française, official guardian of linguistic purity since the 17th century, stirred itself into action on Wednesday, warning in solemn tones that "an attack on French national identity" was imminent. The learned "immortals" were alarmed by an amendment to the constitution, backed by the government and passed easily in the lower house, which recognises France's regional languages as part of the national heritage.
The conservative upper house took heed of the warning and voted down the amendment, upsetting the Bretons, Corsicans, Basques and so on. The government is now wondering how to defuse a fuss that springs from an ancient, peculiarly French and sometimes violent quarrel.
[Picture: a demonstration for Occitan, the old southern version of French]
Continue reading "Stick to French, says the Paris senate " »
 For a little relief from the European Treaty, Carla Bruni's lovers and other matters of moment, here are a couple of questions from this year's philosophy examinations for the national baccalauréat (A-levels or high-school diploma).
-- Can you experience desire without suffering?
-- Is it easier to know someone else than to know oneself ?
Discuss one of them for four hours with structured reasoning and reference to the great thinkers. That's what 515,000 French school students did yesterday.
The bac philo is a time-honoured, uniquely French institution. At the same instant at 8am on Monday morning, eighty percent of all candidates for the certificate sat the test. Philosophy is compulsory for all students except those taking the trades diploma. The year is the 200th anniversary of the test created by Napoleon Bonaparte. My 17-year-old son takes his French and Science bac exams on Friday, clearing the decks for a final lycée year which ends with the philosophy and other exams.
The baccalauréat and France's completely centralised public exam system have been under fire for years and we've discussed them often here. This anniversary year has brought calls for its abolition. With a pass rate of 83.7 percent last year, the once elite baccalauréat has been dumbed down and devalued, say the critics. The diploma is no longer a sign of achievement, simply an automatic ticket to a university system with a 45 percent drop-out rate. [Daniel Strohl, Dot King and the other teachers here might like to elaborate.]
The criticism is fair, but the bac is still a fearsome experience for the kids who prepare for the ordeal which sadistically opens with the philosophy test.
Here are all the questions for each stream, omitting the options of analysing extracts from Sartre, Schopenhauer, Tocqueville and Kant. The hardest are set for the literature and the "easiest" for the technology stream.
Literature:
-- Can perception train itself ?
-- Is scientific knowledge of a living thing possible?
Science:
-- Does art transform our consciousness of reality?
-- Can a truth be established by means other than demonstration ?
Economics and social sciences
-- Can you experience desire without suffering?
-- Is it easier to know someone else than oneself ?
Technology:
-- Can you love a work of art without understanding it?
-- Is it the business of the law to decide on my happiness ?
 A glance is often enough to tell the nationality of the groups of young tourists who throng the street outside our office on the Place de l'Opéra. You don't need to listen to the language or study the dress. The American kids are really wide. The Britons are next in excessive girth followed by Germans, Australians and Russians.
All right, that's an intolerant generalisation. Obesity is a global epidemic and Americans and Brits are just leading the way, we are told. The "thin" countries like France are fast catching up, thanks to junk food and the sedentary habits of their kids. I read in a US newspaper: "Child obesity is the new 'normal' of the 21st century. It will remain that way".
Well, perhaps not. This week, France reported that it has stopped the rise in overweight children over the past decade or so.
The news emerged from the 2008 European Congress on Obesity in Geneva. One study showed that there was no change in the weight of French seven to nine-year-olds between 2000 and 2007. In another survey the French Food Safety Agency (AFSSA) found no significant change in random samples of three to 17-year-olds in 1998-99 and 2006-2007.
The French results have caused a stir because they are the first evidence that it is possible to stop the blight of obesity that is sweeping the affluent world -- including France. The experts are being cautious, but credit for the French success is being given to programmes that have been running for over a decade.
Continue reading "French children beat weight problem" »
We're enduring another day of the old French civil war today. About 45 percent of the country's 800,000 state school teachers have gone on strike, along with a smaller proportion of the five million civil service. Tens of thousands of high-school pupils are out marching with them [picture is from Nantes this afternoon].
This means that millions of parents have once again been forced to find someone to take care of their kids so they can go to work. Town councils allied to the government are offering basic supervision at schools but the majority with leftwing mayors -- including Paris -- are refusing to do so. Providing this minimum service amounts to strike-breaking, they say.
The cause of the "mobilisation", as the strikers and media call the stoppage, is the noble one of defending public service. President Sarkozy is accused of dismantling France's cherished services with cuts to teaching staff and civil service posts. Schools are to lose 11,000 teaching posts in the autumn. One in three civil servants is not being replaced on retirement from this year.
The classic battle lines have been drawn up. From the moral high ground, the left applauds resistance to the destruction of the national heritage and depicts its opponents as stooges of a brutal rightwing Government. Those on the other side, branded "rightwing" by the left, lament the obstructive, conservative reflexes of the state functionaries.
