France has been awash with nostalgic, sentimental comedy films for quite a few years. Many of them have fallen flat because the mechanism is too creaky. Feel-good films require you to suspend disbelief, so the audience has to be hooked quickly. I've just seen two of the latest. Both feature fine actors. Both are fairy tales about revenge by modest victims against powerful institutions. One flops while the other soars, for me at least.
The first is Mic Macs à Tire Larigot, [trailer here] from Jean-Pierre Jeunet, the creater of Amélie, or Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, to give it its original title. I don't know how they will translate this one. The title could be roughly conveyed in British English as Carry On Capering (any suggestions?). More literally, it means Funny business like there's no tomorrow. The film uses the same tricks as Amélie, turning modern Paris into a magical by-gone place full of loveable eccentrics.
 Dany Boon, the biggest comedy star of the moment, leads a band of vagabond chineurs -- junk dealers, rag-and-bone merchants -- in an outlandish scheme to bring down two arms manufacturers. The film feels like an Amélie sequel without the charm -- despite Boon and the estimable André Dusollier, who plays one of the bad guys.
The other is Le Concert [trailer here], by the Romanian-French director Radu Mihaileanu. It's a mix of romantic comedy, political satire and farce featuring a cast of excellent Russian actors and French stars including Miou Miou, François Berléand and Mélanie Laurent [top picture] -- who made an international début this year in Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds.
The plot is preposterous but fun -- especially if you know Russia and France. Andrei Filipov, played by Alexei Guskov, is a former conductor of the Bolshoi Orchestra who was dismissed on Leonid Brezhnev's orders in 1980 for refusing to fire his Jewish musicians. Working now as a janitor at the theatre, he intercepts a fax inviting the Bolshoi to perform at the Châtelet theatre in Paris. He puts together an orchestra from out-of-work musicians and takes them to Paris to play Tchaikovsky's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra. The soloist is a celebrated French violinist Anne-Marie Jacquet, played by Laurent.
The film runs through the gamut of clichés about loveable chaotic Slavs and haughty Parisians and it is a little long on Jewish jokes and gypsies. But it works because Mihaileanu has a delicate, humane touch and a fine understanding of the two national characters. The funniest part, shot in Moscow in Russian, makes fun of Putin's Russia, with its nouveaux riches and ordinary people struggling to survive in a shabby city. One of the funniest moments is a shoot-out at an oligarch's wedding. The fake orchestra hires as its manager the still-loyal Soviet communist party official who fired the conductor. Like all good Soviets, he dreams of visiting Paris and when he gets here, heads straight for a session with the comrades at the Communist Party's much reduced headquarters on the Place Colonel Fabien. The gags are sometimes predictable, but they are transcended by a beautiful, emotional ending of the kind that everyone expects in feel-good movies.
Despite its big budget, stars and brand name, I don't see the Jeunet film exporting well. It lacks Audrey Tautou and the romantic appeal of Amélie. Even in France it is not scoring very well. Le Concert, on the other hand, is number two at the French box-office -- despite subtitled Russian for about half the film. It should do very well around Europe and beyond.
It's rare to be really moved by a television programme. That happened for me this week with a show on France 2 in which Hubert Védrine, a former Foreign Minister, interviewed Mikhael Gorbachev, the last president of the Soviet Union. Old Gorby stirred some strong memories.
Védrine, a Socialist, was diplomatic adviser and spokesman for the late President Mitterrand at the end of the cold war. In the Thursday night programme, he took Gorbachev through the events that led to the fall of the Berlin wall and the end of the nation that he headed.Gorbachev (pictured with Védrine below) has said a lot about the period. But Védrine's authority and gentle touch helped him open up and give a few insights. They went over the story of how this boy from the southern Russian farmland managed to rise to the top of the sclerotic Soviet state, then let it unravel, along with its empire. He remains bitter over what he sees as the west's betrayal of the emerging democratic Russia.
