Paris is at its most glorious on the July 14 holiday when France displays its military might, with the forces marching, driving and flying down the Champs Elysées to salute President Sarkozy on the Place de la Concorde.
No other nation puts on such a splendid display any more. The setting is sumptuous -- helped today by summer sunshine. From the breastplates and plumes of the mounted Garde Républicaine to the slow-marching Légion Etrangère, you get a sense of the pride that Napoleon must have felt watching his Grande Armée.
Memories of empire were surely in Sarkozy's mind as he surveyed the ceremony, which felt all the more old-world this year because 400 dress-uniformed Indian troops led the procession, their arms swinging in British style.
The President's quest for grandeur is the talk of the town after an astonishingly servile TV broadcast in his honour last night. When Sarkozy took over two years ago, he did away with what he called the stuffy ritual of the Bastille Day lunchtime interview. Presidents Chirac and Mitterrand used the moment to commune in a regal way with their citizens from the Elysée Palace terrace.
Last night we were offered a supposed intimate portrait of Sarkozy, in which the monarch deigned to talk about his life and ambitions. The recorded programme, part of a celebrity profile series called A visage découvert, was so uncritically fulsome in its depiction of the great man, that we thought at first that it was a joke by France TV. The state network has fallen foul of the President lately for lack of respect, so perhaps this was a satire in the manner of North Korean television.
Watch the start of the show below. Two France Television journalists stroll in the Elysée garden, reviewing the destiny of a French sovereign who has dazzled the world with his vision, energy and statesmanship. Tony Blair, Angela Merkel and Gordon Brown, were among those hauled in to pay tribute to his noble person.
As a young man, Nicolas Sarkozy sensed that he was destined to lead France and he set high goals for himself and his country, we learnt. His talents amazed all those whose paths crossed with his. He inspires those around him them with his energy and "the high demands he imposes on himself." He single-handedly restored faith in Europe with his Presidency of the Union last year. "I think in six months Nicolas Sarkozy aquired a veritable international dimension. And the situation was not an easy one," said one of the two obsequious presenters. The other retorted: "As the proverb says, it is in difficult times that men reveal themselves." It was how Soviet television used to describe Leonid Brezhnev -- or how BBC commentators talk of the Queen on state occasions.
A "biopic worthy of Lady Diana," one blogging TV critic calls it today. Telerama:fr, the site of the leftish entertainment weekly, imagined questions that Sarkozy's interviewers would have liked to put. "Sublime President, your most Serene Highness, I love your tie. May I touch it with my finger tips?"
The Socialist Party has denounced the show as proof that Sarkozy has turned the state TV channels into his personal tool. Not even the late President de Gaulle got away with such stuff, it said. Benoît Hamon, the party spokesman, called it "hagiography worthy of a banana republic." "Democratic debate was totally abandoned in favour of a pile of worship that used, word-for-word, the political propaganda of the President."
All good fun. Back to the fête nationale. The traditional fireman's ball is enjoying a big revival. There have been over a dozen around Paris last night and tonight. People were dancing at the caserne des pompiers near my place until about four this morning.
 France has kept its Sunday rituals more than most places. You think of morning street markets, church bells, long family lunches and strolls in the park or by the river. Well, forget that. Nicolas Sarkozy now wants to scrap Sunday.
That at least is the view from the left, the Church, the trades unions and some of the President's own parliamentarians of his plan to allow shops to open on the Lord's day. Parliament is about to pass a law that will, in the eyes of its many opponents, destroy le dimanche, jour de repos, as France has known it for the past century.
Things are of course not so simple. Sarkozy promised in his 2007 election campaign to lift the 1906 law against trading on Sundays. Markets and food shops had always been an exception on Sunday mornings. Trading has also been allowed since 1993 for shops catering to recreational activities in certain areas.
Last year Sarkozy abandoned a first Sunday opening scheme in the face of opposition from a mainly conservative, Catholic section of his own Union for a Popular Movement. The watered down version now before Parliament is so hedged with restrictions and vague definitions that it may well fall foul of the Constitutional Council, like the recent botched law against internet piracy.
Simplifying, shops in designated tourist and frontier areas and special commercial zones will be able open on Sunday but staff must volunteer for duty and be paid double normal rates. This means, for example, that the grands magasins like Galéries Lafayette and the fashion boutiques on the Champs Elysées will be able to do business. The rest of France will observe the sancrosanct traditional Sunday, which means leisure since very few people attend church any more.
Sarkozy has a bee in his bonnet over France's Sunday habits. One of his favourite lines is to mock the local by-law that, he says, allows stores on the north side of the Champs Elysées to open while those on the south side must keep their doors shut. There is in fact no such by-law. He has also been talking about his embarrassment when Michelle Obama wanted to go shopping in Paris on a Sunday last month and he had to arrange a special opening for one children's clothes store. "How are we supposed to explain to them that we are the only country where shops are closed on Sunday?" he asked after that.
As is often the case, Sarkozy is exaggerating. Germany and several other European states have greater restrictions on Sunday trading. And in reality, with its existing local exceptions, big leisure industry and 24/7 public services, France already works more on Sundays than most other parts of Europe. Look at the Eurostat table below.
But both sides of the Battle for Sunday cling to their stereotypes. Take Bertrand Delanoe, the leftwing Mayor of Paris. His city receives more visitors than any other in the world and thousands of people already work on Sundays to satisfy them. "Sunday is a day of rest respected by most citizens and it must not be sacrificed by this vision of a deregulated economy that does not take into account the family and personal lives of workers," he said.
The public is also attached to the sanctity of Sunday, though by how much depends on the question. A poll for Libération on Monday found 55 percent opposed to Sarkozy's new law and 42 percent in favour. A majority does not believe that Sunday opening will help the economy. Eighty-six percent agree with the statement that "Sunday is a fundamental day for family, sporting or spiritual life." Other polls, though, show that a majority would appreciate being able to shop on Sunday.
I won't be sorry if the new law falters -- though I have nearly always worked on Sundays. Perhaps wider Sunday opening will be more convenient for everyone, including the 70 million tourists who visit the country every year. But it's worth remembering that one of the reasons people flock here is the traditional peace of le dimanche en France.
[Below: European statistics for Sunday work. Green is percentage of population that never works on Sunday, orange work occasionally and red regularly.]
We are sitting by lake Geneva under a gentle Alpine sun. Three military helicopters have just landed on the lawn of the grand hotel next-door. They were bringing in Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown, but we won't see him until we are escorted into a press conference at the Royal Palace Evian.
[End of summit story here] In case anyone thinks there is anything glamorous about summit meetings, especially minor ones, here's a little snapshot from Evian, the lakeside watering place where the French President decided to hold this year's formal get-together with the British. These events follow a ritual. The host chooses somewhere pleasant and the machinery cranks into action. When the day arrives, the hotels and the public are cleared out, battalions of police are deployed along with interpreters and staff. I have just counted 26 buses and vans of the CRS riot police parked by us in the garden. Communications are installed, along with a media centre and a press conference stage. Sarkozy's meeting with Gordon Brown and six cabinet ministers is small beer compared with US summits (like President Obama's today's in Moscow) or G8s and other multilateral events, so there are only about two dozen reporters here. But we are well watered and fed by the Elysée as we wait and wait and wait under parasols. We tap on laptops, gossip and read the papers. In the old days you milled around with the participants and picked up information, but media are now always the other side of a sterile perimeter. We have flown down from Paris and taken a bus for an hour along the lake but our only contact with the leaders will be a carefully staged 30-minute press conference [watch it below]. The outside world will see the key quotes on television plus some picturesque shots of the great men against the Alpine lake. After lunch and a total of three hours on site, everyone leaves town and Evian is given back to the summer tourists. 
Without being too cynical, it is hard to avoid the contrast between, on one side, the talk at the summit of recession and the new age of frugality, and on the other the piles of money and carbon expended on staging the event. Everyone could have got together in a conference room in Paris for a fraction of the effort. Perhaps that is little unfair. Set-piece summits between the European powers serve two purposes. They act as a little theatre for reaffirming the relationship and playing statesman on TV. More importantly, they provide deadlines for the bureaucracy. Governments have a list of projects that they announce or tie up at summits. Brown and Sarkozy see one-another all the time so there is little business to be done. All is of course presented as perfect harmony. The pair get on quite well. Brown is grateful for Sarkozy's support at a time when, politically, he needs every friend he can find. At the moment, the testy ancestral rivalry between Britain and France is in one of its lulls. Sarkozy's people like quoting Gordon Brown's talk of a new "entente formidable" which has replaced the boring old cordiale version. In an hour or so we will be reporting "joint calls" and common plans for the G8 meeting in L'Aquila, Italy, later this week. Summits are always more interesting when we can get to work on a good row. Carbon update after the press conference. Sarkozy and Brown spent most of their session talking about climate change and carbon taxes. They were asked at their press conference about the message they were sending with their mass jaunt to Evian. Sarkozy waxed indignant and pretended to misunderstand the question. "You don't think we could get anything done just by sitting in the Elysée and Downing street and talking on the phone do you?" said Sarkozy. Brown, who has problems prnouncing the word Evian, tried to make a joke, saying: "I was wondering if I shouldn't just stay here for a couple of days and then go on to Italy and save some carbon.." And Brown, whose pallor contrasted with Sarkozy's Berlusconi-level suntan, produced another rather lame variant on his entente theme. "This time, it's l'entente formidable au soleil," he said.
For over a century, when The Times' Paris bureau has needed an English-language book in a hurry, someone has walked a couple of hundred yards down the Avenue de l'Opéra to buy it at Brentano's. Sadly, the habit came to an end 10 days ago with the demise of the American bookstore that has been a Paris fixture since 1895.
The old shop at 37 Avenue de L'Opéra, whose customers included Mark Twain, Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, was shut after its landlord, the BNP Parisbas bank, won a liquidation order for non-payment of rent. For some time, the store was locally owned, no longer part of the historic New York-based company which is now a brand in the Borders Group.
Brentano's was a Paris American institution like the Herald Tribune newspaper. It supplied reading on the old trans-Atlantic steamers and it was appreciated by US expatriates. The Nazi invaders shut down the shop when they arrived in June 1940 and turned it into the film and camera supply centre for the Wehrmacht. At the start of the occupation, a German official walked in and ordered 6,000 books, including 349 assorted titles in Everyman's Library, a variety of art books, the unexpurgated Lady Chatterley's Lover and some expensive erotica (The tale comes from the Brentano's site, which is still open).
During the occupation, the Brentano parent company published French writers such as André Maurois and André Gide and the books were smuggled into France via the Free French forces in north Africa.
Like many other bookshop owners, Chantal and Jean-Marc Bodez, Brentano's last proprietors, could not keep up with soaring inner-city rent. The BNP had raised it from 75,000 euros a year to 200,000.
Independent bookshops have been closing everywhere in the world, but they are better protected in France than most places because the law does not allow price discounting. Brentano's suffered from the lower prices for English-languages books on the big internet chains.
And almost no-one sells books in the prized retail zone between the Louvre and the Opéra. A nearby exception remains WH Smiths', the branch of the UK chain on the rue de Rivoli opposite the Tuileries gardens. Another is Galignani, an historic shop also on the Rue de Rivoli. And of course there is always Shakespeare & Co on the Left Bank. Here's a list of English-language bookstores in Paris
And it's not just Brentano's who are pulling out of the Opéra quartier. The Times is about to do so too -- after an extraordinary two centuries. We're not closing, just moving, but that's another story to which I shall return.
![Frederic mitterrand[1]](http://timescorrespondents.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451d14e69e201157147e63f970b-300wi "Frederic mitterrand[1]") We were right to expect Nicolas Sarkozy to dismiss Christine Albanel, the Culture Minister who was responsible for the President's ill-fated law against internet piracy. Sarkozy is about to stage one of his splashy personnel coups by replacing Albanel with a well-known character by the name of Mitterrand
The new Monsieur Culture is to be Frédéric Mitterrand, a versatile arts personality, gay activist and television presenter who was a nephew of the late President François Mitterrand. The younger Mitterrand, 61, has just made his first big mistake: he announced his elevation 24 hours before its proclamation by the palace. Sarkozy, who is recasting his government tomorrow, abhors subordinates who jump the gun.
[Wednesday update: Mitterrand's announcement forced the Elysée to name the new government last night. Here's the news from today's paper -- written five minutes after the announcement so it's a little sketchy.]
Because of the family name, Mitterrand's appointment to a plum Cabinet post has been depicted by some as a new ouverture, Sarkozy's term for his recruitment of people from the left. Mitterrand, whose late father Robert was the elder brother of the Socialist president, supported his uncle in the 1980s, when he was rising on state television as an arts presenter and commentator on European royalty. But in 1995, Frédéric threw in his lot with the then presidential candidate Jacques Chirac, Sarkozy's party boss who succeeded François Mitterrand that year. The new minister is seen by the lefty Paris cultural establishment as something of a dilettante and courtier. However Pierre Bergé, the former partner of Yves Saint Laurent and senior figure in the left-leaning gay establishment applauded his appointment.
Sarkozy had already promoted Mitterrand and put many cultural noses out of joint only last year when he made him boss of Villa Médicis, the French cultural academy in Rome. The post is one of the jewels distributed by Republican monarchs to those who enjoy their favour. On TV today, Mitterrand called his new job "an exhilarating task and an honour." The Elysée Palace refused to confirm it. Asked if his late uncle would have approved his decision to join Sarkozy's government, he said: "Certainly!"
Mitterrand has enjoyed moderate success as a writer and film director and producer but he is a household face, at least for the older generation, from his television days in the 1980s and '90s. He is admired as one of the first campaigners for gay rights. His creation in 1977 of a Festival of Homosexual Film was brave for the times. In recent years he has been one of the bosses of Pink TV, France's first gay cable channel.
Mitterrand's gayness will not be a first in the Culture post, a job which in France commands much greater money (2.8 billion euros) and power than arts officials in other democracies. But his background as a homosexual rights campaigner is useful for Sarkozy's goal of diversity in his administration.
The President has been hinting at surprises in what he says will be his "second government". Among these will be the identify of the one or more new ethnic personalities who will inherit the diversity role played by Rachida Dati, the outgoing Justice Minister. It is assumed that François Fillon is staying on as Prime Minister, although Sarkozy's direct management of the state has cut the function down to a sort of chief of staff.
Sarkozy laid out his aims for this second phase of his presidency before a solemn ceremonial session of both houses of parliament in the Château de Versailles yesterday. Among other things, he condemned face-covering by Islamic women (see last post).
The grandiose exercise in self-promotion, made possible by Sarkozy's changes to the constitution last year, played into the hands of the left and media critics who depict him as a would-be successor to Louis XIV and France's other absolute monarchs. They might have a point, given that he is appointing as guardian of the Republic's culture a man who is a famous admirer of European monarchy and its rituals.
[Below: Sarkozy arriving at Versailles for his speech]
A hundred years ago, Louis Blériot, Louis Bréguet and other pioneers decided that aviation was more than a branch of the rising automobile industry. To boost their fledgling pastime, they staged the first 'International Exposition of Aerial Locomotion' at the Grand Palais in Paris.
Their successors opened the 100th anniversary edition of the Paris Air Show today at Le Bourget, the historic airport in the northern outskirts, but there is not much celebrating. Today's heavy rain is in tune with the glum mood at le Bourget, which alternates years with Farnborough, England, as the world's main industry gathering. Gleaming military and civilian jets, helicopters and other flying machines are all on show as usual, but spirits have been dampened by three factors -- the global slump, unease over the crash of Air France Flight 447 and the swine 'flu epidemic
Since airlines are expected to suffer a 12 percent drop in revenue this year, many are cancelling orders already placed with Airbus, Boeing and the other makers. The possible global 'flu pandemic is also raising doubts about the prospects for short-term recovery.
Also worrying the industry is the unexplained catastrophe that hit the Air France A330 Airbus with 228 souls on board over the Atlantic on its flight from Rio to Paris on June 1. No airline disaster for decades has had such implications for an industry that thought that it had licked the technical side of Blériot's sport.
A century since Blériot coaxed his flimsy 'flying motor cycle' across the sea from Calais to Dover [picture above], man has mastered the mechanics. With modern construction and infallible computers, modern airliners are not supposed to vanish in the night. "It is safe to say that the aviation community is still in some shock," Tom Enders, the Airbus chief executive, said last week.
David Learmount, safety editor of Flight International, said in today's Financial Times: "An event like this is the kind the aviation world hoped it would not see again because it involves a world-class carrier flying the latest generation of airliner and it occurred en route, not during take-off of landing in difficult weather."
The speculation over Flight 447 rages on as new shreds of evidence emerge. The original theory seems to hold. The jet broke up at altitude after suffering a rapid but not instantaneous, emergency. Debris was scattered over a very wide radius. Brazilian autopsies on the 44 bodies recovered so far show that the passengers and crew were not prepared for trouble and died either in the shock of the break-up and depressurization or on hitting the water. None drowned.
Suspicion still points at the mix of factors that emerged immediately after the accident. Speed readings (from the pitot tubes) were faulty, there was a problem with the electronic flight system and the aircraft went out of control, possibly stalling or overspeeding.
A US airline pilot and accident expert who reads this blog has sent me a copy of an Airbus bulletin to airlines issued after the Qantas A330 episode last October. It describes a sequence of electronic failures very similar to what AF447 appears to have suffered. The Australian crew were able to pull their jet out of its dive. Stewarts Law, a London-based aviation law firm dealing with the Qantas case, told me that there are parallels with AF447.
A new element in AF 447 is speculation over the vertical stabiliser (tail) which was found by the Brazilians last week [picture above]. Some engineers and other specialists are wondering if the tail might have sheered off because of a structural flaw as the plane was struggling for control in heavy turbulence. American Airlines Flight 557, an Airbus A300, crashed in Queens, New York, in 2001 after its tail broke off and fell into Jamaica bay. Excessive control inputs by a pilot were blamed.
If they don't find the black box flight recorders, the BEA, the French accident investigation bureau, may never be able to do more than conclude with a supposition. Paul-Louis Arslanian, the head of the BEA -- which is based at le Bourget -- warned last week that this might be the case. Either way, confidence in the Airbus and all high-tech airliners will be shaken.
You could sense the public anxiety at my humble level of flying this weekend. It was open day at Enghien-Moisselles, our little aerodrome which is two minutes flight north of Le Bourget. The Cessnas, Robins and other small planes were out on display on the grass. Visitors kept asking about pitot tubes. I showed the pitot on my old Robin Aiglon and explained that the plane can take off and fly even with the tube blocked and no airspeed registering. That's the advantage of having no computer. We have a few electronics though. The air force has stationed two uniformed air controllers in our club house to make sure, via radar transponder codes, that none of us strays into Le Bourget's space.
The public displays at le Bourget start this weekend. There is a lot to see, including a flying Blériot plane and a breathtaking performance by la Patrouille de France, the air force display team [below]. The Patrouille, which now includes one female pilot, has been absent from le Bourget since the 1970s
We try to avoid poking fun at Nicolas Sarkozy for his short stature, but sometimes the French President sets himself up for a little mockery. Here's a classic example, taken at Saturday's D-Day commemoration in Normandy.
Speaking from the same podium as Barack Obama, Sarkozy added about six inches to his five feet five by standing on a little stool. Added to his custom-crafted elevator shoes, this took him up to the same altitude as the six-feet-two US president.
Sarkozy is naturally sensitive about his lack of height and it may not be fair to focus on it. For centuries, sneering about small Frenchmen has been a standard in the anti-French armoury of the English and later the "Anglo-Saxon" world. Try Googling "little Frenchmen", and you get the point -- or look at the comments that land on this blog -- mainly from the United States -- when we get into French-bashing territory.
Napoleon Bonaparte measured five feet six inches in his stockings, which was not small for the late 18th century. But Boney was diminished by English propaganda, which depicted him as a power-mad midget. It's interesting to note that Bonaparte's nick-name, le petit caporal, the little corporal, was an affectionate term coined by the soldiers under his early command.
Jump ahead two centuries and the British are still at it. Here is Stephen Glover, a serious journalist, venting on Sarkozy in the mid-market Daily Mail two weeks ago: "This diminutive egomaniac is increasingly becoming an embarrassment to his countrymen, and a laughing stock to the rest of Europe..." If you dig back to 1805, I'm sure you will find similar words written about Bonaparte.
The Mail article, which depicted the French as collaborationist cowards, was a rant of a kind that would be deemed crude and racist if it had been written about just about any other nation. No French newspaper would indulge in verbal abuse about a foreign leader like that, but mocking the ancestral enemy is a time-honoured sport in Britain.
Sarkozy is something of an exception among recent French leaders. For 30 of the past 50 years, they have been quite tall. Charles de Gaulle stood six feet four inches tall and Jacques Chirac is six feet two.
Having said that, Sarkozy's petite taille is a talking point and subject of mockery in France too (see cartoon from le Canard Enchaîné below). Everyone from serious biographers like Catherine Nay to the man in the local bistrot will tell you that it's important to understanding his psychology. He has spent his life compensating, goes the cliché.
It's part of his view of himself as a scrappy outsider who had to fight harder than anyone to reach the top. During his 2007 election campaign he took pride in describing himself as "un petit Français de sang mêlé" -- a little Frenchman of mixed blood. Petit in this sense also means ordinary, but is still carries the image of height. Sarkozy likes to surround himself with small lieutenants, men such as Bernard Kouchner, the Foreign Minister, and Jean-Louis Borloo, who heads a super-ministry covering the environment and transport. His arch enemies, Jacques Chirac and Dominique de Villepin, Chirac's former Prime Minister, are of tall, aristocratic build. Sarkozy always chooses tall women. All three of his wives have been taller than him. The latest one, Carla Bruni, a former super-model, wears flat-soled ballerina shoes and stoops in order to minimise her superior five-inches. In the cartoon, she is saying: "You've grown again, pussycat." Sarkozy, in elevator shoes and standing on a classic French novel, says: "I make figures say what I want."
The physical mockery of first families is not all one-way. French comedians and commentators have been having fun with Michelle Obama, focusing on her considerable size. Nicolas Canteloup, the very popular satirist on Europe 1 radio, imagined her the other day as a rugby player knocking over Sarko.
Here they all are in Caen this week
Nicolas Sarkozy has good reason for congratulating himself today. Despite his unpopularity, his UMP party arrived far ahead of the opposition in yesterday's voting for the European parliament.
The President's side certainly won but another star emerged as the surprise moral victor of the voting: Daniel Cohn-Bendit, 64, the impish German leftist and hero of the 1968 Paris student revolt. His green group, called Ecologie Europe, almost beat the opposition Socialist party.
It's true that only 40 percent of voters bothered to turn out yesterday and that the left was fragmented by a proliferation of little parties, but it was still the first time for decades that France's governing party came so far ahead in a Euro-election.
The Socialists, the main opposition, were routed, winning only 17 percent compared with Sarkozy's 28 percent. "We are not yet credible," said Martine Aubry, the recently-appointed party leader, who was struggling to hold back her tears. "The Socialists need a major renovation." François Bayrou, the centrist would-be president, was humiliated with a mere 8 percent for his MoDem party.