France elected Super Sarko to perform a radical cure a year ago, but on days like this you get the impression that nothing has changed.
Continue reading "French teachers strike again" »
It is a little sad, but inevitable, that France's last revolt in the name of liberty should be reduced to a tin of expensive tea. Here it is, "May 68 -- a tea with the flavour of revolution" from Fauchon, the most luxurious food store in Paris
Forty years ago this weekend, the students of the Sorbonne university staged their joyous insurrection on the Paris Left Bank. Their carnival of slogans and barricades helped trigger the country's biggest general strike and briefly rattled the government of President Charles de Gaulle. The confused rebellion soon fizzled but "the events of May '68" marked a middle-class generation. Since they were the baby-boomers, no-one is allowed to forget it.
Now passing on power to their juniors, la génération de soixante-huit are enjoying a last hurrah, an orgy of nostalgia for the glorious upheaval in which, for a moment, it seemed they could remake the world. They may have given up Fidel Castro for Fauchon, but they are proud of their youthful ideals.
Continue reading "France revels in nostalgia for magic May '68" »
King Louis XIII and Napoleon Bonaparte must be turning in their graves. The Académie Française, France's oldest and grandest cultural institution, has just elected to its midst a writer of pop lyrics.
Jean-Loup Dabadie, 69, a wordsmith who has penned hits for two generations of singers and written successful screenplays, is the first humble saltimbanque (entertainer) to join the hallowed institution that guards the French language and soul. For four centuries, only literary worthies and distinguished elders of the establishment have been elevated to the status of "immortal", as the 40 members are known.
In the last try, decades ago, the academy rejected Charles Trenet, the top crooner of the World War Two era. Four years ago, die-hards made a vain attempt to block the election of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the former President, on the grounds that he had produced only one second-rate novel.
Continue reading "Popster joins France's grand academy " »
Here's a test of your knowledge of modern France and its passion for abbreviation. Explain the following headline which appeared in a newspaper today
OGM + NKM + UMP = COCKTAIL EXPLOSIF
To anyone following the news, the line in La Charente Libre made complete sense. OGM stands for genetically modified organism; NKM is the Minister for the Environment, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet; UMP is President Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement. The minister had just caused a furore by accusing her own party of cowardice over genetically modified crops.
Like other Latin and bureaucratic countries, France shortens many long titles into every-day initials. Un smicard is someone who receives le SMIC, or minimum wage. Few bother saying jeux olympiques. The games are usually just les JO. This is not to be confused with a GO, or gentil organisateur, a host at the old Club Med resorts, thus any boy-scoutish organiser. The 35-hour working week has given France the joys of the RTT (pronounce errtété) or time off (Récuperation du Temps de Travail). You can use it for a spot of VTT (mountain biking)
Abbreviating names is especially French. All right, America had JFK first, but say JFK in Paris and people will understand Jean-François Kahn, a veteran journalist and commentator. You know you have made the big time when your initials replace your name. NKM (the environment minister, in picture), who is only 34, earned the rank this week with her feisty defiance of her bosses.
She only apologised after a threat of dismissal from Sarkozy, who is known as NS only to his staff and the tailor who monograms the left chest of his custom-made shirts. MKM is, however, dangerously close to NTM, a notorious rap group which has just been relaunched. Their initials stand for "F...Your Mother" in urban slang).
To be fair to Sarko, few earn two-initial celebrity. The last was probably BB, the film star-turned animal lover whose initials became a pop music hit in the hands of the great Serge Gainsbourg, her lover at the time (any excuse for another Gainsbourg video, see below).
Continue reading "Be famous for your initials in France" »
A humble punctuation mark is the latest cause in the fight to preserve the elegance of French in the face of lazy habits from the English-speaking world.
Writers and linguistic patriots have thrown their weight behind a push to save le point-virgule -- the semi-colon. It is threatened with extinction because the media, authors and the people at large no longer understand its use. They prefer chopping their prose into short sentences with full stops (periods).
Fans of the semi-colon were pleased today by a topical April Fool's joke on the influential Rue89 news site. This reported that President Sarkozy had created a state commission to save the semi-colon. The device would have to be used at least three times in all official correspondence, it said.
The article, which included a bogus mission letter on Elysée Palace stationary, initially took in readers because it was only a slight exaggeration of reality. Sarkozy has a mania for intervention and the media have lately been reporting the threat to the semi-colon.
Continue reading "Save our semi-colon, say French campaigners" »
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" »
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 " »
You can't say that President Sarkozy is not trying to get to grips with France's most intractable ills. While he has been presiding over a French green revolution this week, his government has decided to attack the eternal problem of school bags.
Loyal readers might remember my posting on the dreadful weight that French kids lug daily to and from school. Since then, nothing has changed. As people have noted, the photo on my last post illustrates the problem.