Back in 1985, when Gorbachev was picked by the Politburo (the Communist Party body that governed the USSR), we had not the tiniest inkling that the nuclear super-power was about to collapse peacefully.
By 'we', I mean the journalists and diplomats who were based in Moscow. I was Moscow bureau chief for Reuters news agency at the time. We cheered Gorbachev's arrival after the chain of sickly old men who had been running the country. He was different. He was 54,charming, spoke directly and had the touch of a western politician. But he had still come up the totalitarian machine and we never imagined that the grey apparatus and its KGB security arm would promote a man who would close them down. We knew the Soviet state was a sham, the economy was hollow and that the long-suffering people had no time for their rulers. But it did not seem anywhere near collapsing.We were too close to the story, living the odd life in that parallel universe where black was officially white. Though under KGB surveillance 24 hours a day, we were oddly attached to the place. We had a love-hate feeling for the country that Ronald Reagan called the Evil Empire.
Gorbachev of course did not intend to scrap the USSR and was aiming for a more democratic version with his project for glasnost -- openness or transparency. He was caught up in the tide when the flood-gates opened in Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia and East Germany.
He told Védrine that he came to understand very early as a young Communist official that the system was doomed. He described paying a "fraternal" visit to a Czech factory after Soviet tanks had put down the Prague Spring uprising of 1968. "The workers turned their backs to us. I understood why," he said. As an illustration of how things are not simple in Russia, he spoke highly of Yuri Andropov, the longserving boss of the KGB, who was his mentor. (My closest contact with Andropov, apart from seeing him in his open coffin, was when his Kremlin invited my daughter to a children's New Year party with kids from the high Soviet nomenklatura).
Gorbachev said that his first step to reform was at the funeral for Konstantin Chernenko, Andropov's short-lived successor. Newly appointed as Kremlin boss, Gorbachev summoned the heads of the satellite states of central Europe (known at the time as 'people's socialist republics'). He said he told the puppet leaders bluntly that they were on their own and that Moscow would not impede their people's desire for freedom.
Gorbachev recalled his first meeting with Reagan in November 1985. "My immediate impression was that I was facing a dinosaur," he told Védrine. Hearing that, I thought Wow, that was my impression too. I was in the room at the time, one of three pool reporters in the cottage in woods near Geneva. There was a fire crackling by their two arm-chairs. Gorby and Reagan made small-talk via their interpreters before we were ushered out to recount the event to the rest of the media [that's the moment in the picture. The interpreters were behind the chairs]. 
You have to remember that only a year or two before, Moscow and Washington were accusing one-another of planning nuclear war. I had never been with Reagan before and was struck by how unfocused he seemed alongside the sharp new Soviet leader. The next autumn, as a Washington correspondent, I went to Reykjavik to report on the second summit. Gorbachev, to the horror of Reagan's advisers, almost persuaded the US president to sign away all nuclear weapons.
This week, we had confirmation from Jacques Chirac of western worries about Reagan's state at the time. Margaret Thatcher, the British Prime Minister and friend of Reagan, told Chirac ahead of the following year's Washington summit that she did not believe that the US leader was up to facing Gorbachev.
Gorbachev talked sadly of western suspicions towards him and what he said was the cold refusal of the first President Bush to give Moscow a hand in its time of need. Prodded by Védrine, who was at Mitterrand's side in his meetings with the Soviet leader, Gorbachev said France was the most helpful of the westerners. Mitterrand still opposed the re-unification of Germany, along with Thatcher, and went to Moscow (with Védrine in tow) to ask Gorbachev to stop it.
By selfishing turning their back on Russia, under Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s, the west helped foment chaos and created a new European divide, pushing the western frontier eastwards, Gorbachev said. But he has no regrets about his attempt to recast the Soviet Union. "I lost as a man. But from the point of view of history, perestroika won," he told Védrine.