Cohn-Bendit is the man of the day because of the surprise 16 percent third place of his green group. "Danny the Red" gave up revolution long ago, but his cheeky, subversive style charmed voters into supporting his motley band of green personalities. These included Eva Joly, a Norwegian-born French anti-corruption judge and José Bové, the anti-capitalist campaigner who became a celebrity when he demolished a McDonald's outlet in 1999. The Ecologists won 16 percent, which took them within a hair's breadth of beating the venerable Socialists. In Paris they demolished the Socialists, taking 27 percent, only two points behind Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement.
[Picture: Danny the Red in 1968]
![Cohn_bendit[1]](http://timescorrespondents.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451d14e69e2011570d62bf4970b-300wi)
The greens benefited from the Socialists' collapse and Bayrou's manic vendetta against the person of Sarkozy. Bayrou helped Cohn-Bendit at the last minute with a personal attack on television in which he accused him of paedophile behaviour. The charge arose from an old controversy about a 1975 book in which Cohn-Bendit appeared to excuse sexual relationships between adults and children. That might have sunk a politician in another country, but French voters told pollsters that Bayrou damaged himself by looking vindictive.
The greens benefited from an energetic campaign and also from l'air du temps -- the positive mood over saving the planet. The greens are in tune with the idealism that drives politics more in France than, say, the Anglo-Saxon world. And they got an extraordinary election-eve boost from a sumptuous film on the plight of the planet that was shown on state television and released in cinemas on Friday night.
Called Home, the film is a 12-million euro homage to the earth that was shot over two years by Yann Arthus-Bertrand [below], a photographer who has made his name with spectacular nature reportage taken from helicopters and other aircraft. He is an admired celebrity in France and the film, financed by the PPR luxury fashion and retail group, was given huge publicity.
Likened by the media to Al Gore's film on climate change, Home was watched by eight million on television and by many more in open-air projections in Paris, London, New York and other cities. An edited version is online free here. It's worth watching for its beauty, though it has been criticised an over-aesthetic exercise in consciousness-raising. The spirit of the film was certainly well suited to Paris, with its big lefty bourgeois population.
Green voters said that they had been swayed by the film and Cohn-Bendit welcomed that this morning. "There is an environmentalist sensibility in France. It's possible that this sensibility was activated or re-activated by a film like Home," he said.
Others are crying foul. Jean-Marie Le Pen, the far-right leader whose National Front managed a lowly 6 percent, said: "I want to stress the extravagant, scandalous film Home, which was made to support the candidacy of Cohn-Bendit and José Bové."
European elections do not change much and the environmentalists usually do better in them than in national polls. But Cohn-Bendit's green shock has badly shaken the Socialists and possibly set the scene for big change on the French left ahead of the next presidential vote in 2012. François Bayrou, who styles himself Sarkozy's chief opponent in 2012, may never recover.
[Below: scene from Home]
After Barack Obama's two days in France and Germany, Europe is getting a clearer idea of the way the new US president operates. Lesson number one: he keeps his distance.
In Germany on Friday Chancellor Angela Merkel was put out by Obama's decision to steer clear of Berlin during his flying visit to the Buchenwald concentration camp. In France, Obama's way of imposing his own schedule has been more striking -- to the embarrassment of President Sarkozy.
As I write on Sunday morning, the US imperial cavalcade (30 vehicles), has just driven up to the Pompidou Centre. The Obama family are visiting the modern art museum before the President flies home and leaves Michelle and the children to lunch with Nicolas and Carla Sarkozy and their four offspring at the Elysée Palace (There's an echo of Sarkozy's 2007 barbecue with George W Bush at Kennebunkport, when Cecilia Sarkozy, the President's then wife, failed to turn up.)
In 39 hours in France, staying in Paris a one-minute walk from the presidential palace, Obama was unable to find a moment to accept Sarkozy's repeated invitations to drop by. They had a 20 minute working lunch with their advisers yesterday in Normandy but Obama has also had time to take his family to Notre Dame cathedral and to dinner at La Fontaine de Mars, a good brasserie near the Eiffel tower (230 euros for their dinner in a private upstairs room, with water, no wine).
Sarkozy could not hide his disappointment when they appeared yesterday in Caen, but he has clearly got the message. Theirs is a good working relationship but Obama is not out to play buddy-buddy with Sarko or any other European leader (Gordon Brown of Britain included).
Obama was tackled on the coolness in Caen. He insisted, of course, that he was excellent friends with "President Sarkozy" (who called him Barack). They also performed a high-five handshake for the cameras [top picture]. "I have a very tough schedule and I would love nothing more than to have a leisurely week in Paris, stroll down the Seine, take my wife out to a nice meal, have a picnic in Luxembourg Gardens," he replied. "I think it's very important to understand that good friends don't worry about the symbols and the conventions and the protocols."
Note that his leisure wish-list did not include the socialising with Carla and Nicolas that the French President had longed for. The Obama froideur was the top story in Le Journal du Dimanche this morning, above reports on yesterday's moving ceremonies at Omaha beach (which Gordon Brown pathetically mis-called 'Obama Beach' in his speech).
The Sarkozy administration is suffering from the unpleasant feeling of having been taken for a ride, reported the JDD. "Obama did not snub the French president in particular, but he refuses to play the game of familiarity with his peers," it said.
There is also the question of opposing personalities. "The American president is a man of reflection who turned himself into a man of action while Nicolas Sarkozy is above all famous for his spontaneity," said Simon Serfaty of the Washington International Institute for Strategic Studies.
[picture: The Obamas visit Notre Dame cathedral]
Watching the ceremonies yesterday, you got the impression that Obama was the host and Sarkozy the guest. That was certainly true in the commemoration in the Colleville US cemetery, by Omaha beach, which is US territory in perpetuity. But it also seemed to be the case in the prefecture (government headquarters) in Caen, where Sarkozy deferred to Obama. The US President led the press conference which, incidentially, the Americans did not want but the French insisted on.
I don't want to play the indignant Briton, but there was an impression of excessive American power, as usual in these events. There was of course the huge deployment in Paris and Normandy of manpower and carbon-gushing hardware -- jumbo jets, helicopters and the motorcade of behemoths -- much of it built by bankrupt General Motors. There was also the familiar impression in the ceremonies and media cover that the D-Day landings were an American affair in which Britain played a small supporting role (Brown's Obama beach didn't help). The France 2 main evening news last night referred to "the US landing in Normandy" and spent an inordinate amount of time covering Tom Hanks and his role in D-Day.
The impression of a purely Franco-American event was nicely summed up by Didier Porte, a humourist on France-Inter, the main public radio network. "The British just can't stop interfering with their disinformation. This is especially the case when they spread the rumour that they somehow took part in the Normandy landings in 1944. That's nonsense!"
Barack Obama is not doing anything to help Nicolas Sarkozy. Three days from the US leader's arrival for his D-Day weekend, he is keeping his distance from the French president who was so eager to welcome him.
The White House's coolness has added to embarrassment at the Elysée Palace over the way they have bungled what Sarkozy wanted to be a supreme Franco-American moment in Paris and especially Normandy. The final straw for Paris was the White House's undiplomatic public reproach this week to Sarkozy for failing to invite the British Queen to the 6th of June ceremony.
Obama is turning up in Paris on Friday evening, but spending the evening privately with Michelle and his entourage. He is not due to see Sarkozy and Carla Bruni at the Elysée. Their only tête-à-tête will be in the Normandy town of Caen on Saturday. The Americans have refused a French request for the two men to hold a joint press conference. The D-Day ceremony at the US cemetery at Colleville, by Omaha beach, has now been widened to include Britain's Gordon Brown and Prince Charles and Stephen Harper, the Canadian Prime Minister. Then Michelle Obama is staying on in Paris on a private visit for several days.
The Elysée is exasperated with the Americans, Europe 1 radio reported this morning. "Barack Obama has truly done nothing to give value to his relations with Nicolas Sarkozy," said their breakfast news.
The trouble began, not because Sarkozy did not invite the Queen, but because of the off-hand way that his team reacted when a couple of British newspapers kicked up the "royal snub" fuss last week. This D-Day was a Franco-American celebration, the government's spokesman said. The Queen could come another year.
The leftwing media and opposition have been laying into Sarkozy, saying he had behaved like an oaf [goujat -- see comments below], as the Canard Enchaîné did today, in failing to invite the British. François Bayrou, Sarkozy's chief opponent from the centre, said he had been "crude and ungrateful" and "damaged the image of France".
Le Canard summed it up: "Sarkozy has managed a double hit: insulting Queen Elizabeth and exasperating Obama."
We know about Michelle Obama's French plans because her husband announced them in his first interview for French TV last night. Talking to Canal+, he rather damned Sarkozy with faint praise."Your President Sarkozy I think has been very courageous in some of the decisions he has made".The two examples he cited were Sarkozy's support for the US in Afghanistan and over Iran.
Asked what he loved about France, Obama replied: "Let's see. We have the food. We have Paris. We got the south of France -- Provence. The wine." Obama said that he had travelled in the south when he was at college. He also admitted forgetting all his high school French. "Michelle I think speaks a little."
 Trust the British to spoil Nicolas Sarkozy's plan for a dream day with Barack Obama. The French president managed after much arm-twisting last month to persuade the US leader to drop in on the Normandy beaches on June 6 to commemorate the D-Day landings of 1944 and celebrate Franco-American ties.
Sarkozy's big moment began to sour when the British, then the Canadians, Poles and other wartime allies wondered why they had not been asked to join the two presidents at the US cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, by Omaha beach. Sarkozy was annoyed at the idea of sharing his golden photo-opportunity but invitations went out. Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister, agreed to attend along with other allied officials.
But the Elysée Palace failed to factor in British emotion over the war, ancient suspicion of France and the skill of the British media at whipping the two together. So today the Daily Mail, a mass-market paper, reported "fury" in Buckingham palace over Sarkozy's failure to invite the Queen.
In reality, we are told that there is no anger and no perceived snub. The Royal family had not expected to be invited and had not put out feelers, a senior British official told me. The Queen attended ceremonies in Normandy for the 50th and 60th anniversaries, but the 65th was not planned as an international event.
[Thursday update: for French tv viewers. Canal+ have asked me to talk about this on Le Grand Journal this evening, after 7pm]
The French are annoyed by the snub story. Luc Chatel, the Minister who acts as government spokesman, said that Her Majesty was absolutely welcome if she wanted to come. It was not up to Paris to designate who represented Britain. "Our interlocutors are members of the British Government who wanted to associate themselves with a ceremony that was Franco-American at the outset," said Chatel. This year's event is about the US-French relationship and there will be other D-Days, he added.
You can hear the irritation there. It's also evident in the confusion over what Gordon Brown and the other allied officials will do on June 6. Sarkozy is still hoping to be alone at least part of the time as the guest of Obama at the Colleville cemetery (which is US territory in perpetuity). The French plan a Sarkozy-Obama tête-à-tête and and there will be a three-way meeting with Brown. The Elysée Palace and Downing Street have still not settled on a programme.
In other words, this looks like a mess, another case of Sarkozy over-reaching and putting up backs with his self-promotion.
Past US Presidents have attended purely bilateral ceremonies with French leaders at Omaha beach, but never on June 6 itself. Sarkozy should have known that D-Day, in which 73,000 British forces came ashore, is as sacred to the British as the Americans. Some might have told him that he would court trouble by trying to mark the 65th anniversary without them. That is especially the case as the dwindling British veterans' organisations say that this will be their last Normandy commemoration.
The criticism is not just British. It came with force today from Jean-Michel Aphatie, a commentator who is feared in the political world. Sarkozy's attempt to stage an epic lone appearance with Obama was a huge mistake, Aphatie wrote on the internet. "It is impossible to honour the memory of the dead without associating the leaders of the countries which took part in the sacrifice...French diplomacy has landed itself in a glorious mess."
"This episode illustrates an obsession of French leaders: forever measuring themselves against American power. We live in the illusion of a tête-à-tête with America..."
[Picture: Colleville cemetery, Normandy, where over 9,000 US servicement are buried]
Spot the common factor among the following:
-- A train crash that paralyzed rail service between Paris and Bordeaux all day on Wednesday.
-- Plans this week to introduce guilty pleas in French criminal courts
-- The anguish of thousands of university students who are not prepared for end-of-year examinations next month.
The answer is not Nicolas Sarkozy. The common thread is the free market, or more precisely France's reflexive suspicion and fear of "Anglo-Saxon liberalism". Sarkozy is behind two of the three items. The case of the universities is the most immediately damaging, but first, in order:
The unions and left are blaming the train crash in the western Charente département on the opening of rail freight to commercial operators. No-one was injured but the accident was spectacular. A load of tractor diggers on a German-operated train ripped the side off a passing state railways locomotive.
According to the unions and leftwing parties, the accident was the consequence of the deregulation of rail freight that the European Union supposedly forced on France. Britain's disastrous privatised system is always held up as the example of how not to run a railroad.
In reality, the crash had nothing to do with the new rules -- introduced in 2006 before Sarkozy was elected. "Privatisation" is limited to allowing some competition for freight services. France reluctantly agreed to this to conform to EU single market rules. Dominique Bussereau, the transport minister, pointed out that the badly-loaded goods wagon was being hauled by German state railways and that foreign trains have been using French rails for over a century.
On the law courts, the traditionalists and the left are up in arms over a supposed attempt by President Sarkozy to sell out France's Republican criminal court system and replace it with Anglo-Saxon rough justice.
We've visited Sarkozy's court reforms before. What's new are the proposals this week for revamping the assizes, the jury courts which try the most serious crimes. The judicial unions are upset over two items. One is the introduction of guilty pleas, in the style of English law.
The idea is to free-up the hugely overloaded courts. In France, assize cases are given a full court trial with all the witnesses and evidence even when the defendant admits guilt. The reform, say the critics, will create cut-price "American-style" justice with plea-bargaining and pressure on those who cannot afford lawyers to plead guilty. Sarkozy has already introduced the system in lower courts.
Judges and prosecutors (who are also judges) are also resisting Sarkozy's plans to reform the court structure. He wants judges to become referees, in the English-law style, rather than super-prosecutors, as they are under France's Napoleonic law system. Prosecutors would then plead their cases as adversaries of the defence lawyers rather than high accusers. This, according to the unions and traditionalists, boils down to "privatising" criminal justice.
On the Universities, the academic year has been disrupted and, in some establishments, ruined, by a campaign of strikes and "blocages" by staff and students in protest against Sarkozy's reforms. The protesters at the Sorbonne in Paris and most of the remaining hotbeds of strife caved in this week and went back to work, but months of disruption by a militant minority has wasted a year for many students around France -- and the parents and tax-payers who finance them.
The protesters accuse Sarkozy of "privatising" the state university system. This, they say, is his secret agenda though all he has done is grant limited autonomy to university directors and encouraged competition among establishments. The protesters are also resisting changes to teaching duties by research staff but it is not clear what their objection is.
French universities have long been neglected. They are starved of resources compared with the well-endowed grandes écoles which educate the higher achievers. The waste is colossal. A third of the 741,000 undergraduates leave without a degree. Sarkozy's reform, which has already been watered down, is supported by most university chiefs as a move to help France catch up with the rest of the world. It is absurd to claim that the system is being privatised.
The conclusion from all this is that Sarkozy is still pushing on with reforms that he promised in 2007 despite his unpopularity and resistance from the left and traditionalists. He has been giving ground on some fronts, like health, where he hit resistance against plans to put managers rather than doctors in charge of hospitals. But his persistence is remarkable at a time when the old dirigiste République has been given new legitimacy by the financial crisis.
Sarkozy is no free marketeer in the Anglo-American sense. He is the first to use his formidable presidential power to shore up the old interventionist system and he has dropped the free market rhetoric that took him to office in 2007. But he is pragmatic and is largely sticking to his project for fixing what does not work in France.
There's no simple English word for dépaysement, the sense of disorientation when you arrive in another place or another country. You feel it most crossing continents and time zones, but after all these years I'm still struck by how much it hits you after a quick train trip under the Channel.
A couple of days in England have been a reminder that the big island off the western continent still feels separate despite everything that has harmonised and homogenised Europe -- football, the single market, the internet, the Eurovision song contest (Norway won, France came eighth on Saturday). Here are some random notes.
Emerging from Paris into the London morning rush-hour, I feel like the country mouse arriving in the city -- le rat des champs who has come to town. It's big, fast and noisy. Paris transport is sometimes crowded but it's like the village bus compared with the Underground with its masses sweeping you along while loudspeakers bark orders and announcements.
But the jostling is good humoured. There's give-and-take in the crowd, which is more multicoloured and scruffy than on the French side. The once discreet English are now the noise-makers of Europe. English pubs are one of the country's big attractions, but the din surprises continentals. On suburban trains people talk loudly on mobile phones sharing their lives with the whole carriage.
There's more bustle in London. The city feels more alive, even if bankers and foreign billionaires have dwindled. Paper sellers shout the news. In cafes, pubs and on transport, people carry and read newspapers in a way you do not see in Paris. Another difference is service. In Britain, like the US, it is friendlier and faster because there are more personnel. In France, with high payroll charges and heavy job protection, proprietors hire the minimum so assistants and serving staff are in short supply and over-stretched.
The media talk of quite different subjects. Putting aside Hollywood stars, rock idols and supermodels, the celebrity cast is completely different. France worries about Jenifer. In Britain it's Jade. And away from posters for fashion chains and car brands, British and French advertising are still oceans apart. The British turns on urban humour and social status. The French plays on old-fashioned glamour, romance and also the absurd, with such things as dancing insurance agents.
The recession and unemployment have hit both sides of the Channel, but preoccupations are not in phase. France is worried about social conflict, street revolt and disruption in hospitals and universities. It has a strong, hyper-active leader whose exploits are a source of both fascination and infuriation.
In England, there is a sense of political collapse and drift, with a discredited government stumbling through a long fin de régime. A certain sadistic glee has greeted the drawn-out revelations of mass expense-fiddling by members of parliament. In France they would be shrugging this off with a "tous pourris" -- they're all rotten. Politicans' morality is not an issue here at the moment [post last week].
Sport is often seen as the area in which Europe has converged most. But that's really only because of football, a pastime now dominated by English clubs who depend on French players. France takes seriously such things as volleyball and handball. England has cricket. On Saturday, my French companion gave up after I tried to explain the point as 13 men in white performed the ritual on wet grass in a west Sussex village.
The cost of living is worrying France, but with the cushion of the welfare state, people do not talk money as much as the British. The English middle classes obsess about house prices, schools and health care in a way that you do not hear in France. Yet you get the impression that there is still more money for spending in England. Shops are full and in the southeast, at least, the cars are still flashier than in France.
There is one big change. Britain no longer feels like the most expensive place in Europe. The crash of sterling over the past year makes London affordable. This makes a visit to London especially welcome to continent-dwellers who are paid in pounds and have suffered a 30 percent drop in euro income. But even with the devalued currency, Britain retains the crown for Europe's most expensive rail transport. I'm still smarting from the 16 pounds (17.6 euros) that I was charged at the luggage depot at Victoria station for leaving two small bags for seven hours.
[Below: an island ritual which has never quite taken off on the continent]
It's that time of the year again when a French artiste goes to the Eurovision song contest and gets hammered by the Croats, Turks, Estonians and other entrants in the world championship of kitsch. But hold on. Tomorrow night's final might be different. France is fielding a real star: Patricia Kaas.
English-speakers may never have heard of her, but Kaas, 42, is a fine pop singer with a gutsy cabaret style who has a big following on the continent and especially in Germany and eastern Europe. Picking Kaas was clever because she is very popular in Russia. Moscow is hosting the show after walking away with last year's prize thanks to the telephone vote from the former Soviet republics. Listen above to her entry, S'il Fallait le Faire, from her latest album Kabaret. The 1930s cabaret mood, fits the current depressed climate too.
Kaas [right] is running about fifth in the British betting odds, well behind the favourite, Norway's Alexander Rybak, a 22-year-old whose song Fairytale is accompanied by a folk dance group. But the French singer has President Sarkozy's government rooting for her. Alain Joyandet, Minister for Overseas Cooperation and the French language, is going to Moscow to cheer her on. You might remember that the government disowned last year's French entrant, Sébastien Tellier, because he sang in English -- like most of the other contestants. The language wheeze didn't work for him. He came in at 18th out of 25. France has not won since 1977.
We all know that the Eurovision contest, founded in 1956 to promote postwar fraternity, is a festival of novelty acts and low-grade Europop. In 1974, though, it did manage to launch the career of a Swedish act called Abba. Yes the contest is only taken seriously by small or neurotic nations. But 42 countries have entered this year and up to 150 million people will watch the final live. I have to confess to enjoying the show, with all its silliness, awful music and patriotic emotion. Perhaps it's because as a teenager I had a crush on Sandie Shaw, a barefoot popster who won with Puppet on a String [in picture]. 
Britain is also making more of an effort this year after coming bottom last May. The venerable Andrew Lloyd Webber is accompanying Jade Ewen in one of his own songs. And juries have been re-introduced in order to make the voting a little less political than it has been from the TV viewers.
Kaas, whose mother was German and hails from the frontier region of Lorraine, says she does not see Eurovision as a joke. "I'm going there to win, but if I manage to be in the first five that's fine," she told Libération. "At the beginning the idea surprised me. It's usually beginners who go to Eurovision... but I said why not. I see it like a sporting event like the Olympic games." If Kaas cannot do well, there's no hope for the Eurovision contest.
On the subject of great pop artists, Johnny Hallyday, France's eternal rocker, has just started his farewell tour. And I take him seriously too. Here's my story from the paper.
France is amused, along with everyone else, by the fuss over the fanciful expenses of British members of parliament. All those claims for castle repairs and tennis court maintenance are good for a laugh. No-one could imagine such a scandal occurring in France for a simple reason: members of the government and parliament don't have to account for their expenses.
Unlike parliamentarians in northern Europe, French députés and senators do not have to hand in receipts or explain how they dispose of the fixed 70,000 euros that they receive annually to cover their their spending on housing, offices and transport. The European Parliament still uses largely the same method, to the disgust of the northerners and delight of Eurosceptics. Luxurious style and lavish perks are expected by French ministers and other high servants of the state and few see anything wrong with this.
Laurent Joffrin, editor of Libération, tried to explain on the radio this morning why France tolerates and even rather approves of the regal life-style of its ruling class. "There are two reasons: we have a culture of secrecy about money and also a reverence towards people in power," he said. "The Anglo-Saxons and Nordic states have a quite different culture. They don't have our delicacy about money."
Joffrin traced the attitude back to revolutionary days when the rulers of the young Republic sought to impose their legitimacy by looking like the old caste of the monarchy and aristocracy. "Napoleon said the prefect's (local governor's) house had to be as impressive as that of the nobleman." he said.
In the same debate, on France-Info, Michel Colomès, a magazine journalist, said people do not expect high dignitaries to live like ordinary people. "I don't think the French would want to see our prime minister living with the same life-style as the premiers in northern Europe," he said.