It's been 28 years since the government decreed that school bags should not weigh more than 10 percent of the child's weight. A couple of weeks ago, the main parents' association (FCPE) took weighing scales to schools and found that the average 13-year-old is packing eight kilogrammes (17.6 pounds) on his or her back. That is 23 percent of the weight of an average 35-kilo child. In other words, it's equivalent to a 70-kilo (154 pound) adult having to haul around 16 kilos (34 pounds).
Xavier Darcos, Sarko's Education Minister, has announced a plan to "turn the burden school bag into the healthy school bag" (passer du cartable fardeau au cartable santé). It's a mixture of ideas, starting with the formidable challenge of getting French school teachers to change their ways.
Darcos wants them to stop ordering kids to equip themselves with heavy folders and exercise-books and to let them put more than one subject in a folder. Anyone who has lived in France knows how these fournitures scolaires -- which account for 28 percent of the contents of the average bag -- are the teacher's prerogative and not to be trifled with.
Publishers will be given incentives to lighten their text-books, splitting them into volumes if necessary. These account for 40 percent of the weight.
A prize is also to be offered to manufacturers of bags who can produce the best one-kilo cartable. These are 32 percent of the total weight.
In addition local authorities are going to be asked to install lockers in schools and high-tech solutions such as USB keys and electronic books are to be tried out.
There are of course snags to all of this. They arise mainly from the difficulty of getting the extremely conservative French education establishment to change its habits. And I don't see teenagers going for a standard official cartable. The right brand is vital to le look, as my 13-year-old daughter told me before heaving her military-style rucksack onto her shoulder and buckling under its weight.
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?']
Continue reading "A million French teachers can't be wrong" »
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Besson has one act to his credit. He resigned as economic adviser to Segolene Royal just after she released her totally irresponsible 100 point election plan. That would surely have been enough to drive most economists to immediate resignation.
Posted by: Judith | 18 Dec 2009 05:00:49
"that sounds remarkably close to the clichéd response "
So you mean that even if it is true, I should not saying, because you decided I would be after the anglo race, right. Well no. Lots of 'em are actually fine people, but many just feel like they come into conquered land when they go sun holidaying.
Posted by: Valentin | 18 Dec 2009 01:58:27
AZLOON:
"One minute it was roll up your sleeves like the Americans, work longer, bitch (and think) less, die earlier (but richer).
The next it was we have to get rid of the evil A-S financial model.
You don't need a weatherman to know which way the winds are blowin.'"
No, you only need to apply a tiny bit of logic in your general thinking before uttering such enormities, Mr. Arizona loon. That is, unless you actually intend to give your name that negative connotation.
The worst part of it is that I have read the same argument in a rightwing paper like Time Magazine last week.
Still, one ought to be blind not to see the stupidity in such statements.
And in which way precisely, mind you, "working more to earn more" would contradict fighting financial capitalism gone mad ?
Supporting what we call entrepreneurial capitalism is one thing, and it does mean working more, as a necessary condition to earn more. And it also opposes financial capitalism. No contradiction in there, just more anglo B*T.
Posted by: Valentin | 18 Dec 2009 01:51:24
"When Besson produced his pamplet, Sarkozy "was" a firm free-market fundie, and even pledged to introduce France to the joys of unfettered mortgaging, aka subprimes, if he was elected ...
Lest we forget his "louanges d'antin" for the system Britannique."
(ROCKET & DOMINIQUE 2)
These are a mere bunch of misrepresentations - to be polite and netiquette-observant. Otherwise I would have to call them both by that word starting with B and ending in T.
First, N.S. has never been "freemarket", let alone ultraliberal (or neocon - someone French will have to explain to me why these notions seem to be interchangeable).
He supported more flexibility in the French job market (objectively famous for its rigidity) - and showed Britain and Denmark as examples; for a more nuanced take on pecuniary gain, traditionaly a mortal sin in France. He never promoted ultraliberal policies. He promised to protect France in the new globalized economy, not to make it an ultraliberal heaven. Finally, he spoke about making France a nation of homeowners, but never by means of uncovered, unpayable loans, which the subprimes are. And he always, way before the electoral campaign in 2007, warned against the dangers of financial capitalism, as our favorite journalist here :) can testify.
Posted by: Valentin | 18 Dec 2009 01:42:06
http://tinyurl.com/yg64rn5
The above is why Air France is my most hated airline in the world. Has been for 25 years.
Posted by: rocket | 17 Dec 2009 23:45:07
I heard Paris has lots of graffiti. Now I know this is true.
Posted by: celebrity tube | 17 Dec 2009 21:55:25
[Just noticed Charles' résumé has changed in the "Your Writer" box. Hope he's not brushing up for a career move!] Johnny Foreigner
Or that the Times is planning to send him back to Mexico to cover the drug wars (when were you there CB?).
I am hazarding a guess that someone at the Times, perhaps our own blogger-in-chief, thought better of the description of the French as the 'exotic species' (or whatever the bio said) across the Channel.
