Charles Bremner - Times Online - WBLG

How not to end an affair, Paris-style.

Here is some advice to any man contemplating a love affair with a Parisian writer or artist: Don't.

You may find yourself held up to public ridicule and crucified in the name of art. It happened a couple of years ago to a banker who enjoyed a liaison with Christine Angot, a popular writer. She demolished him by recounting every gory detail of his performance in a book that became a best-seller. The unfortunate financier was not named, but everyone in his milieu knew who it was.

Now, Sophie Calle, a successful photographer and "installation artist", has gone one better by making a spectacular fool of a lover who dumped her with a callous, convoluted  e-mail. It ended with a breezy, "prenez soin de vous". This comes from the English "take care of yourself" and sounds odd in French and even colder with the distant "vous" rather than intimate "tu".

To sooth her pain and exact revenge, Calle, 54, took the pompous "mail de rupture" to 107 women in fields ranging from marriage counselling and anthropology to the police and the state intelligence service. She filmed and photographed their reactions and turned their funny and vitriolic verdicts into a show that became France's entry to the Venice Biennale of contemporary art last year. An expanded version has just opened to acclaim in the old reading room room of the National Library in Paris.

The experts include celebrities, such as Jeanne Moreau, the actress, Leila Shaheed, the Palestinian ambassador, and a bevy of performers and writers, including Christine Angot of course. Most at the time did not know the identity of "G", the apparently married lover, says Calle. But of course everyone in the intello-artsy world knows that he is a certain writer. He dedicated a new novel to Calle on the day that he broke up with her. Angot's contribution says: "The chorus that you have created around this letter is the chorus of death." Not every commentary is so serious. On one video screen, a (female) parrot eats a print-out of the e-mail.

When you enter the magnificent vaulted chamber and see a big projected video of a woman firing a sniper's rifle that you are in for an uncomfortable time.

Super Sarkozy greets hostages after pirate triumph

France is pleased with the stylish way that its navy and special forces handled the seizure of the Ponant, the big French superyacht that was boarded by pirates off Somalia 10 days ago. Six of the 20 or so pirates were captured by helicopter-borne French commandos as they made an overland getaway with part of the ransom.

The operation, directed by President Sarkozy, was well run and it shows how France can put well-equipped forces into action on the high seas at long distance. The 30 crew, most of them young French citizens, were released on Friday and are flying back to Paris tonight on a military Airbus. Sarkozy is going to the airport to greet them. There were no passengers. The captured Somali bandits -- said to be former fishermen -- are being brought back to Paris to stand trial.

The armed forces have been putting out their story and le Figaro today has details of their intrepid exploit. The pirates, for example, brought two goats on board for milk but they spent a lot of their time draining the ship's copious bars. One pirate disappeared overboard in the night, apparently drunk.

I don't want to dampen the good news, but no-one is asking how much the whole thing cost or wondering about the ransom, said to be 2.5 million dollars, that was paid for the crew's freedom.

[le Ponant (an old word for west)]

French justice on trial over murder

France is about to be shaken by another gross miscarriage of justice. The so-called Neuilly Bridge murder is the latest in a series of cases that highlight flaws in the inquisitorial French justice system.  .

I have sat through many trials conducted under the modified Roman law system which prevails in much of Europe and the adversarial system of the English-speaking world. Both have merits and I am no expert, but this is a chance to look at the problems of the French version.

The case involves Marc Machin, who is serving an 18-year sentence for killing a woman in 2001 at Neuilly-sur-Seine, on the western side of Paris. Machin, now 25, was convicted in two trials five years ago on the basis of a confession which he quickly retracted, and shaky testimony from a witness. The murder made news because Marie-Agnès Bedot, the 45-year-old victim, was stabbed to death by the busy bridge in the morning rush hour as she was on her way to her gym (the same one that I frequent, as it happens).

A month ago, another man walked into a police station and said that he killed Bedot and also another woman at the same spot five months later. David Sagno, 35, a drifter with multiple convictions for violence, gave precise details. Police have now found his DNA on the clothes of the first victim. So by all account the wrong man has been has been jailed for the past seven years.

Rachida Dati, the Justice Minister, has ordered a review but police and prosecutors are still reluctant to accept that they got it wrong. With hindsight it seems obvious that Machin should never have been convicted. Here's why.