The subject came up because, parallel to the British scandal, an unusual glimpse of French ministerial spending has emerged this week. It came from René Dosière, a leftwing parliamentarian who has for years been trying to pierce the secrecy that surrounds the state aristocracy. It was Dosière who, a few years ago, exposed the way that French Presidents enjoyed an unlimited, secret budget, drawn from a number of ministries. President Sarkozy reformed this up to a point. He still lives like a king -- though that is probably the wrong expression since some of Europe's royal houses live modestly in comparison.
This time, Dosière used his parliamentary rights to force reluctant ministries to produce their running expenses. He got the figures after eight months but only one, the Justice Ministry, gave much detail. Among other things, we learn that Rachida Dati, the Minister, has put a fleet of 20 cars with 19 drivers at the permanent service of her 20 personal staff. Madame Dati [pictured above in her office] and her ministry on the Place Vendôme spent 270,000 euros last year on receptions and meals. She clocked up 416,370 euros on air travel for herself and advisers. Much or perhaps all of that was legitimate, but there's no way of knowing. Christine Albanel, the Culture Minister (see last post) beat Dati on the travel front, spending 562,346 euros on flights.
Dati, who is about to leave office, does not live in the official residence which is provided for her, unlike many other ministers. Scandals occasionally break when ministers go too far on that front. Hervé Gaymard, a Finance Minister under President Chirac, was forced to resign after only a few weeks in 2005 after it was revealed that the state was renting a palatial apartment for his family because he considered that his official residence was not grand enough. As a result of this, ministers are now expected to pay some of the running charges of their mansions. That is a change from the days when President Mitterrand managed to house his secret second family at state expense in a sumptuous apartment for over a decade and no-one raised an eye-brow when the news came out in the mid 90s.
Dosière, who is regarded by fellow parliamentarians as something of an eccentric, commented drily in Le Monde today: "The culture of monitoring public spending is not very developed in France, at least it's not much liked in the ministries.... Our administration is not yet used to transparency."
Say the word France and the images that flash to mind will probably include Paris and some sunny, lavender-tinted scene from Provence. Since 1976, the Provence area is part of the entity known as Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur and there lies a problem.
Since the name is a mouthful, everyone uses the acronym PACA for the administrative region which encompasses some of Europe's most sublime geography. As a word, Paca is ugly and the source of jokes, such as pacapable -- a pun on pas capable or incapable. Michelle Vauzelle, the leftwing President of the Paca, wants to ditch the embarrassing name, which he calls an insult to the history of his region of five million people. "We have a name that has deeply handicapped us," said Vauzelle. "I was welcomed in Algeria the other day as President of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) and Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Agneau (lamb chop)."
Vauzelle [below] is planning a referendum but he may find that he has stirred up more trouble than he bargained for.
Previous efforts to change the name have fallen foul of local sensitivities -- in particular of the pride of Nice. The old port city, hometown of Guiseppe Garibaldi, was Italian until the king of Sardinia gave it to France in 1860. It is an ancestral rival to Marseilles, the Provençal port to the west. Les Niçois do not like being lumped in with les Provençaux. If it were not for them, Vauzelle would probably get everyone to plump for just Provence, an historic name with global brand recognition. This has worked for the Auvergne, Alsace, Brittany and the other modern regions which re-adopted old provincial names. The people in the high Alps -- historically linked to the Dauphiné region -- would also like to be recognised in the name, but passions there are not as high as down on the coast.
To accommodate the Niçois, the name Provence-Méditerrannée is being touted. The trouble with that is that it does not answer one of the main complaints about Paca -- what you call the inhabitants. The current Pacaiens sounds bizarre and too close to paiens, or pagans. The point is important because French politicians like to address their people by the place name. Starting a speech or a letter "Chers Auvergnates et auvergnats" works. So to a lesser extent does "Chers Françiliens" -- the recent coinage for the Ile-de-France, or Paris region. They need something snappy like that to replace Paca. People in Nice will certainly not accept Chers Provençaux.
One exemple not to follow is the thankfully vain name-change that was attempted a few years ago by Georges Frêche, the longtime Socialist godfather of the Languedoc-Roussillon, just west of the Paca. He wanted to rebaptise the region Septimanie. That comes from its Roman name Septimania, but sounds more like a disease. [below: PACA logo]
Vauzelle is asking for suggestions which he would like to put to a popular vote. La Provence, a Marseilles newspaper, is also running a debate on the subject. Some ideas, such as Région Soleil, are pretty lame. People there have also pointed out that Cote d'Azur is a fairly corny name, bestowed on the Riviera for marketing purposes in the 1890s. l'Unioun Prouvençalo, a regionalist movement, is insisting on straight Provence. "The name is an economic and historic asset," it says. Some opponents of Vauzelle want him to leave the subject alone. Jean-Claude Gaudin, rightwing Mayor of Marseilles and a former Paca president, says the exercise will just lead to trouble.
Maybe we can come up with some suggestions for Vauzelle (whom I used to know when he was spokesman for President Mitterrand). I'll forward them to him.
------------------------
PACA consists of six departements: Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, Alpes-Maritimes, Bouches-du-Rhone, Hautes-Alpes, Var and Vaucluse.
[Below: Marseilles]
![Bongo-sarkozy[1]](http://timescorrespondents.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451d14e69e20115707bdb46970b-400wi "Bongo-sarkozy[1]")
Here's a case that shows why President Sarkozy will be happy when he enacts his plan to get rid of the institution of the investigating judge. Françoise Desset, the senior juge d'instruction in the fraud division of the Paris courts, has just embarrassed the government by ordering an inquiry into the alleged corruption of three African leaders who are close to Paris.
Desset defied the request of the state prosecutor to halt proceedings and approved a case in which police investigators have already tracked tens of millions of euros of French-based assets belonging to the leaders of Gabon, Republic of Congo (Brazzaville) and Equatorial Guinea. These include mansions, châteaux, Paris apartments, dozens of bank accounts and stables of Ferraris, Porsches and other luxury transport.
The three are Omar Bongo, president of Gabon since 1967, Denis Sassou-Nguesso of the Republic of Congo, and Teodoro Obiang, ruler of Equatorial Guinea. Gabon and the Congo are former French colonies and Bongo, the doyen of African leaders, is an old acquaintance of Sarkozy and a valuable French asset. All three states are part of France-Afrique, the little club of states with close ties to Paris.
When Sarkozy won office in 2007, he promised an end to the cosy relations with unsavoury African clients and sketched a new era "free of the dross of the past." But the President soon found that he could not do without the favours of Bongo, France's oldest African fixer, and it was back to business as usual in France-Afrique.
Some of Gabon's oil wealth has been spread around French ruling circles for decades. Dr Bernard Kouchner, the Foreign Minister, was embarrassed in January when it was revealed that Bongo had recently paid him handsomely as a consultant on his health system. It is not just about money. For example, when Nelson Mandela was reluctant to grant a request by Carla Bruni-Sarkozy for a meeting, Bongo stepped in and organised it. And if France needs to evacuate its citizens from the civil war in Chad, another France-Afrique nation, they will do it through Libreville, the Gabon capital.
The "case of the ill-gotten goods" was brought by the French branch of the anti-corruption watch-dog Transparency International. The group said that the three presidents’ holdings far surpassed their salaries and that corruption has deprived millions of education and medical care. "Every luxury apartment acquired in France means one hospital or school less in Libreville," said William Bourdon, the lawyer for Transparency. The group brought a suit against the three under the French offences of embezzlement of stolen public funds, money-laundering and breach of trust.
According to the police, Bongo and his family own 39 properties, including a villa near the Champs-Élysées, and they hold 70 bank accounts in France. The Sassou-Nguessos have 24 properties and 112 bank accounts. The Obiangs spent more than €4 million on four limousines in Paris.
The judge's decision has infuriated the Elysée Palace and the Foreign Ministry because it has shone a strong light on the continuing seamy side of France's African affairs. On the orders of the Justice Ministry, still run by Sarkozy's protegée Rachida Dati, the prosecutors have filed an appeal. This has halted the inquiry for the time being.
The affair may end there, but damage has been done. In trying to kill the investigation, Sarkozy is certainly behaving no diffferently than pragmatic leaders in other democracies when realpolitik prevails over commitments to ethical foreign policy. But his action conflicts with his promise of a break with the sleazy old ways in Africa. The Transparency lawyer rubbed in the point. “An appeal aimed at putting a lid on this investigation would make a mockery of President Sarkozy’s commitments at the G20 against tax havens, financial crime and international fraud," he said.
Lawyers for the African leaders say that they are victims of a vendetta and that their affairs have nothing to do with French justice. They wonder why investigators are not bothering with the Gulf families which have been buying up chunks of the Champs Elysées and mansions in western Paris.
My point about investigating judges is that this type of inquiry would never have opened under the new system that Sarkozy aims to introduce. This will abolish the juges d'instruction, the independent investigators founded two centuries ago under Napoleon Bonaparte. Some of the judges have in recent decades made life difficult for the ruling classes, exposing corruption in the political and business elite. Sarkozy plans to put investigation in the hands of prosecutors. They report directly to the Justice Ministry and its political master.
[Below: Sarkozy making his case to sceptial juges d'instruction]
As a follow-up to the last post on Sarkozy's new French model for Europe, have a look at the cover of the latest edition of The Economist. Sarkozy towers over Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany while Britain's Gordon Brown wallows in a hole with the Anglo-Saxon model.
The editorial neatly summarises the ideas behind the debate that we're always having here. Naturally it's on the Anglo-Saxon side, but it admits the merits of the continental approach. Their report from inside France, by Sophie Pedder, the Economist's Paris correspondent, is excellent.
Nicolas Sarkozy has just done a favour to British Conservatives and other sceptics who like to see the European Union as a plot for putting a French face on Europe.
Super Sarko used his second anniversary in office to sketch a vision for the Union which fell somewhere between that of the late Charles de Gaulle and the pro-European French leaders of the 1970s and 80s. If Europe follows his recipe, it will be able to pull out of the "deep intellectual and moral crisis" from which it is suffering, he said.
Sarkozy wants a Union with a new "economic government" -- run by the member states not the supranational Brussels Commission. He wants a centralised industrial policy, new tight financial regulations, a closed door to "predators from the world at large". He wants a curb on the free market laws that are policed by Brussels. He also reaffirmed his pledge to stop Turkey ever joining the Union.
Sarko was speaking in Nîmes to kick off the campaign for next month's European Parliament elections but the assembly -- the other supranational pillar of the Union -- got barely a mention in his manifesto for a continent run by the Council of member governments. He shares ground with the British sceptics on that front, but not on much else.
Sarkozy sees the economic slump as a chance to assert France-friendly regulation in the Union after two decades in which, in French eyes, Europe has worshipped at the "liberal" -- meaning free market -- altar. He wants an end to competition among states on tax rates and an end to market rules that block mergers between big European companies, he said. A "European preference" must also be applied to favour the goods and services of the Union over those from outside. That was a Sarkozy campaign promise in 2007, but we had not heard about it since then.
Looking to the outside, Sarkozy said Europe "must cease diluting itself in an endless enlargement. Europe must have frontiers." Turkey could never become a member but should have a special partnership. Russia should have the same, he said. That goes down well in France and Germany but not with Britain -- nor the United States, as we saw when Barack Obama called last month for Turkish EU entry. Sarkozy has not been so tough in practice as in his rhetoric. He has not attempted to stop Ankara's accession negotiations, which began in 2005.
Sarkozy took a few swipes at Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, for not being cooperative enough and he floated another idea: a central agency to purchase the Union's gas supplies. This would prevent the Russians from playing states off against one-another. "Europe must fight to build a true energy policy, which doesn't just involve competition," he said
And French farmers were relieved to hear Sarkozy's pledge to maintain forever the Common Agriculture Policy -- the multi-billion euro subsidy mechanism that distorts the world food market and benefits France more than any other of the 27 member states. Previously, farmers had worried that the city-slicker President might yield to pressure from Britain and other northern states to dismantle their sacred system.
Sarkozy is of course telling voters what they want to hear ahead of an election which will serve as a referendum on his two years in power. He is echoing the public mood. The Socialist opposition wants roughly the same though it disagrees with Sarko's hostility to the Commission and Parliament. Northern Europeans do not generally realise it, but Europe has been widely seen in France for the past 15 years as a British-backed plot to undermine the French welfare state and way of life. Sarkozy is posing as its saviour. Or, in the gushing words of Luc Chatel, the Government spokesman, today: Sarkozy's vigorous leadership has revived in Europe "la pensée universelle française".
Nicolas Sarkozy dislikes anniversaries and plans to ignore his two-year point in the Elysée Palace on Wednesday, but France is taking stock of an eccentric presidency that was born on high hopes and now wallows in deep unpopularity.
Sixty-three per cent have written off Sarkozy's first 24 months as a failure, according to a poll today for Metro newspaper, with only 28 per cent holding a positive opinion.
Sarkozy puts the discontent down to the global slump that hit France just as he was hoping to see results from "la rupture", the clean break that he promised with the country's over-regulated, over-taxed welfare state. He is right in part because the recession has for the time being demolished his vision for a dynamic new France. His promises to reward hard work with prosperity were never as Thatcher-like as they seeemed but they ring hollow now that a fearful France has turned back to the state for succour in the face of unemployment and uncertainty.
But disappointment with "Super Sarko" set in well before America's sub-prime disaster rebounded on the French economy last year. It stemmed from a perception that he was out to help the rich, from his autocratic methods and from the brash new style that he brought to the monarchical presidency.
Instead of retreating to the palace and at least simulating a lofty distance from his government, Sarkozy created a "hyper-presidency", running the country with a handful of advisers and behaving at times more like a self-satisfied television host than father of the nation.
He turned up the gravitas after crashing in opinion polls well before his first anniversary, but France has still not digested the initial "bling-bling" phase, symbolised by his flashy friends and his lightning romance with Carla Bruni, the Italian heiress, singer and former super-model. Sarkozy has still not modified his vulgar side, typified by his slangy language, boasting and fondness for taking swipes at colleagues and fellow leaders with remarks that quickly reach the media.
The aggressive style feeds the sense of injustice that has turned Sarkozy into a hate figure for opponents, mainly on the left, among teachers' unions, students and state sector workers. As we've seen here, many hold Sarkozy personally responsible for factory closures, unemployment and other ills.
The case for the prosecution has just been set out in a book-length diatribe by François Bayrou, the centrist and would-be president who has become Sarkozy's most effective opponent. In Abus de Pouvoir (Abuse of Power), Bayrou says that Sarkozy has foisted on France an alien regime. He is violating the republic with and "an ideology which had never dared express itself in France unmasked, a model of society based on inequality," writes Bayrou
Eric Fottorino, editor of Le Monde, concluded today that Sarkozy's style rather than substance was his chief handicap -- "a style which has ended up irritating people after stirring curiosity and hope." France now expected action or Sarkozy risked being dismissed for "television Bonapartism in which the show of willpower wins over reality."
But the clamour of demonstrations and public abuse masks the credit that a substantial minority gives Sarkozy for broadly sticking with his promised revolution despite the crisis. In the face of revolt, he has compromised on several fronts, such as schools and hospitals, but he is continuing to shrink the civil service, and he is persisting in tax reform while easing labour regulation. His stimulus plan, based largely on investment in business and big state projects, is generally approved although he is widely faulted for failing to do more to help ordinary households. He has lately renewed his popularity on the right by returning to his old pet theme of law-and-order.
In one field — his handling of foreign policy — Sarkozy wins generally high marks. About 70 per cent approve of his forceful leadership in Europe and in the wider world at events such as the G20 economic summit last month. His antics ahead of the G20, with the phoney threat to stay away, looked silly outside France, but they won him credit at home, making him look like a tough advocate of new regulation. And Bruni, whom he married in February last year, is now deemed to be one of his biggest diplomatic assets.
Sarkozy has made little secret that he wants a second term in 2012. He has reason not to despair over his present unpopularity. Polls show that if the 2007 election were restaged now, he would still win hands down in the all-comers first round. The Socialists who are the official opposition have no candidate with the stature to beat him. Bayrou, though popular, looks like a loser and, for the moment, there is no other plausible alternative.
![Lagarde_stewart[1]](http://timescorrespondents.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451d14e69e201156f69fe95970c-400wi)
Paris is talking about the fine performance by Christine Lagarde, the French Finance Minister, on Jon Stewart's Daily Show (Watch the Monday evening interview below). If you have only seen Lagarde inside France, it's an eye-opener. She is at ease, bantering in near perfect English, drawing applause when she says she had fired a few bankers because "they did a crappy job". Her advisers were initially nervous about exposing her to one of Stewart's comic grillings but she did well, batting off questions such as "Is America now more Socialist than France" and on France's debt to the US from the war.
Inside France, Lagarde, 53, has proved a liability to President Sarkozy. She is politically inept. Publicly, she seems stiff and out of touch and she is known as Christine Lagaffe because of her many verbal blunders. These have included telling the French last year that if motor fuel was too expensive they should just ride bicycles. As an outsider from the elite technocracy, she is flanked by junior ministers who run the financial machine. Lagarde is a non-politician who was brought into the government in 2005. She was humiliated last year by colleagues who said publicly that France needed a heavyweight Finance Minister. But a lot has changed since the slump set in last autumn. She has become an international star.
[May 4 update: Lagarde has just been named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Read Tim Geithner's tribute to her in Time. Sarkozy is the only other French person on the list. Lagarde's nomination is ascribed in France entirely to the fact that she speaks good English]
Lagarde is the only member of the government who is at home in the Anglo-Saxon world. As such, she is invaluable to a President who, though an Americophile, is unable to construct a sentence in English. A former member of the French synchronized swimming team, Lagarde worked for 20 years in the USA as a lawyer with Baker & McKenzie, the Chicago-based firm. She was its international chairwoman when President Chirac recruited her as Trade Minister in 2005.
Lagarde does not just give a good impression in English, charming TV viewers. She is in her element in the world of internationl business and finance. When Lehman Brothers was collapsing last September, she was the only European Finance Minister called by Henry Paulson, the then Treasury Secretary. She knew him from his days with Goldman Sachs in Chicago.
Le Figaro, the newspaper closest to the Sarkozy court, carried a double-edged profile of her today, praising her for her new role as France's international face but noting her continuing low reputation with the Elysée Palace. A palace staffer told the paper: "She scores 100 percent for international relations. In explaining the economy she scores 30. That makes an average of 65."
While on the France-America theme, le Monde reported yesterday that Barack Obama has riposted over Sarkozy's claim that he was not up to speed on climate change. Obama pulled aside Jean-Louis Borloo, the Environment Minister, at a Washington conference and told him to tell Sarko that he was doing his homework and the next time they meet he will beat him on the subject.
[Click to watch Lagarde interview. For French readers here, Jon Stewart's satirical nightly news show is roughly equivalent to the Canal+ Grand Journal with a bit of Laurent Ruquier and Nicolas Canteloup thrown in.]
President Sarkozy is unveiling his vision of a grand new metropolitan Paris today. The idea is to break the barrier of the périphérique ring-road and sew together the dozens of separate towns that surround the relatively small capital city. Here's my preview in today's newspaper and I'll come back to Greater Paris after he announces it. In the meantime, let's salute the Louvre pyramid.
Paris is marking the 20th birthday of the high-tech glass and steel contraption that President Mitterrand planted in the courtyard of the world's most visited art museum. Back in the mid-1980s there was quite a shock when the Socialist president announced his scheme, designed by I.M.Pei, the Chinese-American architect. The idea was to use a car park as a startling new underground entrance that contrasted with old royal palace.
"You don't approach a palace by the basement," said Michel Guy, a former Culture minister who led the protests at the time. The press compared it to a Métro train entrance, a cheese cover and an upside-down funnel. Similar complaints greeted the new-fangled Eiffel tower in 1889. But the pyramid went on to become a monument in its own right.
Henri Loyrette, the Louvre's curator, said this week that his visitors cite three reasons for coming to the museum -- La Joconde (The Mona Lisa), the Venus de Milo and the pyramid. "The pyramid has become the only entrance, it marks a rite of passage, an initiation," said Loyrette. The only problem is that it needs to be expanded because it was designed for 4.5 million visitors a year and the museum is now receiving 8.5 million.
Loyrette indicated to le Parisien that he was a little dismayed that his customers are so obsessed by the Mona Lisa when there is so much else to see in his vast museum. Eighty percent of the 8.5 million troop straight to Leonardo's fragile glass-covered portrait. Visitors stay in the Louvre on average between two and four hours.
He also said that the art in the Louvre, which stops at 1850, is increasingly hard for people to understand -- compared with the impressionists at the Musée d'Orsay and other more modern work. "Visitors know less and less about mythology and history -- including those from wealthiest classes," he said.
The pyramid has stood up to time much better than most other recent architectural grands projets in the capital. The most loathed is the Montparnasse Tower, the black 600-feet tall obelisk that President Pompidou stuck in the middle of the low-rise capital in the early 1970s [picture below].
The online version of Le Figaro found that 35 percent of Parisians want to demolish the eyesore. The paper's readers are on the conservative and older side, but their hate list is roughly shared by many Parisians. Second most unpopular is the Beaugrenelle development, a collection of mid-rise towers and concrete that was thrown up on the Seine in the left-bank 15th arrondissement in the 1960s. The 1970s Pompidou modern art centre came third on the demolition list, which is a little surprising that its oil refinery look has lost its jarring novelty.
President Mitterrand's 1980s projects came next, starting with the bunker-like Bastille opera and the twin-slab National Library. Most Parisians I know would agree with that. But further down the demolition list came... the Louvre Pyramid. It is detested by 8.9 percent of the Figaro's 15,000 respondents. But I said they are conservative.
Here's a little good news for Britons, Americans and other nouveau pauvre visitors to France. Restaurant owners are going to promise the government today that they will trim their prices -- by up to 10 percent on some menus.
The deal, made in return for a hefty cut in value-added (sales) tax, should soften the blow in time for summer visitors who are not blessed with the strong euro currency. But don't expect too much. Many restaurateurs say that they need the two billion euro gift from the state just to survive the recession. Restaurants and bistros lost between 20 and 50 per cent of their income from January to March and many have already introduced more modest "crisis menus" to lure back patrons.
At Taillevent, a high temple of Parisien gastronomy, they are refusing any drop in the charge for their langoustine royales, golden frogs' legs and other items on their Michelin-starred menu. "I'm not dropping my prices because that would imply that they were not right to begin with, which is not the case and because the cost of the ingredients has risen steeply," Valérie Vrinat, the owner, told us.
President Sarkozy ordered the country's 200,000 eating establishments to pass on part of a drop from 19.6 percent to 5.5 percent in VAT which he won from the European Union last month. He secured the cut, expected to take effect from July 1, after Germany lifted a seven-year veto against a pledge originally made to the restaurant industry by President Chirac.
The tax bonus does not cover wine -- which accounts for 20 percent of restaurant income -- and the universal 15 percent service charge will continue to be applied -- along with the usual expectation of a tip beyond that.