Posted by: azloon | 17 Dec 2009 19:42:44
Rick/Richard
‘AND THE GASOMETER PRIMPS AND PUCKERS FOR A HALF-HEARTED SUNBEAM.’
Thank god for google. I was able to figure out what a gasometer was, then fully appreciate the 'color/colour' of the cricket banter. It's hilarious.
Posted by: azloon | 17 Dec 2009 19:19:23
TO RICK,
John Arlott I crossed because he was 1/2 of the party that arrested a REME Staff Sergeant who acted occasionally as my driver in 1944, after Market Garden, for Intelligence liaison conferences with the Americans and the newly constituted French forces, wherein image was vital.
The sergeant, on one of his leaves near Southhampton, was accused of murder and I was asked by his wife if a) the crime could be tried under military law - I never understood her thinking behind this question, and b) If I would appear as a character witness for the defence. Thus I met J. Arlott (Police Sgt)around Christmas 1944 and again around 1955 at a jazz concert, perhaps the only one of that epoch, in the Wigmore Hall.
Footballers I avoid both in the UK and Argentina and have never voluntarily been to a professional football game - the only sport in the world in which a player may be expelled from the field of play for acting badly and bad acting.
Posted by: richard jones | 17 Dec 2009 18:36:11
I admit to the occasional profanity, LEO, but you’ll have to spell out the rest. Are you telling me that your rustics are above suspicion? I’d like to agree with you, but you’d only think me naive.
AZLOON, this is sheer poetry:
‘‘Talbot’s stance reminds me so much of the great J.C.B. Hanley the Worcestershire and England player of the mid-twenties’, when there was some microscopic change in the weather. ‘AND THE GASOMETER PRIMPS AND PUCKERS FOR A HALF-HEARTED SUNBEAM.’
RICHARD, as I understand things, the first test match series after the War was played against South Africa, starting on 11 June 1947. According to David Kynaston, this was Denis Compton’s annus mirabilis for he scored 18 centuries during the season. And can you remember 10 May that year when at Hampden Park 134,000 spectators watched Great Britain walloped the Rest of Europe at the other game, 6-1? BTW, if you tell me Stanley Matthews and Tommy Lawton were pals of yours I won’t bat an eyelid. Now I’ll make myself a cup of cocoa(!*?*)... no, Barbera cough mixture, I think, and read the rest of what you and DOT wrote.
Posted by: Rick | 17 Dec 2009 17:18:03
“In reality, I think that there are social and economic aspects of the age and under what conditions children leave home. I don't think it possible to generalize on the subject”. Lex
No you can’t generalise. It depends on your nature as well.
In some culture, the group and family matter more than the indivual. I have a Greek friend with an extended family who can’t stand time on her own. Every endeavour involves members of her family she drags around, using sugar or spice to get her way. She gets panicky, her son wants to leave ( 32) but she has found pretext after pretext to have him by her side. She has no desire to stand on her own. All his girlfriend are vetted and only the ones supple enough (to bend to her will) pass the mustard. He no longer introduce girlfriends. Nothing that threaten the group homogeneity is allowed, despite the fact that stories of old hurts gets dragged out all the time. The gay boy has been ostracised, nobody challenges the status quo. My mother who has no family to speak of really felt may years as the “pièce rapportée “ in my father’s clan. I could have had a nice house bought for me by my parents and would have lived a nice cosy life, strangely I wanted adventure and stand on my own 2 feet. Some people feel strength and security in a group and others ( me after a while) feel smothered and trapped. If everything stays as it is, and no tension is allowed, is there any progress? Not that all progress is good. Saying that I go home 3 times a year and could not see myself not spending Christmas with my parents or my family.
Posted by: do-re-mi | 17 Dec 2009 16:27:46
ROMAIN,
French government since 2007 are a festival of comic peaople, remember the former Culture and Communication Christine Albanel and her firewall in OpenOffice!
Posted by: WilliamB | 17 Dec 2009 15:26:51
Dot
From the looks of him (above), Ridly apparently has thrown his full support behind the viniculturists.
He's got that pastey, sallow, hang-dog British look with a hint of hangover.
He really doesn't look like a 'five daily fruits and vegetables' sort of guy, does he?
.
Posted by: azloon | 17 Dec 2009 15:00:40
Dot "Perhaps Mr Scott and his ilk could bear that in mind from time to time."
Mr Scott and his ilk are the least of the problem... people want cheaper food and Carrefour or Tesco are only too happy to provide it. If the majority are willing to trade quality for price then the Pierres of this world will struggle.
Posted by: FC | 17 Dec 2009 14:23:40
DRM
My son lives in the midst of the large, extended Italian-American family of his wife in the Chicago area. They are forever in each other's houses, lives, businesses. It is a comfort to them, but annoying sometimes for interlopers like my son. He has had to 'draw his boundaries' firmly so as not to have ten family events to attend each weekend (slight exaggeration). And they all talk to each other on the phone several times a day, each time someone goes to the bathroom, I think.