Gorbachev is not much loved in modern Russia. He is blamed for the mess that succeeded him. And as they salute the Berlin anniversary this week, the younger generation of western leaders may, I feel, not all realise how huge was the role of this single visionary man in ensuring the near bloodless end of the cold war.
Below, a picture that I took of Михаи́л Серге́евич Горбачёв (Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev) with Raissa, his late wife and a little girl voting in Soviet "election" near our office just before his rise to power in 1985.
The Russian navy has its eyes on a new helicopter-carrying warship. The impressive model that they want to buy could have let Russia drive Georgian forces from the north Caucausus last year in a flash,says Admiral Vladimir Vysotski, the navy chief.
And who makes this great vessel ? France. In Moscow yesterday, two ministers -- Bernard Kouchner of Foreign Affairs and Hervé Morin of Defence -- settled the outline of a deal to sell a 700 million euro Mistral-class helicopter-carrier to the Russians.This would be the first sale of a major western weapon to Russia since World War Two, so President Sarkozy will have some explaining to do with Washington and the Nato allies.
Paris is optimistic. Kouchner, a lifelong human rights activist, waxed enthusiastic about the imminent sale. "This political agreement should be reached, I think, but it's not up to me to decide ... concerning this wonderful warship," he told Moscow Echo radio station.
Moscow is aiming to order one or two Mistrals from the French naval dockyards, plus the technology to put together their own versions. The ship, which is France's second biggest after the Charles de Gaulle nuclear-powered carrier, is capable of carrying more than a dozen helicopters and 470 infantry along with dozens of tanks and other armoured vehicles.
Moscow wants the ship to supplement its antique surface-fleet. It is just the thing to project Russian power around the world -- and close to home. Russia's Black Sea neighbours are appalled and Admiral Vysotski helpfully spelt out why. Talking about Russia's ejection of Georgian troops from the rebel province of South Ossetia last August, he said that a Mistral "would have meant that our Black Sea Fleet could have accomplished its mission in 40 minutes instead of 26 hours by road."
France, you may recall, claims credit for stopping that conflict. Sarkozy flew to Moscow and Tbilisi and brokered a ceasefire after three days of fighting in August last year.
Dutch and Spanish firms are also bidding for the Russian deal but the French are confident that they have it sewn up. But there are obvious hurdles. The United States jealously guards the export of its technology, especially of a military kind. It is pretty likely that despite French expertise, the Mistral class carries a load of US patents. So if France is determined to go ahead, Washington will become involved.
The Obama administration would have to decide whether it will accept what would in Cold War times have been an unthinkable deal in the interest of the famous US-Russian reset button. Washington is unlikely to be happy about a western ally giving a helping hand to the Kremlin to flex Russian muscles on the high seas. Whatever happens, Moscow has a good chance of driving a wedge into the Nato alliance over the affair.
The sale would be a nice boost to the French arms business after last month's provisional agreement by Brazil to buy 36 Rafale fighters plus the technology to build them.
But before everyone piles in against French "merchants of death", here is last year's table of suppliers. The USA was top with 49 percent of the world military export market. Britain was second with a 15 percent share. Russia scored eight percent and France seven percent.
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 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.
[Update: here's my related story on Ariane launch Saturday night]
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It's difficult to avoid describing the scene this morning without thinking of clichés from James Bond films. The sun was beating down on the equatorial jungle when we emerged by the Atlantic Ocean and came across a new Russian space base. Towers and cranes loomed over a launch-pad for Soyuz rockets, exactly the type that took the first Soviet cosmonauts into space all those decades ago.
And adding to the atmosphere, the Russians were labouring away a few miles from the dreaded Devil's island and the rest of the pestilential penal colony off Guiana where, for a century, France sent its prisoners to be broken.