Under pressure from the Government, the catering trade is to come up with a list of a dozen everyday items which will benefit from the full VAT cut. This should include the plat du jour, basic entrées (appetizers for Americans) and desserts plus coffee. "A customer should be able to order a meal which is entirely subject to the full VAT reduction," said Hervé Novelli, the Trade Minister. An ordinary Parisian dish of the day such as a steak-frites or pavé de saumon should drop from about 15 euros to 13.20.
Restaurant owners are also expected to use the tax benefit to recruit more staff and invest in their establishments. They will in return lose some earlier tax breaks. I'll certainly welcome more staff. One of the drawbacks eating out in France -- other than in grand establishments -- is the slow service that stems from over-worked personnel. That, of course, springs from the employers' burden of huge payroll charges and strict labour contracts (but let's not divert into the usual argument here).
At the small Bistrot d'Henri in the Saint-Germain-des-Près quarter, David Poulat, the owner, told us that he welcomed the scheme though he thought many in the trade would need the benefit simply to keep their heads above water in the recession. He expects to cut his plats du jour such as blanquette de veau and gigot et gratin de courgette from 14 to 12 euros. "But at the same time I might reduce the portions a little," he said. Lowering the price of à la carte items would be difficult. "I am not sure that it would attract customers anyway. People will not be swayed much by a difference of one or two euros."
He may not be right. plenty of people, not just sterling-earners like us, think twice before dining out modestly in Paris these days because l'addition will come in at about 80 euros for two with a bottle of basic wine. Between 60 and 70 euros changes the picture. And in case anyone is wondering, expense accounts are a fading memory in our business.
[Below, the other end of the scale: 564 euros for lunch for two at the three-star restaurant of the hotel Bristol, President Sarkozy's favourite eating place, opposite the Elysée palace. From chrisoscope.com, a Paris food critic's site.]
The words 'grand old man' and 'larger than life' are often overused but they apply to Maurice Druon, a writer, historian, war hero and defender-in-chief of the French language, who has died just short of his 91st birthday.
Druon's name does not mean much to the younger French generation, except perhaps as a bit of a reactionary and champion of linguistic purity at home and abroad. One of his last public acts was a quixotic campaign in 2007 to have the European Union adopt French as its supreme language in official documents.
But Druon is remembered by older people as a dashing man of action and letters and a patriot who packed more into his life than most can imagine. Le Figaro headlined its report today Un Seigneur des Lettres - A Lord of Letters. Druon's old-fashioned views infuriated the leftwing artistic world. As President Pompidou's Culture Minister after the 1968 uprising, he told theatre directors that they had to "choose between subsidies and petrol bombs."
Like many journalists, I knew Druon and found him charming, feisty and funny. Right up to this year he would come to the phone to chat about his pet causes. It was fascinating to hear his accounts -- sometimes in fluent old-fashioned English -- of working for General de Gaulle in London in the early 1940s.
He had fought the invading Germans in 1940 as a young cavalry officer before joining de Gaulle's Free French headquarters. In London he broadcast to the Resistance on the BBC's French service. He also penned, with his uncle, the words to the Chant des Partisans, the song that became the anthem for the internal Resistance against the Nazis and which lives on in the collective memory [listen to Yves Montand's version below]. It began "Friend, do you hear the crows' black flight over our plains?." This morning, Luc Chatel, the minister who acts as government spokesman said: "Like all French people, I get a kind of shiver when I hear the 'Chant des Partisans,''. Druon marked the second half of the 20th century, he marked the history of France."
Druon managed to win the Goncourt prize -- the top literary award -- at the age of 30 in 1948 and in the 1950s wrote a best-selling seven-volume romantic history called Les Rois Maudits. It was turned into a popular television series. He was elected the youngest member of the Académie Francaise -- the official guardian of the language -- in 1966 and went on to serve two decades as its "perpetual secretary", its boss.
He stuck to tradition and enjoyed provocation. In 1980, he deplored the election of the novelist Marguerite Yourcenar as the first woman in the 374-year-old Académie, imagining female members "knitting during meetings on the dictionary." He conducted a cheeky but vain campaign five years ago to block the election of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, a former President and would-be literary figure, to the Academy.
In late 2007, Druon led the charge when Time magazine published a notorious article that proclaimed French culture to be dead. His defence of French as a world language was good-natured. He was no narrow-minded nationalist. As an Anglophile, he was appreciated as a raconteur at British embassy dinners. "I love English," he said recently, "though I now call it 'Anglo- American' because we no longer speak British English due to globalization and America's economic power."
In his campaign to persuade Brussels to adopt French as its senior language, he argued that the tongue of Montesquieu was the supreme vehicle for civilised discourse. "Italian is the language of song, German is good for philosophy and English for poetry, French is best at precision, it has a rigour to it," he said.
President Sarkozy, whose liberties with the French language must have appalled Druon, paid tribute to him as "a great writer, a great resistant, a great political figure, a great wordsmith and a great spirit." Libération, the leftwing paper, paid him a typical back-handed compliment. "It's the death of an old reactionary who was, at heart, very respectable."
France has been cooing along with everyone else over the arrival of Bo Obama at the White House, but the master of America's new First Dog is no longer in such good odour with Nicolas Sarkozy.
[Friday Update: Here's Sarkozy's latest outburst over Obama and European leaders.]
The French presidency is pouring cold water on President Obama's efforts to recast American leadership in the world, depicting them as unoriginal, unsubstantial and over-rated. Behind leaks and briefings from the Elysée Palace lies Super Sarko's irritation at the the rock-star welcome that Europe gave Obama on his Europan tour the other day.
The American President's call "to free the world of the menace of a nuclear nightmare" was hot air, said a report to Sarkozy by his staff. "It was rhetoric, not a speech on American security policy but an export model aimed at improving the image of the United States," they said. Most of Obama's proposals had already been made by the Bush administration and Washington was dragging its feet on disarmament and treaties against nuclear proliferation, said the report, leaked to le Figaro.
Personal pique and French politics are also behind the souring of Sarkozy's self-promoted honeymoon with the United States. On the personal side, the French President is needled by the adulation for an unproven US leader whose stardom has eclipsed what he sees as his established record as a world troubleshooter. "The President is annoyed by what he sees as the naiveté and the herd mentality of the media," wrote Claude Askolovitch, a commentator with good Elysée sources.
Sarkozy has put out a version of the London G20 economic summit which casts him as hero, in the classic French role of intransigent defender of principle in the face of the American steamroller. This recolours last week's account of Obama saving the day by persuading President Hu of China to accept Sarkozy's demand for naming tax havens. According to the leaks, Sarkozy shamed Obama into intervening: "You were elected to build a new world. Tax havens are the embodiment of the old world," he lectured the younger President. He also reprimanded Obama on setting US goals for climate change that were inferior to Europe's, according to his staff.
Again, according to the Sarkozy version, at the Nato summit in Strasbourg, Obama was meekly yielding to Turkey's refusal to endorse Anders Fogh Rasmussen as the alliance's new Secretary-General. It took pressure from Sarkozy and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany to stiffen him up and change his mind, say the French.
Obama's favour for Ankara has irked but also helped Sarkozy as his Union for a Popular Movement campaigns for European Parliament elections in June. Sarkozy slapped down the US President on French TV after he publicly encouraged Turkish entry to the European Union. Permanent refusal of Turkish membership is a popular Sarkozy policy plank. Obama's venture into EU affairs has enabled Sarkozy to score political capital. It shows that France can still stand up to the United States despite rejoining the full Nato command last week after four decades' absence.
It was good old Franco-American business as usual this morning when Bruno Le Maire, Sarkozy's young Europe Minister, accused Washington of backing the northern and Eastern EU members who want to turn the Union into a mere free-trade zone. France and Germany are sticking to their vision of the "political" Europe that "others" do not want, he said in a radio interview.
Behind the policy argument, it is easy to detect disappointment over Obama's failure to reciprocate the Sarkozy charm offensive that began when he befriended the junior Senator on a visit to Washington in 2006. Obama showered compliments on France's "hyper-president" in Strasbourg, but the one that has stuck was double-edged: "He is courageous on so many fronts, it's sometimes hard to keep up with him."
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Nicolas Canteloup footnote: You might have heard the impersonator's rather cruel gag on Sarkozy's dog rivalry with Obama on Europe radio this morning. Canteloup's Sarko said that he had a pet long before Obama -- François Fillon, his Prime Minister.
The slump does not appear to have lessened Europe's taste for Easter in Paris. The city has been full of visitors over the weekend and many of them are choosing to wait for hours in the queues outside the big museums and galleries. The French capital and other cities are in the midst of an art bonanza on a scale never seen before, according to curators and enthusiastic reports in the media.
The consensus says that the boom is a reflection of imaginative special shows, economic hard times and a trend amplified by the internet and other media. It's worth wondering why the phenomenon appears stronger in Paris than any other world city, at least judging by anecdotal evidence.
After a winter that saw people staying up all night to visit Picasso and the Masters at the Grand Palais, the new Andy Warhol show at the same site is such a hit that they are planning 24-hour opening to cope with the crowds. De Chirico is packing them in at the Paris City Modern Art Museum. The Pompidou Centre has just scored a smash with a new mega-show of Kandinsky. William Blake is drawing crowds at the Petit Palais. 
The Quai Branly, the ethnic art museum founded by President Chirac, is enjoying its biggest success so far with a show on the cultural impact of jazz. In four weeks about 50,000 have toured the show.
Photography is also enjoying good times. There are two interesting exhibitions -- without such queues as the art expos. One is Controverses, a collection of shock photos from history at the wonderful old reading room in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. The other, closing this week, is a fascinating collection of 19th and early 20th century photochromes -- the first type of colour photography -- in the Bibliothèque Forney in the Marais. The show is an eye-opener if you imagine the 19th century in black and white (see Victorian Alpine clmibers below).
Many of the foreign visitors are happy to stick to the permanent exhibitions. The Louvre, the world's most visited art museum, is breaking new records. It drew 8.5 milion people in 2008, well ahead of the 5.93 who went to the British Museum in London. The National Gallery in Washington DC came third with 4.96.
And the boom is not just affecting the beaux arts. Opera is flourishing, along with pop concerts, the cinema and the state-subsidized national theatres. "La culture is showing insolent good health" le Monde concluded, the other day.
So why the rush for culture? The standard view is that, at a time of anxiety and shrinking assets, the French are reverting to old-fashioned valeurs sûres. "The crisis incites people to turn towards preserved spaces," says Marie-Christine Labourdette, Director of the Museums of France. "The world is changing and the future is worrying ? They are reassured by the intangible in art works and the stability of museums," she explained in le Figaro. The experts cite the example of the Hollywood boom of the 1930s Depression years.
Sometimes the explanation can be a little abstract. Le Monde found a curator who explained: "In times of crisis, people need the emotional compensation of nearness". [Les gens ont besoin d'une compensation affective de proximité...]. That's not so easy to convey in Anglo-Saxon.
The phenomenon also confirms France's tradition -- eclipsed in recent decades -- as the world's cultural capital. Thomas Grenon, Administrator of the Union of National Museums, says that "the richness of French collections explain the success. France is historically a land of art. And then there is the deep taste of the French for art."
The same travelling exhibitions draw about 30 percent more visitors in Paris than London, he told us. This applied to recent Turner, Whistler and Monet shows at the Grand Palais and the Tate in London, he said. "It's linked to our education and to a form of French taste," he said. And yes, many of the current shows feature British, American, Russian, Italian and other nationals, but Paris excels in the art of presenting them.
[Below, the waiting line for Warhol]
To end the week on a lighter note, listen to these commercials just aired on French radio stations by Eurostar, the cross-Channel rail service.
The company has a tradition of tongue-in-cheek advertising that makes fun of French and British national stereotypes (above: typical London 'Spice' girls in previous campaign). The latest one, to promote a low-price ticket, goes quite far:
We hear Brits appalled by an "invasion of frogs" that is being inflicted on them by "Bloody Eurostar". One angry man in a pub raises a posse to beat them up. "Come on lads!. Let's go frog hunting!." The cry goes up: "Yeah. Com'on guys!." The joke is in the translation which politely reverses the sense. "Quelle super nouvelle... Je suis impatient d'acceuillir nos amis français." [What great news... I can't wait to welcome our French friends.]
Or try this one, in which women complain about French chicks coming to steal their boyfriends. "There is only one thing for it girls... Throw them in the Thames." That is mis-translated as "Organisons un truc.... Une petite fête par exemple" (Let's organise something... a little party for example.)
Here's another in similar vein.
Without a sense of humour, I suppose this could be depicted as incitement to violence (see last two posts). The comic translation is certainly a technical breach of the law that requires foreign expressions in advertising to be explained in French. But Eurostar is confident that its customers get the joke and no-one is shocked.
We rang Gabriel Gaultier, Director of Leg, the agency which made the adverts. It's just "second degree" humour -- tongue in cheek -- he said. "If we said 'London's nice, go there', it wouldn't work. We are playing on the myth of animosity between the French and the English... It's folklore, part of the game of advertising and everyone knows it's not serious. It's a wink based on the ancestral rivalry.
"In reality, our cultures have become so close now and so many people go backwards and forwards between London and Paris that we can allow ourselves to go in for this." He's right and let no-body say the French don't have a sense of humour about themselves -- or the British.
So Happy Easter, Joyeuses Pâques à tout le monde.
[Below: recent Eurostar London icons -- faux Tony Blair and Freddy Mercury]
Within a few months, Big Brother will be watching your internet habits when you go online in France -- and he might decide to cut you off.
[Thursday update: surprise defeat for Sarko]
This seems sure now that both houses of parliament have approved President Sarkozy's novel scheme for punishing people who habitually grab copyright music, video and films from the web. A new state High Authority (yet another) will run a three-strikes-and-you're-out system against pirates. Illicit downloaders will receive two e-mail warnings. If they persist, the service provider will be ordered to cut access to the net for the offenders (and their families) for up to a year.
Officials start tomorrow producing the final version of the so-called "Creation and Internet Law" after a lower house session attended by only 16 members voted through the bill last Thursday. The new law should be adopted in a month or two. Many artists and all the entertainment industry are delighted to see France blazing an innovative trail that will help stem the piracy that is endangering their trade. Sarkozy, who has been advised by Carla Bruni, his singer wife, will claim victory in what he calls the battle against "the High-Tech Wild West... where outlaws pillage creative work without limits."
Needless to say, others see the law as a threat to liberty. Internet user groups, civil liberties monitors, bloggers, the European Parliament, the French left and others are calling foul and saying the law is unworkable. In the words of Christian Vanneste, a Sarkozy MP who opposes the law, "legislating over downloading is as presumptuous as trying to chase the horizon... A solution exists, but it is for the market to find it, not the lawmaker."
On the face of it, the new law sounds sensible. It replaces failed attempts to deter illicit downloaders by prosecution and, as the government says, it is gradual. A poll reported that one in three of France's 30 million web users admits downloading music, films or video games without paying -- one of the world's highest rates of piracy. One billion files are estimated to have been illegally shared in France in 2006.
Here's what will happen once the law is in place. Music and film companies will monitor file-sharers on the net and turn them in to the new authority, called HADOPI from the mouthful of its initials -- Haute Autorité pour la diffusion des œuvres et la protection des droits sur Internet (High Authority for the dissemination of works and the protection of rights on the internet). Service providers will be required to name the owner of the IP address and the agency will send its warnings or cut-off order. A blacklist of offenders will be circulated to prevent them signing up with other operators during their suspension.
You don't need much knowledge of the net or the law to see the flaws in the scheme, which is expected to lead to hundreds of people being blacklisted daily. One campaign group called Quadrature du Net says the law breaches the French constitution in 50 different ways.
For a start, it will be hard to identify offenders. Someone parked outside your window with a laptop could be hooking onto your WiFi, whether protected or not. How about people at work, visiting teenagers or copyright abuses who are simply using public WiFi? It's also apparently quite simple to pirate IP addresses.
Jacques Attali, the economist and thinker who has advised successive governments, has joined the blog assault on the law, saying it "paves the way for blanket surveillance" of the web. "It is absurd, because people no longer download, they stream audio and video ... absurd because it would deprive entire families of internet access ... because real artists have nothing to lose by letting people know their work."
The service providers are also unhappy because -- contrary to what the government originally promised -- they will have to strip out the internet from bundled TV-net-phone contracts without any compensation. The system will cost an estimated 70 million euros a year, with no money going to the holders of violated copyright, they estimate.
France, which loves big regulation, sees itself setting a trend for a new more orderly internet. Google -- which is not free from Big Brother charges itself -- is upset because the government aims to introduce a "label of quality for legal downloading sites". Search engines will be obliged to give them priority in their results, which Google says contradicts its policies.
The Hadopi is also expected to use secret codes to track banned offenders. Apart from the breach of privacy, this will create problems for users of Linux and other open systems, according to the experts.
The American and European industry hopes that the French law, which goes much further than experiments already tried in Ireland and New Zealand, will inspire similar action in other countries.
And before you think this is all about the French devotion to regulation, the law was enthusiastically praised today by Paul McGuinness, manager of the band U2. France has become "a pole of resistance to the blight of piracy. The (new) law is the right solution... It is equitable and balanced and will work in practice," he wrote in le Figaro.
In my humble opinion, the new scheme sounds like une usine à gaz -- a complicated, unworkable contraption. It means more bureaucracy and seems unlikely to fulfill the worthy aim of helping a troubled industry. But I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Sarko's moment finally came. After months of frustration during which the White House stayed cool to the entreaties of the French President, Barack Obama stood alongside Nicolas Sarkozy today and showered him with praise.
You could feel the joy radiating from Sarko as the pair proclaimed a new era of Franco-American unity on the steps of the Palais des Rohan, the old bishop's palace in Strasbourg. Obama listed the qualities of his friend 'Nicolas'. "Thanks to the great leadership of President Sarkozy, courageous on so many fronts at once that it's sometimes hard to keep up with him...." .
He thanked Sarko "for France's outstanding leadership with regard to Afghanistan" and he praised him again for his "extraordinary leadership role in NATO". The London G20 summit could not have succeeded without the problem-solving leadership of the French President, Obama added. "I am personally grateful for his friendship". Obama also announced that he will be back to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the allied landing in Normandy on D-Day.
This was all sweet music for Sarko, who had rolled out maximum military and civilian pomp to welcome the Obamas to France ahead of tonight's Nato summit. Only this morning, French media were noting Obama's apparent indifference to Sarko at the London summit. Sarkozy's offensive against Les Anglo-Saxons before the G20 summit also chilled the atmosphere.
After an hour's tête-à-tête, his first with the new US President, Sarkozy struck an unusually solemn and statesmanlike tone as he opened their joint press conference referring to "The President of the United States" and addressing "President Obama" with the formal 'vous'. But Sarko's excitable nature got the better of him and he closed trembling with emotion, using the the intimate "tu" and calling him "une sacrée bonne nouvelle" -- bloody good news -- for the world.
Sarko being Sarko, he could also not resist chucking a couple of stones in the direction of his former great friend George W. Bush. He contrasted, without naming him, Bush's closed, America-centric outlook with Obama's open-minded model and talked about the "terrorist methods" which the Bush team had used on the detainees of Guantanamo Bay
It was fascinating watching the pair: Obama grave, measured and still alongside the much shorter, energetic and punchy French leader. The monolingual Sarkozy also ventured timidly into English, saying "okay" to US journalists several times.
On the substance, Sarkozy and Obama of course agreed on everything, from emergency treatment for the world economy to Russia, Afghanistan and Iran. But the differences were there. Obama, for instance, wished that Europe would take on a bigger share of its own defence
Obama later talked bluntly about the rift in Transatlantic relations in recent years. Both sides were to blame, he said. America had failed to treat Europe with respect. "There have been times when America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive." But anti-American feeling in Europe often seemed unfair, casual and insidious, he said. "On both sides of the Atlantic, these attitudes have become all too common. They are not wise."
Obama was greeted like a hero by the crowds that were allowed to get close to him as the French security forces locked down the deserted centre of Strasbourg. While their husbands were doing business, Carla Bruni lunched with Michelle Obama and showed her around town. Bruni stayed away from London as the US First Lady took the spotlight, but the Elysée Palace is deploying her in Strasbourg as a sure bet for enhancing Sarko's moment in the sun.
To end, the Elysée is delighted by the Francophiles in Obama's entourage. General James Jones, his National Security Adviser, grew up in France as the son of a US marine officer and attended a lycée in the Paris suburb of Saint Germain-en-Laye. He always talks in French with Jean-David Levitte, Sarkozy's foreign affairs director. Antony Blinken, National Security Adviser to Vice-President Biden, also studied at a Paris Lycée and Sciences-Po, the top political science college. Philip Gordon, Assistant Secretary of State for Europe, is an academic France expert who translated the US edition of Testimony, the manifesto-memoir that Sarkozy's published during his 2007 campaign.
If location is everything in real estate, timing is everything in the news business. As we saw last week, President Sarkozy has been threatening to block the G20 economic summit in London if he does not win agreement to French demands for new global regulation. No-one beyond France took much notice.
The message was mainly aimed at the home market but today it got the attention of les Anglo-Saxons, the ancient foil for French leaders in search of a cause. The spur was a briefing yesterday afternoon in the Hotel Marigny, the majestic annex across the street from the Elysée Palace (Colonel Gaddaffi used its garden for his Bedouin tent in 2007). Xavier Musca, Sarkozy's new economic adviser, told us that Sarkozy would prefer "a failure to a false success full of generous declarations without consequence." Musca confirmed that Sarko might walk out of the London summit. He described this as a nuclear weapon that France is keeping ready. Musca, who is new to the job, also obligingly used the Anglo-Saxon word, lumping the British and the Americans together in the same intransigent camp when it comes to clamping down on hedge funds, tax havens and the other items that Sarkozy wants regulated by a new global police.
Coming on the eve of the summit, Sarko's hard line, which he has co-ordinated with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, has finally made headlines outside France. We put it on our front page today.
It has achieved Sarko's aim of casting France as vigorous champion of the new morality that Sarko wants to impose on world finance. Of course this is part of the theatrical stake-raising that preceeds summits and Sarkozy knows that Barack Obama is not about to embrace French-style ideas for a new world financial police.
But it has shown France that Super Sarkozy is making a mark with his demands for the "refoundation of capitalism". This plays to his image as statesman, the game that has served him best since he crashed in opinion polls after winning office in May 2007. In the midst of the economic gloom, fewer than 40 percent of the public approve of Sarkozy's performance as President but when pollsters ask how he represents France abroad, he scores up to 70 percent.
"Super-Sarko" is admired for the vigour with which he charges around world capitals and especially for what was seen as his deft handling of his six months' turn in the EU's rotating presidency last year. He was given credit for persuading President Bush to stage the first G20 summit in Washington last November and he is claiming the paternity of its follow-up this week London.
But there is a paradox in Sarkozy's classical ploy of picking a fight with les Anglo-Saxons. Things are different now and not just because the Anglo-Saxon-in-chief is black. Obama is also more popular in France than the local president. Libération, the leftwing newspaper, yesterday contrasted Sarkozy negatively with the US President. "With his efforts against the crisis, Barack Obama is far ahead of his counterparts on the Old Continent," wrote Laurent Joffrin, the editor. Sarkozy and the rest of Europe's leaders are showing dangerous divisions and reverting to old-fashioned conservative policies, he added.