He jokes that every living relative shows up at every single family party, which seem to occur at least once every two weeks or so, and that they cheerfully enter the house, back-slapping and joking, but then get the hell out quite early, clearly suffering from over-exposure to their clan. I mean there's only so much you can talk about when you work with each other, see each other several times a week, then try to socialize weekly as a group.
Posted by: azloon | 17 Dec 2009 13:47:31
When I moved to Boston, I was surprised to see that children stayed at home until they married. It is also common for people to marry closer to thirty than not, which evidently has something to do with our low divorce rate.
In a history I read about the British Navy, it said that the English had the tradition of turning children into the street when the house got full, regardless of their age. This lead to an unstable and dangerous society, to say the least.
In reality, I think that there are social and economic aspects of the age and under what conditions children leave home. I don't think it possible to generalize on the subject.
A friend from El Salvador tells this story: after he and his mother had lived in the US for several years, one day he says to her, "I am going to go to my room now. It isn't that I don't love you, it's just that I want to be alone."
Posted by: Lex Stevens | 17 Dec 2009 13:39:48
Dom2
No, I clearly recall Sarko's chameleonic 're-positioning.'.
One minute it was roll up your sleeves like the Americans, work longer, bitch (and think) less, die earlier (but richer).
The next it was we have to get rid of the evil A-S financial model.
You don't need a weatherman to know which way the winds are blowin.'
Posted by: azloon | 17 Dec 2009 13:31:27
Oh, Dan Brown fans are PLENTY gullible enough. They simply don't have the money to spend on this stuff.
Posted by: Gleno | 17 Dec 2009 13:30:40
Just noticed Charles' résumé has changed in the "Your Writer" box. Hope he's not brushing up for a career move!
Posted by: Johnny Foreigner | 17 Dec 2009 13:27:25
Nice one, DOMINIQUE II! Have you ever played cricket?
(The above was intended as a compliment)
Posted by: Rick | 17 Dec 2009 12:10:13
While he must have been worn out after a number of concerts, being he is no spring chicken
JOHNY
You're right - and a few days ago we had news of two doctors being flown out from France to check on Johnny and one is left wondering why they don't think the American doctors can handle things.
But then it transpires that the doctors are medical experts for the company insuring the Route 66 concert tour and are only there to see whether he'd be up to carrying on or whether his condition justified cancelling until further notice.
Which just goes to show that in his performer context JH is a property, nothing more - let all those wannabe stars of telly reality heed the warning . . .
Posted by: dot king | 17 Dec 2009 12:02:20
DANIEL - you watched Canal +? Are you OK? Maybe a little double-schnapps and a nice lie-down. :)
Ah, but aren't you forgetting to say that the Tsarko dodged rather a lot of questions whilst managing to be holier-than-thou on saving the planet.
Michel Denisot (who after all, as Didier Porte once said "n'est pas le dernier des kamikazes") asked him how he was going to cut down his own CO2 output (we assume he already cycles everywhere and doesn't leave the tap running while brushing toothypegs) and he attacked "What? You think I should stay in my office with my arms folded? If I hadn't gone to Trinidad and . . . somewhere else where it's nice and warm in November . . . then what would I have achieved?" And all the while, things are deteriorating by the minute in Copehnagen - which is a barrel of laughs if you can be bothered.
He didn't really answer any questions, he said his set pieces and was aggressive when he didn't care for the question - business as usual, quoi.
Hmm, article's about Besson - beneath contempt.
Hortefeu - beneath contempt.
Nadine Morano - beneath contempt.
Valérie Pécresse - pretty damn stupid.
Patrick Devidjian (aka Cassius) - cunning, lying in wait, knows more than he's letting on, a lean and hungry man - such men are dangerous . . .
It isn't b--ls these people have, it's a platform from which to belch out verbal pollution.
Posted by: dot king | 17 Dec 2009 11:48:22
Identity crisis Besson may be close to cracking but his boss has never been in better form. His 'how I'm going to save the world at Copenhagen' interview last night was absolutely priceless. Example -
challenged by an otherwise cowed Denisot about his frequent flights and consequently massive carbon footprint, he says that he has to run around otherwise nothing would budge on climate change and anyway, and this is the killer, maybe French planes pollute less than others!!! And then at the end there was a marvelously mellow sequence when he spoke touchingly about his precious Carla and her affection for him, in spite of which he might have to seek a second term out of duty to the nation!!!.
Canal+ should rush out the DVD in time for Christmas. It would provide endless hours of holiday mirth and wonder.