The French President finds himself in a tricky position. Until the spat ahead of the G20, he performed an intense charm offensive towards Obama. By returning France to the core of the Nato alliance he is trying to win new credibility with Washington and its allies. Before election, he called France's traditional anti-Americanism "that cultural cancer which prevents French diplomacy from working".
But things are not going well with the Americans. Obama has so far been unmoved by Sarkozy's campagne de séduction while the French President has risked looking over-eager to please him. That explains Sarko's reversion to the old Gaullist posture ahead of the G20. The mood will lift again on Friday when the Obama show reaches the French city of Strasbourg for the Nato summit. Sarkozy will hold his first tête-à-tête with the new President and no doubt declare a new era of Franco-American friendship.
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Lyon is one of Europe's most delightful big cities. I've often thought it would be a fine place to live, with its sunshine, history, cuisine, the Rhone river and nearby Alps. But you have to wonder a little about the judgment of the city's managers. They decided the other day that French was not good enough for the company known as Aéroports de Lyon and renamed it Lyon Airports.
The rebranding followed a successful English-language project to promote the region called "Only Lyon". It was designed to "give a new identity, a new, more international image" to Lyon Saint-Exupéry airport, its international hub, and the smaller aerodrome called Lyon-Bron. It was pretty obvious that Anglicizing something as symbolic as an airport would run into trouble. What next, wondered a local friend of mine, "perhaps they'll call it Lyon-Wright-Brothers airport ?"
Inevitably, the heavy hand of the state has come down on the scheme, which has cost up to half a million euros to implement. The prefect of the Rhone-Alps -- the state official in command of the region -- has dispatched an angry letter to the airports company demanding that it revert to French immediately.
Jacques Gérault, 57, whose past jobs included a stint on Nicolas Sarkozy's senior staff, fulminated against the folly of "copying les codes anglo-saxons" to promote one of France's most important regions. He chose last Friday's "Day of the French Language" to launch his attack.
"It is inadmissible that certain institutions underestimate to such an extent the economic and cultural weight of the French language and the values that it carries," he said.
Since the state holds 60 percent of the company, we can expect that it will soon be Goodbye Lyon Airports and rebonjour Aéroports de Lyon. And as le Progrès de Lyon, the local newspaper, pointed out today, even Anglo-Saxons can probably figure out what Aéroports de Lyon means. And a final note. The traditional English name for the city is Lyons, which is still the official style for The Times. If I write Lyon for the paper, it is corrected. But then we called Mumbai Bombay until a couple of months ago.
Nicolas Sarkozy finally got his chance to talk to Barack Obama today. Phone calls between leaders may be routine, but so eager was the French President to get time with "My friend Barack", that the Elysée Palace cast the video conference via interpreters as a virtual summit. Take a look at the silly photomontage on the front of yesterday's Figaro, the pro-Sarko newspaper, below. The conversation lasted just half an hour, the Elysée tells us. [Top picture: anti-Sarkozy demonstrator in Nice last week]
The coolness of the US President towards the overtures from Paris is embarrassing Sarkozy. It has dampened his hopes of finding a kindred dynamic soul in Washington and founding a new Paris-Washington axis. It is leading him to realise that he may find few takers for his ambitious plans for "refounding capitalism" at the April 2 G20 summit in London.
China is certainly out. After making waves over Tibet and human rights last year, France is in Beijing's doghouse and Sarkozy is the only leader known so far to have been refused a session in London with President Hu Jintao. Sarkozy irritated President Calderon of Mexico with his behaviour on a visit there this month, so he does not have an ally there. Turkey abhors Sarko because of his promise of a permanent veto against its entry to the European Union. Relations with his European neighbours, Gordon Brown and Angela Merkel of Germany, are are not much better than "cordial", which is diplomatic speak for bumpy. President Medvedev of Russia may prove to be one of Sarko's main allies.
But it is Obama's resistance to the persuasive charms of Super Sarko that is causing angoisse at the Elysée. "Sarkozy l'Américain" as he was once proud to be called, has pulled out all the stops since the night of the US election, when he mis-spelt a congratulatory fax to "Dear Barak".
French lobbying failed to win an early invitation to the White House. While Brown was being fêted in Washington, Paris made it known that Obama would meet Sarkozy on a Normandy beach on April 3 on his way to the Nato anniversary summit in Strasbourg. US advance parties checked the local security and accommodation but Washington dropped the idea. It is now not even certain that Obama will give Sarkozy private time in Strasbourg.
Sarkozy was gratified last week when Obama welcomed his historic decision to take France back into the military command of the US-led Nato alliance. But the glow vanished when it became known on Friday that Obama had sent an effusive letter to -- of all people -- Jacques Chirac, Sarkozy's bête noire, who did everything to stop his younger colleague succeeding him in the presidency in 2007.
"I am certain that over the coming four years, we will be able to work togetyher in a spirit of peace and friendship in order to build a better world," Obama wrote. Chirac stuck it hard to his successor, saying in public how "sympathique" he had found Obama's letter. It provided obvious fodder for the comedians, who wondered whether Obama might be under the impression that the chief international opponent to President Bush's war in Iraq was still running France.
Nicolas Canteloup, the breakfast radio impersonator, today performed an hilarious sketch on the President's imagined phone-call with Obama. "Allô Barack, this is Nicolas... you know, Little Big Man," said Canteloup-Sarkozy. "You know me, the husband of Carla Bruni, you know, the bombshell."
Sensing the differences with Washington ahead of the London summit, Sarkozy has toughened his rhetoric this week while François Fillon, his Prime Minister, was dispatched to lobby in Washington. Sarkozy is determined at least to get a commitment from the reluctant Americans to start work on new world financial regulations.
In a speech in Saint Quentin on Tuesday night, he warned Washington and other foot-draggers that the G20 must take action to "put morality back into financial capitalism". He added: "I will not associate myself with a world summit which decides to decide nothing." It's not clear what he meant by that.
How do you fight racial discrimination if you have no way of measuring the racial make-up of your country? France, as we have seen here before, has never been able to solve this conundrum. It's trying again this week with a proposal to President Sarkozy that would allow the collection of statistics on citizens' ethnic origin.
In France, it is actually a criminal offence to collect such figures. The logic is the laudable one that all citizens are integrated as equals in a colourblind republic. Asking people to identify their race is deemed an encouragement to self-segregation, or what is known as communitarianism. Memories of past racism and particularly the persecution of Jews in World War Two, make France especially allergic to the idea of anything that smacks of registering people by ethnic origin.
But everyone knows that this ideal model has not worked. The problem is what to do about it. French citizens of black and Arab origin have a smaller chance of higher education and finding jobs and housing than whites. Unemployment among those of Maghrebin, or north African, origin is three times the national level. Schools in the immigrant areas are failing miserably to help children escape the ghettos. But the taboo over ethnic matters remains powerful. Such words are avoided in favour of the euphemism "visible minorities".
The latest attempt to break this taboo has come from Yazid Sabeg, an eminent businessman of Algerian origin whom Sarkozy appointed late last year as High Commissioner for Diversity. He wants surveys which would ask people to which ethnic and/or religious group they feel they belong. This would be a start to correcting injustice, he says.
The idea has split the country -- and not always along the usual lines. Some anti-racism groups are heavily against it while others support it. Fadela Amara, the feminist activist of Algerian background who is Sarkozy's Minister for the Inner City, said: "Our country must not become a mosaic of communities. No-one must ever wear the Star of David again" -- a reference to the war. A majority of the public is opposed to Sabeg's suggestion. A poll by the CSA institute found last week that 55 percent believed that an ethnic census would be ineffective, with 37 percent approving of the idea.
Louis Schweitzer, head of the High Authority for the Struggle against Discriminations and Equality (Halde) is strongly opposed to ethnic statistics. "There is only one human race," he says in today's Libération. "In creating ethno-racial statistics you create a reality. You risk turning these categories into reality." Schweitzer, a former Chairman of the Renault corporation, wants stronger pressure on employers and landlords over discrimination but has not explained how this can be brought about other than through the existing system of case-by-case complaints by victims.
Sebag, 58, faced a hard time this morning selling his idea to a sceptical audience on France-Inter, the public radio network. "All public policies directed at fighting discrimination have proved ineffective," he said. "The situation has got worse, so we have to equip ourselves with a new instrument which can show discrimination.
"There are a lot of fantasies about this. People find it hard to face reality in this country: the population has changed and a whole segment feels that they suffer discrimination on the grounds of their physical characteristics, their family names. They feel illegitimate."
Sabeg was attacked by the station's (all-white) commentators who argued the case for France as an indivisible, universal Republic. He gave an effective answer: "It is no longer possible to use the argument about universalism and the national community and that there is no racism or discrimination. It doesn't work."
It's not clear how Sarkozy will react when he meets Sabeg later this week. As presidential candidate, he favoured affirmative action, or "positive discrimination" as he calls it. Since then, he has abandoned the idea and has rejected suggestions of introducing ethnic or gender quotas in employment and housing. Sabeg said today that he is against quotas too. But he wants new mechanisms to incite employers, landlords and educators to take on and promote non-white people.
Sarkozy alone will decide what to do with Sabeg's ideas.
It's a beautiful spring Thursday all over France and several million people are taking the day off. It's another "day of mobilisation", a strike for the public sector and a general venting for others who are joining in mass protests against President Sarkozy, la crise and injustice in general. Paris is almost as quiet as a weekend since many commuters in the region are using their allotted rest days and staying at home.
No matter how often you have watched this ritual, it's always impressive to see the degree to which public opinion and the media approve of the widescale disruption and mass protest. Radio and TV are out this morning with busloads of protesters as they make their way to the demos like supporters ahead of big matches. The state radio stations -- whose staff are on strike -- are broadcasting up-beat music like Soviet radio used to do on May Day mornings.
One poll, by the Ifop institute, found that 78 percent of the public support today's "social movement". It's ironic that the boss of Ifop is Laurence Parisot, who is also the head of Medef, the employers' federation. Parisot has earned widespread contempt for deploring the French habit of taking to the streets to protest against economic hard times. She accused the unions of populism and creating false expectations.
This was deemed such a provocation that Alain Juppé, a former conservative prime minister who was driven from office by the street in the mid-90s, slapped down Parisot in public today. "It's not with arrogance or a form of ignorance of people's concerns that we will get out of the crisis," Juppé said of Parisot's remarks.
The unions, who are organising the marches and strikes, say that Sarkozy will have no choice but to respond to the deep discontent and give way on their demands: These include a higher minimum wage, more taxes on the well-off and an end to his shrinkage of the civil service.
Sarkozy says that he will not offer more than 2.65 billion euros of additional aid for vulnerable households that he promised after the last day of protest, on January 29. The President is said, however, to be seriously worried that alarm over private sector job losses and the economic gloom will feed into the long-simmering revolt by the hardline public sector unions and students. Unemployment has surged past eight percent with an expected loss of a further 350,000 jobs this year. The picture at the top comes from angry protests at a French plant of the German Continental tyre firm which is to close. The "Contis", as the workers there have become known, are the new symbol of abusive business practices.
Sarkozy is not helped by the near absence of the usual opposition, the Socialist party, which is still enfeebled by internal feuding. The Socialist leaders have not even been invited to march with the unions. Polls show the most effective opponent of Sarkozy to be Olivier Besancenot, the young Trotskyite chief of the recently-founded New Anticapitalist Party. Besancenot and his substantial band of followers are bent on the destruction of the system and have no intention of seeking any office. They dream of a brave new dictatorship of the proletariat.
For these people as well as the moderate left, Sarkozy stands as a useful hate figure, for his policies and his personality. I don't usually agree with Figaro, which acts as obedient cheer leader for the President, but it makes a good point on this Sarkophobia today. "In the economic crisis, anti-Sarkozism has become for many a new humanism, a moral posture which suspects everything that touches on money, business, bosses or le pouvoir (the ruling powers).
There is excited talk of a hot spring and even another May '68 but old hands are pointing out that the revolt that year and a rash of violent strikes in the 1970s happened in benign economic times. In 2009, people are too worried about losing their jobs to risk them by joining in revolt. Also, as Sarkozy points out, the majority may approve of the strikes and demonstrations but they do not take part in them.
But you never know with France. Insurrection against le pouvoir is such an old habit.
Spring has arrived in Paris. Daffodils are out in the gardens, overcoats are disappearing and the sun is showing up the winter grime on the windows and on the ugly Porsche Cayenne that is parked in my street. Non-smokers are taking seats on the café terraces (les fumeurs frequented them all winter because of the new indoor smoking ban). The trout fishing season opened today. It's even possible to scent a hint of hope in the air despite the gloom and grumbling all around.
As the winter lifts, the French are not at all as depressed as they make out, according to a poll by le Parisien. Two out of three say they are optimistic about the future. There were other surprises from the mood survey which I'll get back to below.
One of the reasons for optimism may be the overdose of crisis. The news continued to be bleak this week, with factory closures every day, including a Sony plant where the desperate workers took the company's French boss hostage. But some of the media think that it's time to change the tune and have started putting out stories on making the most of the down-turn -- lower house prices and rediscovering simple pleasures such as home cooking, the cinema, holidays in France and so on.
And some of the news is reassuringly familiar. The Paris book fair has opened -- with a Mexican theme this year -- the fashion week was a hit as usual and Nicolas Sarkozy was caught out once again indulging his love of luxury.
The President disappeared with Carla Bruni three days before a one-day official visit to Mexico City last Monday. No-one was supposed to know where he was, but the Mexican press tracked the French royal couple to El Tamarindo Beach and Golf Resort, a very expensive enclave in Jalisco state on the Pacific Coast [picture]. This did not look good for Sarko's efforts to rid himself of the bling-bling that tainted his early months in the presidency. All that turquoise and palm trees hardly helped his new image as close to his suffering people.
Things got worse when it emerged that the presidential pair occupied their 3,500 dollars-a-day suite as guests of Roberto Hernandez, one of Mexico's richest bankers and owner of the resort.
It didn't take long for the media to recycle 1990s allegations from the United States that Hernandez was involved in the cocaine industry. The Elysée Palace kept an embarrassed silence, directing queries to the Mexican presidency who, it claims, organised Sarko's long weekend on the beach. Today the Mexicans have said that "a group of businessmen" paid for the beach weekend.
Talk of the Jalisco jaunt has eclipsed Sarkozy's two very substantial acts in foreign policy this week -- his announcement of France's return to full Nato membership (last post) and a realignment with Germany at a session with Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday. Like all his predecessors, Sarkozy seems to have accepted that French power works best in Europe as part of the axis with Berlin.
Sarko has also been lecturing his government on the need for what's known in French as la positive attitude. He has given them orders to talk up his and their achievements.
Which brings us back to the spring survey, carried out by the CSA polling firm. It found that the French draw their greatest satisfaction and pleasure from leisure time with their friends and family. The best moment of the day is "meeting up with the family in the evening". Second after that came "waking up alongside the person you love".
Asked what contributes most to make their lives positive, 61 percent answered their children, 33 percent said friends, 23 percent said leisure activities and only 20 percent said that it was their work or studies.
Asked what activity gave them most pleasure, 40 percent said an evening with their partner or with friends. Thirty-nine percent said sports, listening to music or cooking. Only 13 percent cited love-making as their most pleasurable activity. That statistic is not great for France's reputation as le pays de l'amour.
At least sex got a mention. Religion appeared nowhere in the poll, not even under the question of the most important values that society should observe. First came respect for others, then "solidarity", followed by the family. The value of work came next, followed by money.
And a final question: What moments are you most looking forward to in 2009? The answers were pretty modest, in keeping with diminished times.
1) The first sunshine of springtime
2) The summer holidays
3) The birthday of your children or parents
4) A party, wedding or other social event with friends [A spring day at a café in Lille]
President Sarkozy takes the plunge today and and explains why, 43 years since General de Gaulle threw American forces out of France, he is taking his country back into the core of the US-led Atlantic alliance. France's return to the military command will be formally proclaimed at the NATO summit in Strasbourg on April 3.
It's a big step, politically and symbolically because it reverses the act which defined France's sense of special destiny, independent from US power and not quite part of the Western camp during the Cold War. Sarkozy's opponents in the Socialist opposition and his own Gaullist camp are piling in on him, accusing him of betraying the sovereignty that de Gaulle reclaimed when he wrote a curt letter to President Johnson in March 1966. The general told LBJ that he wanted Nato headquarters out of the Paris suburbs and all American military personnel out of France.
François Bayrou, the centrist who is Sarkozy's most consistent opponent, flayed him this morning for "amputating" France, diminishing the nation and getting nothing in return. Martine Aubry, the Socialist leader, said that nothing justifies Sarkozy's "embrace of Atlanticism". Dominique de Villepin, Gaullist former Prime Minister, foe of Sarko and fan of Napoleon Bonaparte, denounced the President for "shrinking our country and renouncing our diplomatic calling."
With so much at stake -- French pride and the prickly relationship with Washington -- you would think that Sarkozy is risking big trouble. In reality, it is only the politicians who are making the fuss. Sarkozy's move is supported by 58 percent of the public, according to an IFOP poll today, with 37 percent opposed.
That suggests two things: Sarkozy has done a good job at explaining why it makes sense to rejoin the command and that, with the economic crisis and the new Franco-American detente, foreign relations are not stirring much emotion.
IFOP recalled that in 1966, 38 percent opposed de Gaulle's withdrawal and only 22 percent approved. The common factor then and now is that the presidents acted without public debate or political consultation. Sarkozy, who now runs de Gaulle's party, indicated his intentions to rejoin after his election in 2007. He will now stifle dissent on his own side by forcing through the move with a parliamentary confidence vote on March 17. The Gaullist die-hards will not risk voting 'no'.
Sarkozy's arguments are simple. France has remained an active member of the political alliance and in recent years its armed forces have taken part in in most Nato operations from Kosovo to Afghanistan -- run from Nato's post-France Belgian base. So it makes sense to have French generals back sharing the command. In addition, the return to full membership will allay suspicions of French efforts to promote an autonomous European defence system, says Sarkozy.
The last two French presidents -- François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac -- also wanted to get back into the command. Mitterrand, a Socialist who opposed de Gaulle's withdrawal, negotiated secretly with the Americans while Chirac did it publicly in 1995, withdrawing when Washington refused his conditions. Sarkozy has imposed no conditions.
France will acquire more influence and lose no military or diplomatic independence, says Sarkozy. Hervé Morin, his Defence Minister, explained this morning: "I hear people saying that joining the command will put our independence in doubt. Saying that is either dishonesty or incompetence."
The commanders of France's substantial and well-respected armed forces are pleased and the Americans and British are also grateful to have the French fully back in the fold, even if they can be difficult.
I can't help feeling that if I were French I would be feeling a pang of doubt. The idea of separateness that de Gaulle created has served France well, even if it was largely an illusion. Membership of the Nato high command means renouncing an important symbol without much in return from the US. But maybe that's just nostalgia.
Older French have mixed memories of the US military presence in France. Unimaginable for the younger generation, American forces were part of the landscape from 1944 to 1967 [A US serviceman with local resident in top picture]. They drew admiration, envy and annoyance, especially in the 29 base towns where they cruised around in exotic cars -- known at the time as belles américaines. They lived affluently and taught the locals how to dance rock'n roll. At Châteauroux [US base pictured below], 10 percent of all marriages between 1951 and 1967 were between US servicemen and French women. Gérard Depardieu, the film star, has fond memories of a black American girlfriend during his teenage years at Châteauroux.
I doubt that Johnny Hallyday -- France's imitation American rocker-- would have been such a big hit back in the early 1960s if the country had not already absorbed a bit of America from its resident armed forces (Daniel Strohl can advise us here).
American forces won't be coming back to live in France. But Sarkozy is hoping to persuade Barack Obama to stage a symbolic act of Franco-American reunion on April 2, on the eve of the Nato summit. This is to take the form of meeting in Normandy at one of the beaches where US, British, Canadian -- and French -- forces landed from England on June 6, 1944.
[Below: the young Johnny -- real name Jean-Philippe Smet]
A row over a new French film gives me a chance to mention a routine but always troubling job for British correspondents in France. This is the trip to Calais. You always leave the Channel port feeling hopeless after observing the wretched lot of the refugees who gather on its outskirts with the hope of smuggling themselves into England.
Despite the fortress-like protection of the ports and attempts by London to diminish the attractions of the supposed British Eldorado, the flow to the Channel continues. The closure by (Interior Minister) Nicolas Sarkozy in 2003 of the Sangatte Red Cross centre, near the Channel tunnel entrance, did not end the affair. Hundreds of young asylum seekers, mainly from Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Turkey, are living rough on the edge of Calais and other Channel ports. They are cared for by individuals and small charities, refused shelter by the local authorities and harassed by police who have orders to keep them on the move. They inhabit a legal no-man's land because most cannot be expelled to their homelands yet they have no right to stay in France.
The British media have over the years whipped up unjustified indignation over supposed French laxness towards the refugees but French public opinion has never focused much on les miserables of the ports. The domestic army of clandestins in the big cities draw more emotion -- both sympathy and hostility -- than the ones who are trying to transit through France to Britain.
That has changed for a while with the release tomorrow of Welcome, a movie by Philippe Lioret and starring Vincent Lindon, one of France's biggest stars, which seeks to expose the brutal treatment of the Calais refugees.[Trailer here] The story involves Simon, a depressed local swimming instructor, who befriends Bilal, a young Iraqi Kurd, and helps train him for a highly dangerous project to swim the Channel to England, where he wants to find his girlfriend and play for Manchester United. In helping the lad, Simon learns of the savage existence of the asylum seekers and falls foul of the police.
Both Lioret and Lindon have scored pre-release publicity and incurred the wrath of the Sarkozy government by accusing the state of inhumanity towards the asylum-seekers. The pair are denouncing a law which makes it an offence to help an illegal resident. Lioret stirred special trouble by invoking the spectre of wartime Vichy France and comparing the harassment of the Calais clandestins to the Nazi persecution of the Jews.
"If tomorrow you help a guy who has no papers, you're guilty under the offence of 'helping a person whose papers are not in order'," Lioret told La Voix du Nord newspaper. "What country are we living in? I have the impression that we're in 1943 and that we've hidden a Jew in the cellar," he said.
That spurred a riposte from Eric Besson, the former Socialist who has just become Sarkozy's new Immigration Minister. "To suggest that the French police are like the police of Vichy, and that Afghans are hunted down, are the target of roundups ... is intolerable," said Eric Besson.
Lindon, who plays Simon, said that the "illegals are sometimes treated worse than dogs." With its dense barbed wire fences, Calais was "a town in a state of siege," he said.
Lindon, who has spent his career playing sensitive, flawed heroes, vowed on television at the weekend to stop frequenting posh Paris restaurants because he was so appalled by the suffering at Calais. The promise did not last long, according to today's Figaro. Lindon was spotted lunching yesterday at the Brasserie Lipp, the famed eating place on the Boulevard Saint Germain.
 The French rather enjoy wallowing in gloom while Americans often seem impossibly cheerful, at least in European eyes. That old stereotype contains a degree of truth but here's a sign that the Americans might be becoming more French.
Americans are flocking to a new French-made internet site where people lament their misfortunes and recount the big and little disasters that ruined their day. FMyLife.com is simply an English-language version of VieDeMerde.fr, a wildly successful site that was started in January last year by two young Paris entrepreneurs, Guillaume Passaglia and Maxime Valette. VDM, which could be translated as Life Sucks, is now in the top 10 in Google's French search list and after only six weeks, FML is receiving a million visits a day, mainly from New York City and the Los Angeles area.
The idea of VDM and now FML, is simple. Losers tell their sob story in a few words, for the amusement or commiseration of others. The darker, bleaker and more humiliating the better. The episode must start Aujourd'hui or Today and end with the curse VDM or FML.
Two examples: "Today, my boss fired me via text message. I don't have a text messaging plan. I paid $0.25 to get fired. FML."
"Today, I received two text messages from my girlfriend. The first to tell me that it was all over. The second to tell me that she had sent it to the wrong person. VDM".
Most involve failure at work or in love and sex but some are just domestic, such as: "Today my little sister got a hamster. After four deaths, we hoped that this one would live a long time. The new rodent broke a record: 20. That's the number of minutes until it died of a heart attack after seeing the cat. VDM."
Passaglia and Valette are surprised by the way that Americans have taken to their site to unload their woes. "This sort of humour is quite specifically French but nevertheless it has worked in the USA straight away," Passaglia told us by phone.
The sites have been helped by the economic crisis, he says. "It favours this type of mentality. You have even more need to distance yourself from the difficulties of the world by laughing at your daily problems." Passaglia, whose site produced the material for a book last December, said that his team rejects the great majority of the 20,000 stories they receive every day on the French version and they only publish the best. They attempt to weed out the exaggerated and the outright false and they produce rankings of the most impressive failures. An American team does the same on FML.
The success of VDM in France has spawned half a dozen other self-pity sites, on which self-styled "serial losers" (now adopted as a French expression) can lament their shabby lot. These include include Jaipasdechance.com (I've no luck) and JobDeMerde.com (Sh--tty Job). The latest opened to instant success last Monday under the name RaterSaVie (FailingYourLife).
The spur for the site was an ill-advised remark last month by Jacques Séguéla, the veteran advertising man and friend of President Sarkozy, that "anyone who doesn't have a Rolex watch by the age of 50 has failed his life." The idea is to come up with joke things to do by a certain age that are even more preposterous than Séguéla's defence of Sarko.
With their sense of sardonic self-mockery, the hard-luck sites reflect the pessimistic streak in the French character and also illustrate Voltaire's remark that "the misfortunes of some make for the happiness of others". Some have described the sites as Twitter for losers.
Danielle Rapoport, a well-known psychologist, thinks that the sites reflect a very French mixture of defiance and anxiety. "The French are champions of depression and pessimism because they have a culture of comfortable status quo and life in fear of losing something," she told us. "At the same time they have a sense of rebellion which pushes them to act."
Some experts think that too much negativity is bad for the character. Pierre Mannoni, a sociologist who wrote a book called "Social Bad Luck" said that there was a danger in falling victim to what is known in French as "le miserablisme". "Even if it's done with humour, it can be dangerous to
describe oneself endlessly as a loser," he said in a Swiss newspaper. "It can prevent you from succeeding."
To end on a lighter note, Libération is leading today with four pages on the positive side of le marasme ambiant and la sinistrose, two good expressions for the prevailing sense of depression. It points out that "in Europe, the French are always more afflited by anxiety than their neighbours by bad economic times". Yet, it says, there is a sense that people are making do with less and even rather enjoying the latest trend, which goes by the name of la nouvelle frugalité.
[Below: A recent book, How to be a failure in life in 11 lessons. ]
[UPDATE March 8. Sarkozy has apparently persuaded Obama to meet him for a quick session at a Normandy beach between the London and Strasbourg summits, on April 3 -- according to le Figaro.] ---------- For a French leader who has often seemed dazzled by the United States, Nicolas Sarkozy has not been helping his case for new friendship with Washington. But you can also understand that he is needled by today's White House visit by Gordon Brown, the first European leader to be invited by President Obama.
Sarkozy had pulled out the diplomatic stops to woo the Obama team before and after his November victory. As Europe's new strongman, as he saw it, Sarko was hoping to make France the new "go to" country for Washington in its relations with the EU. He began, though, with a little spelling mistake, sending a congratulatory note within minutes of the election result in which he wrote by hand "Dear Barak".
The Elysée lobbied hard for a quick Washington invitation and, US diplomat friends tell me, the White House hesitated before falling back on the old relationship with London -- which is really only seen as special on the UK side. "This is obviously a serious diplomatic reverse for President Sarkozy," said Le Nouvel Observateur, a left-leaning weekly that likes to play up the President's difficulties. "He was hoping to be designated by the Obama administration as the privileged interlocutor of the United States in Europe, as the de facto leader of the Old Continent," it said. Le Parisien says today that Washington is snubbing Sarkozy.
The President asked Obama to drop in for at least a photo-opp at the Elysée around the Nato summit in the French city of Strasbourg on April 3. That was refused too. Sarkozy now says that he will "receive" the US leader on the sideliness of the Strasbourg session. Yesterday he had a few minutes with Hilary Clinton at the Gaza aid meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. A few weeks ago, he was saying that meeting the Secretary of State was the job of his Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, not the President of France.
So why the relative cold shoulder from the Americans? Sarkozy is after all about to take a big step towards Washington -- much more than a gesture -- by bringing France back into the military structure of the Nato alliance after a 43-year break? Part of the reason is Sarko's big mouth. Since the financial crisis began in earnest last October, he has sought to score points at home at the expense of the Americans and the British, blaming them for starting the mess. The new administration is not greatly impressed by his messianic demands for "refounding" the international economic system. It has also been annoyed by his public refusal to send more French forces to join the Nato operation in Afghanistan. New French criticism of Israel is another factor. None of this has helped the atmosphere.
In private, Sarkozy is now saying that he has few illusions that the Obama administration will be much more open to Europe than its predecessor. He is said to be irritated by the global adulation of a US president who has eclipsed his own stardom. "It is difficult not to see a little jealousy on the part of a President who so loves to be on the front page -- a little annoyance towards someone who is more a media darling and more powerful than him," said Sud-Ouest newspaper.
That may just be atmospherics and Obama has yet to land in Europe. I suspect that Sarkozy l'Américain,as he once proudly called himself, has not lost the fascination for the United States that he has so often shown. Don't forget the compliments that he paid his last and current wives. Cécilia was the new Jackie Kennedy when he won the presidency in May 2007 and a few months later, he was calling Carla Bruni, her successor, his Marilyn Monroe.
[Picture: Carla and Nicolas taking Manhattan last September. Top picture:Sarkozy playing cowboy on election-eve 2007]
We saw a few months ago that Nicolas Sarkozy was having a good crisis. Like Britain's Gordon Brown at the time he appeared to be on top of the financial turmoil. His boss-of-everything style suited the moment. Now, Super Sarko is coming a little unstuck.
The "hyper-president" has hit trouble with his mania for running France from his palace and reducing his government and parliament to simple executants and spectators. His leadership is looking arbitrary and even autocratic. Members of his cabinet are talking about their doubts. Comparisons with Napoleon Bonaparte and Vladimir Putin are coming not just from the Socialist opposition, but from within Sarkozy's own rightwing camp.
That is exaggerating, but this week a couple of cases have added to doubts about his judgment. One is his appointment of Francois Pérol, his deputy chief of staff and closest economic adviser, to the post of chief of a big new banking group. Pérol had himself put together the now state-aided group -- a union of the Caisse d'Epargne and Banque Populaire -- from the Elysée palace. This brought howls of conflict of interest. Sarkozy then said that the appointment had been cleared bythe state Ethics Commission. That turned out to be false. The head of the commission had merely given a personal opinion in private. Even Edouard Balladur, the former Prime Minister who was Sarkozy's mentor, said this was too much. The Socialists want criminal charges brought if the appointment goes ahead.
Balladur was the source of Sarkozy's other trouble. Appointed by the President to suggest administrative reforms, he came up with a new map of France. The historic regions of Picardy and the Auvergne would simply vanish, Brittany would reclaim its lost region around Nantes, Normandy would be united and Paris would be expanded to engulf the surrounding region. In a nice political touch, Poitou-Charentes would also be eradicated. That region happens to be the power base of its president, Ségolène Royal.
You don't need to know much about French attachment to le terroir to guess the reaction. The regions may only have been political entities since the early 1980s, but the attachment to the historic provinces, such as Auvergne and Picardy, runs deep (we saw this with the car license plates last month). The Balladur scheme may fizzlebut Sarko is being accused of trying to recast France with the whim of an absolute monarch.
Sarkozy's critics, including some in his own Cabinet, say that his system of forcing la rupture by riding rough-shod over tradition and institutions has reached its limit. In a time of unrest and upheaval, he should stop behaving like a monarch and delegate power to his Prime Minister, François Fillon. He should appoint ministers with authority in their own right. His present cabinet is full of indebted courtiers who take orders from the palace advisers who run their sectors. A good example is Christine Lagarde, the Finance Minister, a lawyer with no political background who is struggling out of her depth while Sarkozy and his staff run the economy.
An un-named minister told le Monde: A real government has to be established, with a screen between the President and events. Nicolas Sarkozy must do what he does not know how to do: work in a team and confer value on his ministers. The question is whether he can put into question his two years in power so far.
That remark, albeit anonymous, has caused a stir since it appeared yesterday. Criticism also came on the record from Jean-Francois Copé, the parliamentary leader of Sarkozy's UMP party, who has turned into a dissident. "The challenge is to create a hyper-parliament opposite the hyper-president from which ministers can draw support," he said.
Sarko is a pragmatist, but few see him retreating from the pilot's seat and becoming a lofty chairman like his recent predecessors and especially Jacques Chirac, the last incumbent. French presidents have enjoyed near absolute power most of the time since the job was invented for Charles de Gaulle in 1958. The exception has been nine years of cohabition with opposition governments. Until Sarkozy, recent presidents have followed de Gaulle's precedent of delegating management of the country to their Prime Minister. Sarkozy is telling people that he is aware of the discontent -- which is reflected in rock bottom approval ratings -- but he says the mood is the result of the economic slump, not his leadership. In other words, Europe's modern Bonaparte will march on, heedless of the storm around him.
[Top picture is from the cover of a recent edition of Le Point news magazine. ]
Last week the English city of Birmingham caused a furore when it dropped apostrophes from street names. The reason was confusion over spelling for satellite navigation. An elegant Norman town near the English Channel has come up with a similar high-tech problem. It wants to change its name because internet searches are unable to find it -- and because the lady mayor may be a little embarrassed.
The town of 8,000 on the border of Normandy and Picardy is called Eu. It is an honorable, ancient name that has featured in literature and is appreciated by cross-word enthusiasts. It is pronounced in the same way as "euh", the delaying sound in French speech that corresponds to err or um in English.
Eu, which is close to the coastal town of Tréport has been suffering from a drop in holiday visitors and they think they know the reason: the internet. People booking on line are not directed to the town's fine hotels and inns because search engines fail to recognise a two-letter place name which is the same as the past participle of the verb avoir (J'ai eu, pronounced roughly like the letter U in English, means I had). It also does not help that EU stands for European Union in English. Further complicating Eu's problem is the fact that two other French words are pronounced the same way: eux, meaning them and oeufs, meaning eggs.
After making only 7,700 euros in hotel visitor tax instead of the expected 24,000, Marie-Françoise Gaouyer, the new Socialist Mayor of Eu (above), has set out to add a few more letters. She has an extra good reason for doing so. Try saying her title in French. La Maire d'Eu (The Mayor[ess] of Eu) is pronounced the same as La merde (sorry for spelling out what will be obvious to most here).
Because of that, the town hall stationery carries the careful heading "Mairie de la Ville d’Eu". (...of the Town of Eu) That is one of the possibilities for a new name, along with Eu-en-Normandie or Eu-le-Château. That's its historic château in the picture.
Of course the change is being resisted by locals who are not keen on bowing to the internet. Eric Pradels, owner of the town's main newspaper shop, told Paris Normandie newspaper that he likes the quirky name: "When people ask my address, I hear them hesitate. They think that I have not finished my sentence. That gives me a chance to talk about the town."
Jean-Claude Andréoni, another local, said: "If people don't know it, we say near Tréport. Or Dieppe. There is no way it is going to be changed because of the internet."
Madame la Maire says that it will take four years to make the change. This requires a council vote, a referendum, a parliamentary act and approval by the President's cabinet of ministers.
A pilot's footnote: Eu has a nice little aerodrome. It's almost impossible for English weekend flyers to state their destination on the radio as "Eu". So the airfield is called Eu-Mer (pronounced roughly 'Ermer' in English).
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.
A day out in Iraq must be relaxing for Nicolas Sarkozy, given the troubles that are stacking up for him at home. It's time for a run through his formidable list of headaches and I will respond to a false allegation from his office today that we British media misreported him.
First the news: Sarko dropped into Iraq this morning, becoming the first French president to visit the country. His arrival turns the page on the Franco-American spat over the 2003 invasion. It is a step towards restoring the diplomatic and commercial interests that France used to have in Iraq. Before the first Gulf war, Paris was one of the chief arms suppliers to the late President Saddam Hussein. And before the 2003 war, France's Total company had obtained Iraqi oil rights in anticipation of the end of the embargo applied to Saddam at the time.
Meeting President Talabani and Noori al Maliki, the Prime Minister, Sarkozy said: "France believes in the unity of Iraq. The world needs a united, democratic, sovereign and strong Iraq. France wishes your complete integration in the Middle East and in the world." France is ready to give Iraq unlimited cooperation, he said, adding: "We say to French companies that the time has come to return to Iraq.”
And here is what is not going right for the French President:
His TV talk last week failed to quell unrest over the crisis. The unions have called for another day of national strikes, on March 19 although that is in part a lever ahead of negotiations with the Government next week.
Sarkozy's ratings have slumped again after months of recovery. Approval for the President has sunk between five and 10 points over the past month to the mid-30s, according to several polls in the past week.
His bail-out for the car industry has started a fight with Brussels and Prague over protectionism. He obliged the two big car-makers to promise to stop off shoring production in return for the state's six billion euros. He singled out French car production in the Czech Republic in his TV talk. The Czech government, which now holds the EU presidency, has called an urgent summit to deal with this.
In a reversal of roles, the formerly free-market Sarko was attacked this morning by François Chérèque, leader of the big CFDT labour union, for indulging in protectionism. "Blocking the market economy in order to make the French buy French means going back to the level of debate of the 1970s," Chérèque said on France-Inter radio. Of course the same alarm is being sounded in Britain, the US and elsewhere.
A strike is spreading in the universities. Valery Pécresse, the Higher Education Minister, is trying to defuse a revolt by teacher-researchers. Sarkozy seems to fear a wild-fire uprising by teachers and students more than anything else.
Resistance is growing from both the opposition and Sarkozy's own camp against his plan to take France fully back into the Nato alliance in April, 43 years after President de Gaulle withdrew in the name of national independence. Sarkozy is being accused of selling out French sovereignty. He is worried that Parliament, in which his party holds a strong majority, may not support the Nato move.
Guadeloupe, the French-owned Caribbean island, is in insurrection [right] over high living costs and Sarkozy is worried that the unrest will spread back to France.
He is in a quandary. If he appeases the three-week revolt by giving in to demands for subsidising higher incomes, he will further disrupt the local economy and contradict his strategy for handling the crisis in France. So today, Sarkozy refused the wage rise demanded by the group leading the mutiny. It goes by the colourful Creole name Liyannaj Kont Pwofitasyon" (In French, Collectif contre l'exploitation outrancière or Collective Against Extreme Exploitation).
The Caribbean strike, which has now spread to neighbouring Martinique, underlines the impossible costs of subsidising poor colonies on the other side of oceans while treating them as almost ordinary French départements (counties) with welfare protection and seats in the national parliament.
Perhaps the most minor of Sarkozy's problems has been the fall-out from his swipe at Britain in his TV appearance. It seemed gratuitous and it has lost him the goodwill of Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister.
I don't like wasting time on cross-Channel rivalry, but will make an exception because the Elysée Palace blamed us for the row today. Sarkozy's office tried to weasel out of the affair by accusing us of mis-representing what he said. "President Sarkozy deplores the way in which his comments on the British economy were reported in the United Kingdom," their statement said.
That is shameless. There was no misreporting. As we saw here already, Sarkozy chose to bring up Britain as the counter-example of what he wants for France. Gordon Brown had cut taxes to re-start the economy and it had not worked, he said. Britain was suffering because it was so tied into the US financial sector, he said. "England no longer has industry, unlike France. That is because England, 25 years ago, made the choice of services and notably, financial services," he said.
This was accurately reported, though we did fail to point out that Sarkozy got his facts wrong. Le Monde made amends today, explaining that Britain still has more industry than France.
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Footnote: My use of the term Anglo-Saxon last week has stirred some argument. I don't think there's anything wrong with the French using it as short hand for the developed English-speaking nations that originated with immigration from the UK. For France and the rest of the continent this has a clear sense. Simply saying "English-speaking countries" does not cover the same thing. I'm hybrid Scottish-Australian but am not offended when Britons are collectively known as les anglais, los ingleses, англичане (Anglichanye - in Russian) or whatever. It's just custom that's all. And I also fail to see what's patronising in using Gallic as a variant for French in the broad sense, even if it offends Bretons, Basques, Ch'tis and residents of le neuf-trois -- the Seine Saint Denis département on the poor northeastern edge of Paris. I don't call the French Gauls -- although Variety, the Hollywood trade paper, has always done so [example here].
President Sarkozy pulled off a smooth performance in his long television audience with his restive nation last night. It was a strange show -- a regal lecture from the Elysée Palace in answer to soft questions from four journalists, one of whom he romanced a couple of years ago.
More on the behaviour of the journalists below, but first the summmary. Over 15 million people tuned in to one of the three main television channels whose prime time Sarko had commandeered for his pep talk. For 90 minutes, he held the stage, exuding his usual self-confidence as he explained that he understood people's anguish -- which was due not to his policies but to a world crisis caused by the Anglo-Saxons.
Sarkozy gave a little ground, promising corporate tax cuts, some welfare benefits and talks with the trade unions. Otherwise, he refused to follow demands that he cut taxes and raise the minimum wage to boost consumer spending. The British have tried that and it did not work, he said. France would stick with his 26 billion euro plan for investing in infrastructure and industry.
"The English have chosen to follow the strategy of stimulus through consumption, notably by lowering VAT (sales tax) by two points. It has done absolutely nothing," he said.
The British and the Americans came in for harsh treatment. The USA and the UK had been hit far harder than France in this "worst crisis for a century", said Sarkozy. "When you see the situation in the United States and the United Kingdom, we don't want to look like them."
Sarkozy also said he would refuse to "pay America's debt" and he demanded US agreement to radical reforms of the world financial system. "They're not going to get away with explaining that everything is going to go on as before."
You hear the same points about the US and Britain all over Europe, but not usually from heads of state. Sarkozy's relations with Gordon Brown and Barack Obama are clearly not as rosy as we thought. On the other hand, he went out of his way to praise Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, with whom he has really does not get on. Downing Street seethed as the British media and opposition had fun with Sarkozy's words today.
Predictably the unions and the Socialist opposition gave Sarkozy a low grade. "He is fobbing us off with talks and negotiations," said Martine Aubry, the Socialist leader. "He has no problem ramming decisions through when he wants to cut taxes for the super rich, or to make people work on Sundays," she said.
The unions are not satisfied and are talking of another day of strikes and protests. I have a feeling that they will happen.
The Sarko-show has generated another story today -- the meek behaviour of the star TV journalists who were invited by the palace to question the President.
There is not much new in this because France's political boss is also the head of state, unlike most other European countries. That makes an interview more ceremonial than with a Prime Minister. Since General de Gaulle in the 1950s, journalists have always deferred heavily to French Presidents. One exception was Patrick Poivre d'Arvor, who became an ex star presenter last year after telling Sarkozy in an interview that he had been acting like a little boy.
But Sarkozy does more than his predecessors to bully and influence the media and he can be intimidating in an interview, as I have found out first hand. As president, he loads his evening broadcasts in his favour by summoning the TV to his turf -- a studio set up in the palace ballroom. Last night there was a visible studio audience of palace staff.
He was given an exceptionally easy time by Laurence Ferrari of TF1, David Pujadas of France 2, Alain Duhamel of RTL and Guy Lagache of M6. Mediapart, a serious leftwing news site, poured scorn on them today. "Nicolas Sarkozy offered the pitiful spectacle of an idle king... revelling in vague but gilded questions."
The SNJ, the main -- and leftwing -- journalists' union, condemned the interviewers in a statement. "They perfectly played their role as court jesters... In no other so-called democratic country do politicians choose their interlocutors like that," it said.
No-one has publicly mentioned what many people knew as they watched Ferrari lobbing her questions to Monsieur le Président, that she went out with with him in the short period after his divorce in October 2007. He is said in the business to have played a role in her promotion Poivre d'Arvor's job.
When he was elected, Sarkozy promised to hold open US-style presidential news conferences. The only time he tried, in January last year, the result was so disastrous for him that he forgot about the idea.
[below: Ferrari and Pujadas not grilling Sarkozy]
President Sarkozy is going on television tonight to try to convince a sceptical country that he is doing enough to handle the economic crisis. He is not expected to shift course or announce anything. But for some in the political world, the main point may be what he says about Bernard Kouchner.
Sarkozy's Foreign Minister, who made his name decades ago as a crusading activist for human rights, is at the centre of a storm over allegations of sleazy behaviour. The fuss has been created by a book that takes an axe to Dr Kouchner's reputation as a dashing apostle of noble causes. It depicts him as an agent of US interests and a France-hater. The allegation of sleaze stems from details of work that Kouchner performed as a consultant for Omar Bongo, the President of Gabon for the last 40 years [picture below] and other less-than-savoury African leaders. That was before Sarkozy recruited him to his new government in 2007 as his prize catch from the left. [My Kouchner profile here]
Kouchner, 69, says that the "The World According to K"by Pierre Péan, is a a pile of nauseating nonsense. He denies any conflicts of interest or impropriety and depicts himself as the victim of a malicious attempt to destroy his name. He says that his consulting work was legitimate and led to a big improvement in health services for poor Africans. François Fillon, the Prime Minister, has rallied to his side, but so far Sarkozy has said nothing. The President does not get along well with his ageing rock star of a Foreign Minister and there are suggestions that his staff may even have had a hand in the book.
Here's the story from today's Times, but it's worth expanding on its seamy side. So far we have only seen extracts from the book, but they are enough to raise questions about the intent of Pierre Péan. His attack on Kouchner carries a whiff of anti-semitism and a poisonous tone that reminds one of the xenophobia of the old French far right.