Posted by: John O'D | 17 Dec 2009 11:45:43
This is something Mr Ridley Scott should hear - I hope some bloggers who don't listen to Inter will take the time to listen to the "Interactive" part of the "Sept-Dix" this morning. The Agriculture Minister replies to questions from the journalists and specialists in the studio and a representative from Les Jeunes Agriculteurs.
Towards the end of the clip linked below, came a call from one Pierre, fruit farmer in Provence.
For those who have difficulty with fully understanding the French, this is the summary of his intervention: I'm a Provence fruit farmer, this year at the end of the picking season when I'd sold all my harvest, I was €15.000 down on last year and hadn't any money to pay my workers' salaries. I'm not a beggar, I work all year round and I've nothing to show for it, people talk all the time of "the market", but before harvest, for farmers, there is no market. (At this point he broke down so completely that he could no longer speak.)
The minister was asked for a reply to give Pierre time to pull himself together again. Naturally he spoke of aids, grants, loans, admitted that the cost of employing workers was too high and they were investigating the problems.
Then Nicolas Demoran asked Pierre whether he was getting all these benefits, grants and loans. Pierre replied that he didn't want aid, grants and loans - these, he said, are the leash that attaches you by the neck. He added that paysans are accused of all the ills - pollution, pesticides - (he mentioned others which I can't recall) that it was time to recognise and value their work and to realise that when a farmer goes broke, it's several families who lose work; His son has already left and will not farm, and if he has another year like this, it'll be the end.
Anyway, his call starts at 13m 28s of the link, slide the cursor along unless the whole 20 mins are of interest as well - during Pierre's call the atmosphere in the studio was very charged - you have to hear him to get the full weight of what he's saying.
http://sites.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/em/septdix/
Bearing in mind too that the Ministry of Health has radio and TV campaigns encouraging everyone to eat 5 fruits and vegetables every day and 3 dairy products. Presumably they want them imported, not home-grown.
The world isn't just made up of bankers, traders and politicians. Perhaps Mr Scott and his ilk could bear that in mind from time to time.
Posted by: dot king | 17 Dec 2009 11:24:45
Azloon,
I know in then” Individuality society” children get out of the house. In Europe it’s a bit different, you live with your parents until you get married or shack up. In the US you tend to move for work, in Europe you don’t do it too much, moving away from your family is not a cultural thing, that is changing a bit now. When I went to Italy I couldn’t believe how young people looked so good ( if lacking in imagination) and could afford so much stuff, when you have seen an Armani outfit you have seen them all ( ok I exaggerate). They all live with mum and dad and didn’t have rent to pay, also they worked and mummy had cooked dinner and watched their clothes as well.
Here it might change as the housing bubble and crisis have made it impossible to rent and save for a deposit at the same time. Finding your feet and becoming independent is looking like a bad financial decision if character building. Also the money in the bank is not earning any money right now.
By some coincidence Halliday’s wife is on the cover of the French Elle, she looks very childlike, making him look even more ancient.
Posted by: do-re-mi | 17 Dec 2009 11:05:35
WILLIAMB,
Don't forget Nadine Morano who was castigating young muslims in a political meeting.
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Posted by: ibrahimali | 17 Dec 2009 10:44:09
Since Sarkozy's election, France weeks pass by with the rhythm of our government proof of stupidity.
Another one just for the fun, which happen yesterday : after Besson sent the nine Afghan refugees back to Kabul, Lefebvre (the Spokesman of the Union for a Popular Movement, and one of the best stupidity supplier of the country) and Mariani (an UMP deputee who tried to make a law which establish an DNA test for every migrant who try to come in France to reunite with family here), said that is fair that Afghans refugees was sent back to Afghanistan, because as French soldier are fighting there, Afghan people must stay there and fight the talibans instead of trying to find a place far of violence!
Just hopeless, and thinking we have tree more years with this government (if Sarkozy is re-elected, I leave France, I just hope that other countries don't make me come back in order to fight against Sarkozy...)
Posted by: WilliamB | 17 Dec 2009 10:27:43
RICK Dylan Thomas was in Italy in 1947 – notably Elba but this won’t work for reasons already ascribed. However 1951 would, when Dylan was there for the last time.
DOT
I once had a delightful young lady working for me in the late 40’s called Wendy Wimbush who left banking and went into the Bill Frindall cricket stats (from the French états?) world. She became quite renowned in that domain for inventing a thing called ‘wagon wheels’ that diagrammatically showed where in the outfield a batsman scored his runs.
Commentating on cricket – a serious art form. I used to love it when at 11:30 (they start at silly times now – complete disrespect for pig’s bladder repletion recovery) and play was delayed, but with an inspection by the umpires perhaps an hour away. I would suppose most people switched the wireless (which it wasn’t) off and rejoined when play started, and this is perhaps why John Arlott’s greatest (IMO) quote is never – well – quoted.