Péan has made a career as a hard-hitting investigative journalist. He has delivered some scoops, such as the revelation in 1994 that the then President Mitterrand had held a senior job in the wartime Vichy régime.Le Monde newspaper has not yet recovered from a damaging investigation of its methods that he co-wrote five years ago.
Péan's pedigree explains why his Kouchner book carries weight. But Pean writes in an opinionated, often brutal way. He has hobby horses, one of which is the Rwanda. His last book turned history on its head, arguing that Tutsi leaders and not the French-backed Hutu were behind the 1994 genocide of 800,000 Tutsis.
Péan discredits his indictment of Kouchner by painting him as a money-mad outsider whose primary motivation springs from his Jewish origins. Kouchner is driven, he says, by "hatred for the values of the French Revolution, of the wartime Resistance, of a national independence that is loathed in the name of an Anglo-Saxon cosmopolitanism...". The Foreign Minister is guilty of "selling out French interests" to the United States and of hating himself as well as France.
That is odious stuff, the kind of language that was used against Jews and other supposed enemies of France in the Dreyfus affair of the late 1890s and by the hard right in the years up to 1945. Even Jean-Marie Le Pen, the sulphurous boss of the far-right National Front, would think twice before using the old anti-semitic codeword "cosmopolitan".
Kouchner was right to call this sickening and I'm pleased to see that a few commentators have come round to the same view.Le Monde has just denounced Péan's language as a loathsome "cocktail of qualifiers used by a certain French right wing". Jean-Michel Aphatie, one of the sharpest political commentators, has written a blog post pointing out Péan's apparent anti-semitism.
The minister may be helped by the sinister tone of Péan's book because it distracts attention from his consulting work for regimes with records far removed from the moral causes that he has always promoted. Everyone knows that Kouchner is a bit of a showman with a prima donna side. Péan's book does not seem to reveal any facts that were not already known about the minister. He will no doubt survive in his job, for a while at least.
It's time for the score card from France's 'day of mobilisation', as yesterday's strikes and protests were politely called.
First, "Black Thursday", as it was billed, did not happen. The rail and city transport unions failed to paralyse the country as they had hoped. Services were cut, but continued to run. The lines I use on the Paris Métro were almost normal and delightfully empty.
That is because millions across France took the day off, to avoid the hassle of commuting and also, for some, to take part in protest marches against President Sarkozy. Unlike the low-key strikes, les manifestations were largely a success. Over a million people -- 2.5 million according to the unions -- turned out for the marches, of which by far the biggest was the Paris parade from la Place de la Bastille to the Opéra. Over 100,000 seemed to be on the street.
The provincial papers joined in the festive mood today, proclaiming local marches to be "massive", "giant", "record" and, according to La Dépêche du Midi, they were "monster-sized". François Chérèque, the head of the moderate CFDT union, called the march one of the biggest demonstrations of the last 20 years. That is over-stating things. The manifs were the biggest against Sarkozy since he took office in May 2007, but about the same size as protests in 2003 and 2006 against reforms by Jacques Chirac, his predecessor.
But the unions are right to boast that the marches saw an unusually strong turnout from beyond the public sector that always dominate France's ritual days of labour demonstrations. There were throngs of students, retired people and battalions from the car industry and other parts of the private sector where fear of unemployment is running high. There were no private sector strikes. People took the day off to vent their wrath against Sarko. There was even a contingent of police officers -- in plain clothes and off duty -- who were demanding "du fric pour les flics" -- cash for the cops. They were presumably not among the trouble-making stragglers who were being walloped by riot police when I left our office on the place de l'Opéra last night.
Down at the Elysée Palace, Sarkozy's team is relieved that the strikes made little mark and that the parades were not as big as they might have been. The President put out a conciliatory post-match statement, saying that "the fears expressed in the streets are legitimate" but he made clear that he blamed the economic crisis, not his policies. "In this particularly difficult time, our fellow citizens fear for their jobs," he said.
Sarkozy has also invited the union leaders in for talks -- but not before the end of February. They are warning that they will not let him off the hook, but the Elysée made clear this morning that nothing will change. Raymond Soubie, Sarkozy's chief adviser on labour relations, said that the President has no intention of heeding the unions demands that he go beyond his 26 billion euro stimulus for the economy: They want him to boost consumer spending. The relaunch plan, aimed at banks, industry and infrastructure investment, has only just started, said Soubie. "Historically, stimulating consumer spending has always been a failure."
So that leaves us heading for more frustration and anger in the street. The mood is definitely dark. I hear it everywhere -- from real people, outside our Parisian media-political world. People feel that they are the chief victims of a crisis for which others are responsible, yet Sarko is shovelling billions into banks that are still making profits and paying their bosses handsomely.
With an approval rating of 47 percent, Sarkozy can still count on support from a large silent minority. But there will be more unrest. The President may be regretting having tempted fate with his provocative boast last summer that "when there is a strike in France now, nobody notices".
[Note on the banner slogan in demo picture that says "Yes weekend". That's a pun on President Obama's Yes We Can, attacking Sarkozy's attempts to allow shops to work on Sundays]
[Below: a common slogan yesterday: Rêve Générale -- General Dream -- a play with Grêve Générale -- General Strike]
Here's another reason for France to cheer up. The country is enjoying its biggest baby boom for three decades.
In 2008, 800,000 babies were born in continental France, a figure not achieved since 1981, according to figures today from the National Statistical Institute. The fertility rate rose in 2008 from 1.97 to 2.02 children per woman, consolidating France's lead over the rest of Europe.
The Europeans have lately produced on average 1.5 children per woman. The EU's 2008 figures are not out yet, but Ireland was second behind France in 2007 and Slovakia was bottom at 1.25.
The rising birth figures are testimony to the success of France's long-standing effort, following long population decline, to encourage people to have children. I don't need to run through all the generous (expensive) state-provided child care benefits, the free nursery schools, travel subsidiess and the family allowances than can reach 500 euros a month.
The return to work last week of Rachida Dati, the Justice Minister, five days after giving birth, was an exception to the tradition of long, paid maternity leave. One of Dati's Cabinet colleagues has just suggested making the 16 weeks' paid leave compulsory for all working women.
If recent trends continue, France will overtake Germany as Europe's most populous nation around the middle of this century. The new year began with 64.3 million inhabitants, 366,500 more than in 2008. Germany has 82.4 million but has long suffered from a low fertility rate of below 1.4. Russia, with its big demographic problem, managed to get back to that level in 2007 from 1.2 in 2000. The United Kingdom, with a population of just under 61 million, has been doing better lately with a 1.85 fertility rate and it could also overtake Germany.
France is approaching the fertility of the United States, which, with its influx of young immigrants, is usually held up as the model for ageing Europe. The expected US rate for 2008 is 2.1. The very healthy French birth rate is certainly helped by the fairly large and young part of the population of recent immigrant origin -- as in Britain and Germany. Public discussion of the role of immigrants in the population growth is still largely taboo in France, though this is changing.
The French figures are impressive because the population is ageing faster than that of the USA and other regions outside Europe. The number of women of child-bearing age -- mainly born in the 1970s and 80s -- has been shrinking by two percent a year for the past two years. The average age of motherhood has now risen to nearly 30. Another big change from the old days is that 52 percent of children were born to unmarried parents. The figure was only six percent in 1970.
That's a big load of statistics, but they tell a story. The good population news is an example of the intelligent long-term policies in which France has excelled in recent decades. It was echoed, in the economic domain this week in a Newsweek magazine column headlined: The Last Model Standing is France.
 The economy is down, yet the French are flocking in near record numbers to entertainment, or culture as they prefer to call it.
Theatres, concerts, art shows, museums and festivals have been packed over the past year. The biggest success has been the movie industry. Cinema attendance jumped 6.2 percent in 2008 and, for only the second time in 22 years, French films took more than American ones (45.7 percent of the market compared with 44.5 for the Americans). None of the other big film markets in Europe saw such an overall box office rise last year.
I'll sketch the detail below, but news of the good year has coincided with an emotional moment for cinéphiles and France at large: the return to the screen of the much-loved Jean-Paul Belmondo, 75. Seven years after suffering a cerebral haemorrhage that initially paralysed him, "Bébel" is to appear this week, with diminished capacities but all his old charm, in a tear-jerker called Un Homme et son Chien (A man and his dog). It is clearly a multi-Kleenex movie since people cried during the trailer when I saw it the other day. Television also showed customers emerging in tears from previews in Lille last week.
A tall, physical, larger-than-life character with a rumpled face, Belmondo broke onto the scene as a star of the Nouvelle Vague, the golden age of postwar French cinema. It's hard not to apply the over-used "icon" word to his role in Jean-Luc Godard's À bout de souffle (Breathless)(1960), with Jean Seaberg (picture)
He gave up artier films and became a big comedy and action star in the 1970s and 80s, playing in classics, such as Borsalino -- with Alain Delon. He was above all an action-man, performing his own stunts in films such as Le Professionel, Flic ou Voyou, Peur sur la Ville and L'As des As. While Delon was known as a difficult and vain character, Belmondo was a chic type, a nice guy.
In his first TV interview since his illness yesterday, Belmondo was frail and his speech was slurred but he was perfectly lucid. Michel Drucker, France's favourite celebrity host, treated him like royalty and brought in big cinema names to pay tribute to his courage in going back onto a movie set. Philip Labro, a journalist-writer and film producer, summed up the effect of seeing Bebel again. "Belmondo is sunshine when he smiles. His face is a landscape whose every wrinkle is a life."
Francis Huster directed the new film, a remake of a Vittorio De Sica 1951 classic Umberto D about an old man who loses his home and only has his dog left. The reviews have been reverent. Figaro called it "troubling, moving, even shocking because we don't know where the broken star ends and where the great actor begins." But foreign reviewers have not been so kind. One Swiss critic trashed it as "indecent" and "disgusting" because it shows a star who is a shadow of his former self.
Belmondo's popularity will guarantee a good audience for A Man and his Dog in 2009. Last year, French-made films got a big push from "Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis", the Dany Boon feel-good comedy about northern bumpkins which became the most successful French film ever (Will Smith is to make an Americanised version) . Most of the top 10 were still American blockbusters, but the French industry is taking heart from the strong performance of 18 other domestic films which each sold more than one million tickets. They were mainly popular comedies or thrillers and included the hopeless Astérix and the Olympic Games, but their popularity testified to the strength of the French industry.
Just after I posted this, they announced the death of Claude Berri, one of the biggest producer-directors of recent decades. His last production was Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis. Here's Le Figaro's news item
Top 10 French Box office Hits 2008
1 Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis (Welcome to the Sticks)
2 Astérix et les Jeux Olympiques
3 Madagascar 2 (USA)
4 Indiana Jones and the kingdom...(USA)
5 Quantum of Solace (USA)
6 Kung Fu Panda (USA)
7 Wall-E (USA)
8 The World of Narnia 2 (USA)
9 Hancock (USA)
10 Batman, the Dark Knight (USA)
[Below: Enfin Veuve (A widow at last) , one of the big French hits of 2008. Dogs seem to be popular these days]
p
Tintin, the eternal boy reporter, celebrates his 80th birthday tomorrow. Europe's most venerated comic strip hero is being feted across the continent and, thanks to an imminent Steven Spielberg movie, he is at last about to be introduced to Americans.
France has long adored Tintin as one of its own although his creator, Georges Rémy, known as Hergé, was a Brussels-based French-speaking Belgian. That may explain the indignation over the past couple of days over an amusing column by my Times colleague Matthew Parris. Matthew had the effrontery to recite a longstanding assumption in the gay world that the intrepid little foreign correspondent is homosexual.
"What debate can there be when the evidence is so overwhelmingly one-way?," asked Parris [his article]. "A callow, androgynous blonde-quiffed youth in funny trousers and a scarf moving into the country mansion of his best friend, a middle-aged sailor? A sweet-faced lad devoted to a fluffy white toy terrier, whose other closest pals are an inseparable couple of detectives in bowler hats, and whose only serious female friend is an opera diva. And you're telling me Tintin isn't gay?"
It's always fun to interpret innocent-sounding yarns in this way. Alice in Wonderland has been psychoanalysed to death and I remember a tongue-in-cheek US book subjecting Winnie-the-Pooh (A.A. Milne's version, not the Disney travesty) to psycho-sexual literary criticism. But French pride has been needled by the Anglais who has used Tintin's 80th birthday to depict the brave reporter as all-out gay.
"At this age, the hormones are usually asleep," sniffed Les Echos, the business daily. "But for Matthew Parris, it is never too late to wake up the houppette of the nice Belgian hero." Houppette means both quiff and powder puff. What next, wondered les Echos ? Astérix and Obélix as lovers ? "That's perhaps the next subject for a column by Matthew Parris."
Le Figaro hammered Matthew for "reviving this old fable". It hauled in Serge Tisseron, a celebrity psychiatrist, to explain that claiming the hero as gay "is a lovely revenge for a homosexual". "The problem is that the sexual dimension is totally absent. Tintin is a creature whose sex is never defined. Beware of launching into a sexual reading of Herge's works... In reality all the characters in Tintin are children."
Figaro's article produced a torrent of mainly conservative internet comments pointing out that Hergé was drawing and writing at a time when boys' adventure stories were allowed to be violent (as Tintin was) but steered well clear of romance or sex. France Info, the public news radio network, even got in on the subject this morning, pointing out that Hergé, who died in 1983, scoffed at the gay Tintin theory after it was aired by studies in the 1970s.
The French defensiveness over Matthew's piece seems a bit overdone. The same protective reaction appears when people investigate Hergé's work during the Nazi occupation of Belgium in the early 1940s and when Tintin is nailed as a proto-fascist.
I agree with Hervé Gattegno, a Tintin fan and well-known Paris investigative journalist, when he said a couple of years ago that it did not matter whether his hero might be gay or not. Born in the Catholic pre-war culture, sex and love were kept out of the stories, he noted. "The values which are defended in the Tintin adventures are those of comradeship, friendship, solidarity and fraternity."
I have been a lifelong Tintinophile. The play with those old-fashioned virtues are what makes Tintin enjoyable -- along with the stunning draughtsmanship of Hergé. His comedy, movie-like scenes and the loving detail of the period machinery, architecture and dress, are wonderfully atmospheric.
Most loyalists are worried about how Spielberg will turn the clean-cut Boy's Own lad into a global movie hero. But the producer need not worry about the Tintin being outed. Hollywood has never had a problem with Superman, Batman and the other clingy-suited, all-bulging, all-American super-heroes.
There is nothing that Nicolas Sarkozy likes better than throwing a spanner in the works when no-one is expecting it. His latest wheeze, according to media leaks, is to do away with the pillar of the French criminal justice system: the investigating judge.
(Update late Wednesday: Sarkozy has today confirmed that he aims to abolish the old investigating system, as previewed in this post)
The juge d'instruction, also known in English as examining magistrate, is the all-powerful independent inquisitor whose role has been cenral since the days of the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.
The judges' powers have ben whittled down over the years and Sarkozy's move, if born out, will bring a further alignment of the French system with the Engilsh common law method, practised in the "Anglo-Saxon" world and elsewhere. Some judges and experts have given a cautious welcome to a long-awaited overhaul of a system which limits suspects' rights and has led to recent spectacular abuses. But Sarkozy's plan, as reported by le Monde, smacks of another of the monarchical reforms that have the effect of reinforcing the President's powers. There has been an outcry from judges and leftwing politicians who are accusing Sarko of abandoning the French tradition of independent investigation and equality before the law.
"The Sarkozy state is sliding towards authoritarianism in all domains," said Jean-Marc Ayrault, the Socialist party's parliamentary leader. "The President is abusing the rule of law."
Continue reading "Sarkozy to banish Napoleon's judges" »
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Second I am afraid you are really tired right now
DANIEL S
That's my impression too - I think his "outside the envelope" tax bill has arrived ;D
Posted by: dot king | 18 Jul 2009 18:45:51
ROCKET,
"No wonder you are always "curieux" to know people's real names"
LOL ! I wasn't alluding to you at all in my statement. The reason being that I am now perfectly "mithridatisé" by your rather constant anti-French humour :).
PS: regarding the somewhat stupid Youtube sequence, I draw your attention to the fact that the Nazi cap worn by one of the gentlemen :) is a very bad copy. I am some sort of a specialist in the matter, since in winter 1944/45, we lodged in our house two American Army intelligence officers - one was of German descent (therefore, he spoke German perfectly), the second was of Ukrainian descent - he spoke perfectly German and French and possibly other languages as well.
Their job was to interrogate war prisoners (this did not happen in our house). The first mentioned officer was a collector - he had quite a collection of Nazi caps (SS, SA, Wehrmacht...). He showed me everything - we made a few snow ball battles together. He had also a nice big dog he called "Dingo". We were also friends :).
Posted by: Daniel Strohl | 18 Jul 2009 17:01:37
ROCKET,
First of all the roïgabrageldi humourous "rant" was written by your old friend Dominique and not by Pierre, who is perfectly innocent in the story
Second I am afraid you are really tired right now - may be you should take a couple of weeks leave from the blog and a corresponding rest on a (real) "plage" :).
Posted by: Daniel Strohl | 18 Jul 2009 16:27:06
Hello Charles,
I guess you are aware of the scandal of polls manipulations by Sarkozy.
We do need the help of foreign journalists to spread the word about this scandal.
The world got to know that Sarkozy is the Madoff of the french politics.
Posted by: Antoine | 18 Jul 2009 16:10:31
["la bouche" in my nav system] Roquet
as far as i am aware, this 'interesting' feature is only available on vehicles sold in France. Figures.
I'll have to do with 'voice only.' and a good imagination.
Posted by: azloon | 18 Jul 2009 15:01:43
[What about "Rick" and "Dominique II" and their endless contived squabbles?] A (timid) Reader
As you might expect, I enjoy them, but think footnoting might make their erudition a little more accessible.
Posted by: azloon | 18 Jul 2009 14:48:35
In other words [John],you were trolling....Dom2
Dominique, you are getting carried away, in the spirit of Jay and Rene, inappropriately throwing around the term 'troll' as though you actually know what it means.
Let's don't degrade the meaning of a legitimate blogging descriptor just because we are a little annoyed with another poster. John is obviously not a 'troll' (and 'it takes one to know one' :))
Posted by: azloon | 18 Jul 2009 14:35:20
"Sociologists have been explaining."
Asking a sociologist to explain vélib vandalism is a bit like asking the fox for his recommendations on security for hen-houses!
Their motivations lie elsewhere, as the comment by Bruno Martzloff indicates. (Perhaps he is playing for funding to investigate the "reaction against the problems of mobility")
Indeed it is entirely possible that sociological counsel (to a dimwitted political class) is a factor in the impunity, which seems to characterize much of the present-day violent vandalism.
The obvious eludes them.
So, is their a common factor between Paris and Norway (Oslo?)?
Your numbers add up to a problem, 16000 out of 23000 vélibs stolen or damaged may have an effect on any Insurance cover involved. Or does their replacement come directly out of local taxes?
Posted by: john gregory flinn | 18 Jul 2009 14:34:18
[let us not give Azloon too much importance, since he positively basks in it. Clearly,he has severe problems with intercultural and international dialogue - please see his wretched attempt to be funny by caricaturing my name. He is retarded and perverse at the same time, which is certainly a difficult feat] Jay Bhattacharjee
Robert M. is correct. As someone who self-describes as a 'loon,' 'buffoon' is almost a promotion. Merci.
"Retarded' is another matter entirely. we over here dropped the use of that approbation because it was offensive to persons with developmental disabilities. but, if i could be as sweet and good-natured as some of the 'retarded' citizens I encounter here, it would be a big improvement for me, and appreciated by all who know me. Remember, you're not the only one who has to 'suffer' me.
As for 'perverse,' i think you may be onto something. but a 'good perverse,' n'est-ce pas?
'Basking in importance?' Some people take their blankets to La Plage sur Le Seine to bask in le plein soleil. Others of us sit in darkened computer spaces and bask in the 'self-importance' of blogging. Human vanity, either way. and i recognize that my fifteen minutes of fame is not 'writ large.'
btw, being me is not a 'difficult feat' as you suggest. I just have to wake up in the morning, which, thanks to a cosmic grace 'which surpatheth all understanding,' i did again today. Bonjour, mon ami.
Posted by: azloon | 18 Jul 2009 14:23:44
Jay Bhattacharjee
"this Arizona buffoon takes a huge toll on our patience and tolerance."
What about "Rick" and "Dominique II" and their endless contived squabbles?
Posted by: A Reader | 18 Jul 2009 14:01:28
John, a single character has to be a given colour. A poster with one character has to has a 100% white, black, red, brown or yellow content, and all the other skin nuances are then entitled to whine like you did? Some Paris Plage posters show a smiling black kid, should whites and others scream blue murder?
I think you care nothing about the fate of minorities in France or elsewhere and were merely trying to be outrageous. In other words,you were trolling.
Posted by: Dominique II | 18 Jul 2009 13:52:43
Totally unreal woman in a swimsuit. She would get skin cancer at Paris Plage which is indeed meant for a coloured population. Totally unfair to criticize Delanoe on that account. What is wrong is the cost of the whole show.
Posted by: thomasine | 18 Jul 2009 13:42:53
[since old hand posters like myself and others know your name and address] Daniel
That stinks of 1940's denunciation. No wonder you are always "curieux" to know people's real names.
Achtung!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIZtG13C2P8
Posted by: rocket | 18 Jul 2009 12:02:26
Pierre wrote
Daniel Strohl,
Your "repas marcaires" and "roïgabrageldi" are such a denial the ethnic diversity of the french population!
Your "whity-white Aryan" food is pure scandale! You cling to a long gone whity-white Alsace!
Of course, you understand i was writing to....John,
__________________________________
to that you should have added.
"I would never allow myself to criticize a fellow compatriot"
Posted by: rocket | 18 Jul 2009 11:56:33
AZLOON
"Speaking of attractive French females, I have a new-used car with a nav-sat in both French and English (my car brand is popular in Francophone Canada). I like to set a destination with the French option because I enjoy being spoken to by this lovely French female voice (is there one better?), even if I don't always know where she's telling me to go (to her house?)"
Did you get the extendable -retractable air suction mouth that comes as an accessory to the French voice chipand connects to the nav box.? It certainly makes those long rides through the desert much more pleasant and it is extractable so you can take it with you.
I also would like to inform you that you can get a French female voice chip for your Nav system (reasonably priced)that talks dirty to you in French while you drive and all you have to do is push the button to activate the "roving" mouth at the same time and your life will be complete.
I've go both the chip and "la bouche" in my nav system and it certainly is better than watching the scenery. However my wife gets a little upset when we travel and I use it.
I have been pulled over by the police a few times but what the hell, I let them use it and they let me go without giving me a moving violation.
Posted by: rocket | 18 Jul 2009 11:46:00
Jay : I'm not sure Azloon would be offended by your characterisation of him as the Arizona buffoon. Watch his alias.