It was a dialogue with Rex Alston. The ground (t’was the Oval), the spectators – enrobed in these new plastic macintoshes - the circling ornithology had been discussed at length, as had the likelihood of play after the inspection. The duo were just starting to compare various players in that wonderful formal style of the time ‘Talbot’s stance reminds me so much of the great J.C.B. Hanley the Worcestershire and England player of the mid-twenties’, when there was some microscopic change in the weather. ‘AND THE GASOMETER PRIMPS AND PUCKERS FOR A HALF-HEARTED SUNBEAM.’
Brian Johnston, of course, has the absolute quote ‘The batsman’s Holding the bowlers Willey’.
Eddie Waring – that kinda rugby – the purloiner of great Welsh talent in the amateur days of Rugby Union. ‘Up and under’ or ‘Garryowen (a Irish rugby union club)’, is not used much in League until the late fifties. Before that date, to encourage a passing rather than kicking game, any kick fielded on the full meant a set scrum back where it was kicked and with the catcher’s side’s to put in.
And, finally, having totally kidnapped the thread topic, the best Rugby Union commentator was Bill McClaren.
Posted by: richard jones | 17 Dec 2009 10:11:47
ROMAIN,
Je serais curieux de soumettre nos phrases test respectives à un logiciel de reconnaissance vocale, pour voir ce qu'il recracherait :).
Il y a un certain nombre d'années, j'avais fait des essais avec Via Voice d'IBM. Ca marchait pas mal pour l'époque (processeurs lents, mémoire vive réduite).
Posted by: Daniel Strohl | 17 Dec 2009 10:08:13
DOMINIQUE II,
"that Sarkozy's opinions are fickle, to say the least"
:))
Sarkozy tries to adapt his opinions to the changing world and to the changing economy. Most of his opponents try to persuade the electors that they are able to change the world and the economy to adapt it to fit the perfect society they say they will built for their electors :).
Unfortunately (or may be fortunately :) they failed to persuade 53% of the electors in 2007.
If they want to win the elections in 2012, "ils ont du pain sur la planche" :). The first thing would be "d'accorder leurs violons pour limiter la cacophonie assourdissante"; the second, to find a credible candidate. The third, to send back to Germany Cohn-Bendit, accompanied by Bové and Mamère as a gift :). Our German friends would no doubt appreciate...
Posted by: Daniel Strohl | 17 Dec 2009 10:03:18
TO VALENTIN,
Let me assure you that your lot are as nasty,invidious, separatist and above all arrogant as anything I've ever seen or heard of from 'anglos' in France.
My little finger is in excellent shape, thank you, although my shoulder is playing up from phoning all I can to get rid of this invasion - mostly from Paris - as you'd expect.
Posted by: richard jones | 17 Dec 2009 09:52:36
There is always one guy in an office who nobody trust , the Iznogood type. They are very useful to their bosses, they get all the ugly tasks done and people are on their best behaviour or leaning against the wall to avoid backstabbing. These types hate human beings anyway and don’t even like themselves. Sarkosi and Besson obviously wants to stick it to their daddy, and they have. Everybody knows their name and like algae they thrive in acid condition. Hate from other people is nothing compared to their self-loathing anyhow. Obscurity and an attention blackout brings them in a tailspin that is not funny to watch.
Besson’s wife was an idiot anyway, if a man on your wedding day in front of the priest he is not going to be faitfull, going ahead with the wedding and sticking with the man for 30 years should qualify you for the straight jacket not for the wronged-wife badge or our sympathy.
His chin does not help and surrounding jowls neither.
Posted by: do-re-mi | 17 Dec 2009 09:43:11
Valentin "Many anglos are fine people, met more than a few of those actually, in real life as well as online"...
that sounds remarkably close to the clichéd response of your regular homophobe/racist or in this case anglophobe... "some of my best friends are gay/black/anglo!"... it doesn't really work.
Posted by: FC | 17 Dec 2009 09:25:56
"Ganelon, Ganelon... now why do my thoughts take wing to the Hindu Kush?"
That's harsh on Karzai, an enlightened opportunist at worst.
Posted by: Dominique II | 17 Dec 2009 09:19:15
RICK, you vicious misquoter, you. / I said "as long as" in this context here: [VALENTIN]
Yummy, do I get a second bite at the cherry?
Posted by: Rick | 17 Dec 2009 08:33:38
Ganelon, Ganelon... now why do my thoughts take wing to the Hindu Kush?
Posted by: Rick | 17 Dec 2009 08:20:48
Dom2
When Besson produced his pamplet, Sarkozy "was" a firm free-market fundie, and even pledged to introduce France to the joys of unfettered mortgaging, aka subprimes, if he was elected - yet another forgotten promise, thank Gods.
Lest we forget his "louanges d'antin" for the system Britannique.
Posted by: rocket | 17 Dec 2009 08:14:10
Johny Halliday was never really a rock singer, but he is a great ballad singer; It's not the be all and end all; he never made it in England anyway.
That country has no class in music now for sure. Just look at that nonsense manufactured talent show the masses get hysterical about; the X factor, tells you everything.
Orchestrated by that smug faced mother of cheap thrills; Simon Cowell.
Concerning Halliday"s after effects from his operation, everybody is quickly blaming the French Doctor; but who in their right mind would jet off to the States, just 4 days after a spinal operation. It's known that pressure in long distance air travel is never good after an operation or illness. Halliday was asking for trouble. But like everything else in France somebody always has to be responsible, when something goes wrong, except the real culprit.
While he must have been worn out after a number of concerts, being he is no spring chicken.
Not everybody can run around for ever, and come up regularily smiling, with perhaps one exception Tiger Woods. Perhaps the secret was in the "Gatorade" drink.
Posted by: johny | 17 Dec 2009 08:12:45
RICK
"What a pity Ridley Scott wasn’t called Roman Polanski. Welcome to France, home of Human Rights, applied with discrimination, of course."
As Rocket would day: What's thee point of your post?
Posted by: Leo | 17 Dec 2009 06:10:14
"'Neo-conservative' is a bit of an exaggeration since there is no such animal as a dirigiste neo-con"
I am surprised that as shrewd an observer of French politics as AZLOON has not noticed that Sarkozy's opinions are fickle, to say the least. When Besson produced his pamplet, Sarkozy "was" a firm free-market fundie, and even pledged to introduce France to the joys of unfettered mortgaging, aka subprimes, if he was elected - yet another forgotten promise, thank Gods.
As for Besson - he nicely complements the erstwhile duo France has committed to its long memory: Ganelon and Cauchon. To each his brand of fame.
Posted by: Dominique II | 17 Dec 2009 00:07:30
"something – call it an intuition, call it my little finger – tells me that if Ridley Scott had been a lawbreaker on the run, then the villagers would have been happy"
Another one with an ailing little finger.
Well you're probably right in saying that the French are compassionate with a man in hardship.
Not that they would be the only ones feelign that way - if we only think of Bonnie and Clyde.
Posted by: Valentin | 16 Dec 2009 22:58:55
RJ : "A small island in Greece (1200 souls) is repulsing an invasion of 400 French invaders. On the basis of your last post I suppose you would be fighting on the beach with the invaders"
Me sortof doubts that the 400 French colonised your islanders the way your fellow anglos usually do when they install down south, you know, in 'savage land'. Your little finger doin' fine, otherwise? :)
Posted by: Valentin | 16 Dec 2009 22:52:54
RICK, you vicious misquoter, you.
I said "as long as" in this context here:
"Who cares about the name, as long as ils ne se laissent pas faire, and know how to barricade inside the said village."
It was about the name that you mentioned, Albert something. I never said anything about some bad behaviour that would be justifiable - especially that since it is about an anglo, resistance is one of those acts securing a place in heaven. With 50 virgins, or not.
Posted by: Valentin | 16 Dec 2009 22:48:45
Besson an immigrant?
Don't make me laugh!! the son of a french military born in a french colony !!!
the "product of the french colonial empire" would be more accurate.
Posted by: Dominique | 16 Dec 2009 22:39:50
CNN Backstory just did a gut splitting piece on Johnny Halliday in hopital in the US interviewing all kinds of people and asking if they knew him.
http://tinyurl.com/yl3zj5f
video (partial)below
http://edition.cnn.com/video/
Posted by: rocket | 16 Dec 2009 22:33:17
On pissoirs, here's what French Wikip. says: Curieusement le nom allemand pour cet objet est Pissoir qui, bien que d'origine française, n'existe plus dans notre langue. Le même mot est utilisé dans toutes les familles des langues slaves. CB]
Easier to pronounce and one less syllable than "pissotière" Plus many people around the world associate the sound "oir" with the French language thus (In English the word "our" is very close in pronunciation) facility and familiarity leads use to nôtre nouveau né - PISSOIR
Posted by: rocket | 16 Dec 2009 22:25:56
Paul
"When the French venture out of the kitchen, style eats itself.
Poor chap probably got infected from the amount of Botox he pumps into his face."
Don't think he uses Boxtox. Look at his face. It looks like the the surface of the moon and I can definitely make out the man in the craterface. I think the French are planning their first moonshot there.
You know. The good ol' moonshot!
Posted by: rocket | 16 Dec 2009 22:11:46
Dot
"No Dahling - that was your wife"
ça vas pas la tête?
My wife was dating Tiger Woods! Might still be. Better check her phone.
Be right back
Posted by: rocket | 16 Dec 2009 22:07:33
Il y a aussi l'expression "plein vent arrière" ou naviguer "au près". Une autre version de "à voile ou à vapeur". I believe sheets to the wind corresponds to "prendre un ris" i.e. fold or deploy the sail.
Posted by: Romain | 16 Dec 2009 21:11:55