Posted by: Robert Marchenoir | 18 Jul 2009 11:40:52
"They lost the olympics? For good!" (DOMINIQUE)
This is also my opinion. I am not quite sure whether the Londonians are really happy to have to foot the probably rather huge bill :).
PS:
Dominique, per pure coincidence, the repas marcaire was really "whity-white" :). There were may be 50 persons, many of them with a "charming" accent...
Posted by: Daniel Strohl | 18 Jul 2009 11:11:25
Daniel Strohl,
Your "repas marcaires" and "roïgabrageldi" are such a denial the ethnic diversity of the french population!
Your "whity-white Aryan" food is pure scandale! You cling to a long gone whity-white Alsace!
Of course, you understand i was writing to....John,
John,
Concidering your writings, you obviously either don't live in Paris, or have problems with skin colors. Heralding the "Aryan" qualification for the white woman of the 30's tells more about your complex than about so called "ethnic minorities" needs for recognition. Maybe a white complex of yours? This is more and more common nowadays.
Please note that one can face discrimination and be white. See report of the HALDE regarding this subject. 0nly 1/4 of complaints are releted to origin (witch is not skin color).
http://www.halde.fr/rapport-annuel/2008/rapport_annuel_2008.html?page=31
You write : "I just can't imagine that cities like London, Amsterdam or Hong Kong would communicate in that way about themselves. Paris City Hall doesn't seem to have a clue about communication in this globalized world. "
I hope it will remain that way and that Paris will never become one more "global english speaking city" that the world doesn't need. It has already too many of them. How boring to fly from London to Amsterdam, HongKong, now Paris, and have to speak english in order to have a coffe at Starbucks.
More, so called "globalized world" is just an other word for "globalized bourgeoisie". Socially discriminated people don't belong to this "happy world" of yours you describe. They are usually stuck in their own place with no passport nor visa.
They lost the olympics? For good!
Posted by: Dominique | 18 Jul 2009 10:25:14
Les amies / amis comme Dominique, Stephane, Daniel Strohl, Rene C Moya et al : I know it is difficult to ignore a person like Azloon who re-surfaces on every post and spouts his garbage.
For normal readers...this Arizona buffoon takes a huge toll on our patience and tolerance. However, it is impossible for CB to edit every...response.
A suggestion - let us not give Azloon too much importance, since he positively basks in it. Clearly,he has severe problems with intercultural and international dialogue - please see his wretched attempt to be funny by caricaturing my name. He is retarded and perverse at the same time, which is certainly a difficult feat.
Why not put him down as an associated (and unavoidable)cost of reading CB's column ?
Posted by: Jay Bhattacharjee | 18 Jul 2009 09:29:18
Up here in the 10th and 19th arrondissements, we don't get treated to the bathing beauty poster. Instead it's "un été solidaire".
Posted by: tf | 17 Jul 2009 23:54:58
DOMINIQUE,
Je suis heureux de vous voir de retour sur le blog. Ceci dit, vous me prêtez de bien noirs desseins !- Je n'ai effectivement pas une estime débordante pour certains bobos (ceux avec le coeur à gauche et le portefeuille à droite), mais il ne me viendrait pas à l'idée de vous classer dans cette catégorie.
Vivez en paix dans votre biotope tel qu'il vous convient !
A propos de biotope et d'accent "charmant" :), nous avons déjeuné hier dans une ferme auberge au fond de la vallée de Munster, près d'un petit lac (l. du Forlet). Ces fermes auberges servent ce qu'on appelle des repas marcaires - en général, on a droit à une tranche de tourte (pâté de viande chaud) et/ou potage suivi du plat principal (dans notre cas, deux tranches - par personne - largement dimensionnées de rôti de porc fumé accompagnées de "roïgabrageldi", c'est-à-dire de pommes de terre bien assaisonnées cuites à l'étouffée avec de petits lardons, le tout accompagné d'une salade). Ensuite, fromage et/ou dessert - dans notre cas, un fromage blanc à la crème parfumé d'un (mince :) filet de kirsch pour mon épouse et une portion de Munster pour moi. Ce type de repas est plutôt du genre roboratif :).
PS:
LEX, if you are around : - a contribution to our beloved cheesology - Munster cheese can be rather smelly :) when it is over-matured. Otherwise, it is quite good. I remember that a former American business friend (who worked in Carson City at the time :) told me that Munster cheese is also available in the US, but that its taste is somewhat different from the original.
Posted by: Daniel Strohl | 17 Jul 2009 23:29:23
[I know: René's post contained no arguments. That's your standard and rather tiresome summary of anything that riles. Find something else... it's especially ludicrous in that case. René certainly held an opinion, but he made his points with clarity, supported them with fact] Dominique II
Dom, you can do better than this, please. Rene's post was an attack on me, and god bless him for it. I respect frontal assaults, particularly articulate ones, instead of 'whining.' And French here don't exhibit the 'killer instinct' often enough. So I understand your perceived and expressed connection with him. He doesn't take any shit, and you don't either. Good for him, and you. But his diatribe was hardly worthy of your high praise, though perhaps his methods are.
You say 'he made his points with clarity and supported them with fact.'' Well if there is such a thing as an 'inaccurate fact,' then I might agree with you. As i often say about myself, 'seldom right, but never in doubt.' I would apply that description to Rene as well. He was mistaken about points he was convinced he was making.
btw, sorry for referring to Rene as "Ms." in a previous post -- I just can get used to Rene as a man's name, being a child of The Left Banke's' 'Walk Away Rene(e)," eons ago.
http://vodpod.com/watch/116223-video-the-left-banke-walk-away-rene-the-left-banke-60s-video-dailymotion-share-your-videos
Speaking of attractive French females, I have a new-used car with a nav-sat in both French and English (my car brand is popular in Francophone Canada). I like to set a destination with the French option because I enjoy being spoken to by this lovely French female voice (is there one better?), even if I don't always know where she's telling me to go (to her house?). i actually have a friend whose wife was a a bit piqued when she thought he was being 'seduced' by his nav-sat's female voice. There has to be a 'story idea' here for a movie gag. And it probably only happened during her menses.
Posted by: azloon | 17 Jul 2009 23:05:11
I'm sure Nottingham has done this before, years ago. I was a student there and left in 1992 and it was being discussed not long afterwards. Maybe Paris didn't start this trend...
Posted by: Ruth | 17 Jul 2009 22:43:39
JOHN
This was a retro style picture showing how things used to be. OK things have changed and there is now more ethnic diversity in Paris and France as a whole, but France is still a predominantly white European country. This cannot be hidden and denied. So why is it wrong to show this. An African, or Asian girl for instance would not be typical of the population. Added to this is the fact that many of the ethnic minority female population would not want to be depicted in a swimsuit. Should we also deny that this is part of European culture?
Posted by: Gill | 17 Jul 2009 22:36:39
"Also, note the downright stupidity of the poster's argument : don't attack Vélibs, because they can't defend themselves."
It's bon enfant like everything in france
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jmmYDbALnxBeZ1Ht3-Ewbvawocqg
And God forbid you should touch the hair of a union member.
The advertisement should have read. If you destroy a Velib you will go to prison for 6 months. But of course that is not possible here.
Il ne faut pas affoler les français!
Posted by: rocket | 17 Jul 2009 22:14:27
Calling a white woman an "Aryan" is like calling a black one a "negress".
Posted by: Pierre | 17 Jul 2009 20:42:53
Dominique wrote: "Sorry for still having some white people around. Are we still allowed to display old postcards, pictures of our grand-parents, see our former kings queens eventhough they were all white?"
This is typical denial of the discrimination suffered by non-White people in our society. Instead of embracing the diversity of this city, and making it more inclusive, the bobo elites cling to a long gone whity-white Paris of old. FYI, White people don't need to have their faces on posters or on TV, they already dominate this society, they don't suffer discrimination, so they have no need to feel recognized or accepted. Non-White people, on the other hand, are at the bottom of this society, they suffer daily discrimination (I can see it everyday in the street in the way the police is always on their back), so a Paris poster with a non-White face would be more important to them than for a White person, it would make them feel more accepted, and it would show that Paris is an all-embracing city.
But beyond that 'ethnic' aspect, I find this Paris Plage poster shocking in its display of an Amélie-like Paris frozen in time at some point in the 1930s, a sort of quaint old museum city for tourists. I just can't imagine that cities like London, Amsterdam or Hong Kong would communicate in that way about themselves. The Paris City Hall doesn't seem to have a clue about communication in this globalized world. That's how they lost the Olympic Games in 2004 already, with their idiotic video presentation of a whity-white quaint old Paris, complete with Catherine Deneuve and accordion, totally ignoring the vibrant multi-ethnic youth of this great metropolis, which would like to live in the 2000s and not in the 1930s or in a Jacques Tati movie.
Posted by: John | 17 Jul 2009 19:54:10
Interesting to notice that the Tour Eiffel, the largest erection in Paris dangerously approaches her bourgeois mouth.
Much like the RATP symbol which is a women with her face in an upward submissive position.
http://www.communic-art.com/main/concours/img/ratp.gif
Well as they say. We're lovers not fighters!(meaning the French of course!)
Posted by: rocket | 17 Jul 2009 19:27:55
John,
Sorry for still having some white people around.Are we still allowed to display old postcards, pictures of our grand-parents, see our former kings queens eventhough they were all white? If you have a problem with Europe being mainly white, Africa being mainly black, China being mainly asian, then i am afraid you'll have to deal with it and... suffer...Maybe you have a problem with skin colours?
You remind me some politicians claiming after loosing an election "We are right, the people is wrong, let's change the people!"
Daniel Strohl,
Et pourquoi voulez vous me changer mon biotope à moi que j'ai? Vais-je me plaindre des concerts, des bateaux sur les canaux, ou de l'accent charmant des habitants de Strasbourg en des termes aussi violents? Je pense que vos mots ont dépassé votre pensée. Les parisiens ont-ils encore le droit d'organiser des évènements sur Paris ou bien n'est-ce réservé qu'aux provinciaux en province? Les parisiens vous semblent "rances"? Je ne n'aventurerai pas sur ce terrain là...
Posted by: Dominique | 17 Jul 2009 18:17:21
"Touché" (DOMINIQUE II)
LOL !
Posted by: Daniel Strohl | 17 Jul 2009 17:11:22
DOMINIQUE II,
Per pure coincidence, we watched a "retransmission" of Dr.Knock on TV may be 3 or 4 days ago (on cable TV - can't remember the channel).
A perfect complement to an article about (the well and purposely organised) waste of money in our Sécurité Sociale system :
http://www.lefigaro.fr/sante/2009/07/18/01004-20090718ARTFIG00001-medicaments-des-milliards-d-euros-gaspilles-.php
Posted by: Daniel Strohl | 17 Jul 2009 17:04:54
"and France's moderate drinking habits" (CHARLES)
LOL - reminds of some recent poster comments on various more or less exotic drinking habits :).
"which will throw all these central Paris bobos and their stale view ..." (JOHN)
Let us hope so - mais ils vont essayer de s'accrocher :).
Posted by: Daniel Strohl | 17 Jul 2009 16:51:29
(demure single-piece swimsuits are the fashion this year, but I'm not sure what's the tower is doing there).
Surtout qu'elle est agressivement placée sous le menton de l'ondine volante.
Posted by: DODO | 17 Jul 2009 16:40:30
.....I'm sure Cabu will have a nice pension until his last quiet days drawing such rubbish. I'm not so sure about the rest of us.
Posted by: Robert Marchenoir | 17 Jul 2009 12:41:42
Excellent comment Robert! Délicieusement politiquement incorrect. A chaque action répond la réaction. Loi physique implacable qui fait que le jeune révolutionnaire (Paix-au-Vietnam) devienne généralement un vieux conservateur (Bobo)
Posted by: DODO | 17 Jul 2009 16:30:09
RM
you've explained the lack of comment on countering the vandalism, and the dismissive tone of remarks about 'hard to discover in the middle of the night,' other excuses for not pursuing perpetrators.it almost excuses the abuse, the price society pays for pissing off various societal sub-groups because of lack of opportunity, gross inequity of wealth, etc.
Posted by: azloon | 17 Jul 2009 15:12:58
What's shocking in this picture is the whity-white Aryan woman that they chose. It completely negates the ethnic diversity of the Parisian population. But then it's typical of Delanoë's municipality, which has unfortunately ruled this city since 2001. Their waspish and Amélie-clichéesque boboism is sickening. I can't wait for Nicolas Sarkozy to finally create a Greater Paris including the ethnic and working-class suburbs which will throw all these central Paris bobos and their stale view of the city into the dustbin of history.
Posted by: John | 17 Jul 2009 15:05:38
[demure single-piece swimsuits are the fashion this year] CB
is 'poster woman' flying or diving? no matter, esther williams 'lives.'
the only good thing i can think of about one-piece suits is not having to look at navel rings/studs, or those defiling, small 'gremlin,' or rose, tattoos peeking out above the suit line.
how do you do 'topless' in a one piece suit? the upper portion of the suit hanging down at the waist? hmmmm, not the 'look' you'd want to emphasize.
Paris Plage: cool idea. CB, will you be taking your pastey-white (i presume) British form, and sandwiches, over there from time to time? Take SPF 30 or above.
Posted by: azloon | 17 Jul 2009 14:51:49
RICK my anecdote on the U-Boot (which I can substantiate on request) was not meant as random entertainment nor as a profound view of potential parallel histories. It was to be read in the same breath as the previous sentences: "I wouldn't have posted the pics but you were fair game. Enough with the posturing." (said pics being HRH the Duke of Edimburgh and the Missus on the best of terms with the distinguished Chancellor of the Third Kingdom).
My point, which was clear to anybody with average command of standard English, was that you do not, and should not, enjoy immunity from taunts about appeasement and ill-placed sympathies, because only a very thin hull or a leaking gasket spared you the dire straits we floundered in.
We were not a weak, cowardly populace as opposed to you, a proudly fighting nation; we were very similar human beings in slightly different circumstances. And Sir Winston, who perfectly perceived this, had the genius and the unique ability to mold the circumstances so the English had no choice but to stand proud. In so doing, he took the only path to the good side's victory and I am unreservedly thankful to him.
(Layman's summary: I was not delving in non-realized theoretic possibilities, but in historical fact, ie the status of opinion and political tendencies in Britain before and at the beginning of the war).
Posted by: Dominique II | 17 Jul 2009 14:51:44
ROCKET "Whereas in the case of French soldiers, both men and women no hygienic products necessary. (very wide grin)"
LOL it is clear Daniel had opened himself to your well prepared and well delivered broadside. Touché.
Posted by: Dominique II | 17 Jul 2009 14:14:56
RICK "persecution fantasies, (...) xenophobia, ‘esprit de clocher’, localism, infantilism, and so on"
Are you morphing into the blog's Dr Knock, head shrink variety?
(I won't insult you by explaining to you who Dr. Knock is).
It's so much easier to slap pathological-sounding labels on arguments than to address them...
I know, I know: René's post contained no arguments. That's your standard and rather tiresome summary of anything that riles. Find something else... it's especially ludicrous in that case. René certainly held an opinion, but he made his points with clarity, supported them with fact and remained courteous throughout. (The last one is why I'm not promoting him to honorary Frenchman).
Meeting his post with such undeserved contempt may help you vent your bile, a laudable end per se, but your own credibility isn't enhanced a single bit.
Posted by: Dominique II | 17 Jul 2009 14:04:25
Thanks Azloon - yes you are right in principle: Democracy is to be valued. But my problem is that France has a long history of extreme division and when the figures are that close it leaves a lot of people disgruntled as we have seen lately. It would have been better if they had been more like 60% - 40% something decisive even though I still wouldnt have liked the outcome (smile). Anyway we shall see at the next parliamentary and presidential elections. I just hope by then that the *Socialist* party has got itself together so there are real differences of policy. Democracy is about choice and if there is no real difference (look at Con servative and New Labour policies over the last 20 years broadly speaking) then there is no real choice. Anyway as you say keep hoping!
Posted by: thinknoworpaylater | 17 Jul 2009 14:02:25
[since old hand posters like myself and others know your name and address] Daniel
Thanks for reminding me. Just knowing this helps keep me from going completely overboard. and we 'old salts' don't want to become 'all wet.' :)
Rick, indeed.
Posted by: azloon | 17 Jul 2009 13:54:18
"consistently monochromous' -- Dom2
i love it when you talk that way to me.....
'probably sincere'
faint praise, indeed. but better than a stick in the eye. :)
Posted by: azloon | 17 Jul 2009 13:34:27
As Charles Bremner has hinted, the official poster campaign purporting to dissuade vandalism on Vélibs is woefully inadequate. In fact, it encompasses the contradictions of modern-day political thinking on multiple levels.
Cabu, who drew the poster, is one of the French icons of May-68 rebelliousness. He spent decades using his (real) talent to depict, in his cartoons, long-haired youngsters making fun of old farts : teachers, army officers, priests, bosses and politicians.
Unfettered freedom was good ; authority was bad.
Cabu's character "mon beauf" acquired such celebrity that he coined a new word into the French language.
Cabu's "beauf" was the brother-in-law ("beau-frère") of the young, cool and leftist narrator.
His "beauf" was the anti-hero : middle-aged, working-class, ugly, vulgar, loud-mouthed, and, especially, right-wing and racist.
"Mon beauf" spent hours at the bistro du coin drinking Ricard, ranting about law and order and criticising excessive immigration.
Cabu's young, easy-going and likeable hero (presumably himself) seemed constantly appalled by his beauf's dreadful inclinations. The cute, blonde young things with short skirts and pointing tits who always seemed to surround the hero helped ram the message home : racist right-wingers don't get laid.
(How do I know they were blonde, since the cartoons are black and white ? Don't ask. That's obvious.)
Now, everybody in France understands what "un beauf" means : a middle-aged reactionary, pleased with himself, disparaging the young and ranting about law and order.
The irony is even greater, since Cabu's character evolved into a second-generation "beauf", more in line with modern times. This born-again, upmarket beauf' sports a ponytail and flashes his wealth around.
He's dangerously close to the "bobo", the bourgeois-bohême who, surprise, suprise, is the prime user of Vélibs.
Now Cabu seems to be on the Paris mayoral payroll : he has a regular column in the free municipal magazine, drawing cartoons as tame and unfunny as the Vélib poster.
Of course, the Paris mayor is socialist. I suppose that might be viewed as an excuse.
Also, note the downright stupidity of the poster's argument : don't attack Vélibs, because they can't defend themselves.
This shows how deeply out of touch our elites are with modern-day reality. If anything, such an argument will encourage vandals, not the other way round.
Haven't they noticed that the traditional, Western, French, Christian sense of honor, borne out of Middle-Ages chivalry, that this poster is appealing to, has completely disappeared ?
When was the last time hoodlum violence followed those time-honoured rules : you will fight one-on-one, you won't attack from behind, you won't hit a man on the ground, you won't hurt the weak, the old, the handicapped, or, God forbid, the women ?
Did not those snotty intellectuals and politicians notice that the rules for street violence have been turned on their head ?
Did not they notice that the rules now are : you will attack ten to one, you will hit from behind, you will make your victim fall, you will kick him in the head when he's on the ground, you will jump on his head with both feet, you will preferrably target the weak, hit the women, hit the old, hit and torture the handicapped ?
Did they not notice that the rules of chivalry have been replaced by the rules of Muslim warfare and African barbary, thanks to 40 years of uninterrupted immigration, of "anti-racist" propaganda and policy ?
If those rules stopped at Vélib vandalism, we'd be very fortunate.
Now that those old leftists are beginning to fathom the consequences of the hostile and deadly immigration they have foisted upon us, all they manage to do in order to repair their mistakes is use our money, from our taxes, to distribute to their friends who'll draw some lame propaganda posters.
I'm sure Cabu will have a nice pension until his last quiet days drawing such rubbish. I'm not so sure about the rest of us.
Posted by: Robert Marchenoir | 17 Jul 2009 12:41:42
Oh la la - quelle belle phrase - vraiment formidable - "est-ce que le pays a les moyens de ses ambitions"? Really, when you come to think about it, it could apply to practically any other European country and European leader, and to Gordon and New Lab more than most. Helas, trois fois helas, l'Angleterre n'a plus les moyens des ambitions de New Lab. Cher Premier Ministre, que vous le vouliez ou non, vous devrez tres bientot couper les defences publiques, et tout le monde le sait- ca a deja commence- sauf vous. Cher Monsieur Brown, le pays n'a plus les moyens de vos ambitions. Excusez, je vous prie, le manque d'accents - mon PC est plutot New Lab et n'a pas les moyens de ses ambitions- graves, aigues ou petit chapeau circonflexe.
Posted by: Marguerite | 17 Jul 2009 12:24:20
They tried this too in Dublin's docklands for the last couple of years, but being typical Irish summers it rained every day and was a washout
Posted by: Evening Herault | 17 Jul 2009 11:42:27
"No, DOMINIQUE 2, to stop France looking foolish - something her friends DON'T want!" [RICK]
Gardez moi de mes amis. Quant à mes ennemis, je m'en charge.
("Protect me from my friends. I'll take care of my enemies").
Yes, ho ho, but unfunny, undignified too. The sheer capacity some French bloggers have for making for making fools of themselves is a source of constant wonderment.... and great disappointment.
Elsewhere, I wrote two long pieces to YOU. You quote for one (above). They were written in a sense of earnest seriousness. In return I get a snide aside.
Please understand this, PIERRE, I wrote “to stop France looking foolish”. That fact stands, no matter how often you scoff. In the big wide world out there, a lot of people don’t have much time for the French. Undeceive yourself. And recognise a friend.
Posted by: Rick | 17 Jul 2009 10:18:43
The Paris scheme is truly excellent and its a shame so many bikes are being lost. To be honest its not really a French phonnomeon if you put schemes things like this in big cities where people with huge degrees of wealth live side by side your always going to get people inclined to steal or vandalise such things, its just the way it is whethet in London, New York Paris or wherever. I'm suprised there's been such problems in Norway though can't account for that.
Posted by: sct | 17 Jul 2009 10:17:24
RH OMEA
2. And the idea that any American, where most every violent crime rate far exceeds that in France
If you are speaking about violent crime your appreciation is erroneous and this since the early 2000s
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/266umtwb.asp
en français
http://laurent.mucchielli.free.fr/france-usa.htm
which goes deeper into the phenomenon of criminality. So your remarks about criminality should really be checked before you are certain that you hold the absolute truth (stereotyped of course)
A few years back Le Figaro did a long piece on this subject.
But as DOM2 said
We laugh at ourselves much more, and much more cruelly, than you could even dream. I suppose that he also meant that France's own offer a critical eye also.
But lest one of "sang impur" dare raise their voice in opposition to the "esprit de corps" and "pensé unique" of "il ne faut pas affoler les français" then we hear many crying foul.
Posted by: rocket | 17 Jul 2009 09:36:21
"No, DOMINIQUE 2, to stop France looking foolish - something her friends DON'T want!" RICK
Gardez moi de mes amis. Quant à mes ennemis, je m'en charge.
("Protect me from my friends. I'll take care of my enemies")
Posted by: Pierre | 17 Jul 2009 09:35:34