But this wasn't the cold war or the secret lair of SPECTRE. The Russians are the latest addition to an extraordinary European success story. The 100-strong team of engineers from the Baikonur space base in Central Asia are here to build and operate their rockets to reinforce the French-run outfit that has become the world's leading launcher of commercial satellites.
Sometimes it's healthy to get a little perspective away from Paris. I'm 4,500 miles away but still in France, at least technically. I am in French Guiana, on the northeast side of Brazil, to watch the latest launch of an Ariane 5 [Picture above and launch below]. This is the 20-storey tall rocket which deposits bus-sized satellites in stationary orbit half a dozen times a year (That's Ariane waiting for launch in the picture). The project, which France began in the mid-1970s, has benefited from persistence, skill and good luck to overtake the Americans and Russians in the business of commercial space launching. Now, 185 flights since the first small Ariane, they have bought Russian service. A dozen Soyuz rockets -- smaller than the French heavy lifter -- will hoist television, internet and communications satellites into orbit from the French base.
This is all done from a site of a few dozen square miles carved out of the jungle swamps at Kourou, north of Cayenne, the Guiana capital.
Continue reading "Reaching for space from French jungle" »
President Sarkozy is chairing his last summit as temporary boss of the European Union today. The story in France is Sarko's struggle to get a reluctant Germany to spend more on relaunching the EU economy and to overcome German and Polish resistance to an ambitious climate control pact.
Whatever the outcome in Brussels, Sarkozy is basking in French praise for his skillful handling of the country's storm-racked six months in the EU presidency. Super Sarko has had such a 'good crisis' that he hopes to reign on as Europe's de facto leader after the lowly, and Eurosceptic, Czech Republic takes over on January 1.
France will have an advantage next year because because Germany will be focused on elections and Britain will be mired in a more painful recession than the countries of the eurozone, the Elysée Palace believes. The Elysée also thinks that Britain will soon abandon its qualms and join the euro to save itself from the collapse of the pound.
The hyper-active President is convinced that he has galvanised Europe and given it new power in the world with deft management of the financial crash and the other emergencies, such as the Russia-Georgia war in August. Close partnership with Britain's Gordon Brown is part of the new European power balance, says Sarkozy.
The President, who does not claim modesty among his qualities, is telling colleagues that he has restored a sense of political purpose to the moribund Union. He has also cut down to size the Brussels Commission -- the supranational executive bureaucracy. Power is back where it should be, in the hands of the elected governments who run the member states -- and especially the big ones, he says.
Sarkozy's team have been talking up their boss at the official end of his term as President of Europe, as he like to call it. "Europe will never be the same again," Jean-Pierre Jouyet, Sarkozy's Minister for Europe, told Libération. "There will be the before Sarkozy and the after Sarkozy." Jouyet, a respected Europe expert, has just resigned. He told me that he was exhausted with the never-ending crisis management that engulfed the French turn in the chair.
Continue reading "France hails Sarkozy, European saviour -- Germany doesn't" »
We heard a little drama on France Inter's breakfast radio this morning. Mikhail Saakashvili, the President of Georgia, was making a passionate case against Russia when they read out to him the following exchange between Vladimir Putin and Nicolas Sarkozy.
The scene was the Kremlin on August 12, when Sarkozy flew in to persuade Moscow to call off its invasion of Georgia.
Putin: "I am going to hang Saakashvili by the balls."
Sarkozy: "Hang him?"
Putin: "Why not? The Americans hanged Saddam Hussein."
Sarkozy "Yes but do you want to end up like Bush?"
Putin, after a long pause: "Ah, you have scored a point there."
Saakashvili laughed nervously when he heard this today. "I knew about this scene, but not all the details. It's funny, all the same," he said. He went on to argue that Europe had capitulated to Russia over Georgia in the same way that it had surrendered to Adolf Hitler at Munich in 1938 when it let Germany occupy Czechoslovakia. That's how Saakashvili talks. He is seeing Sarko at the Elysée today and tomorrow President Medvedev is meeting him in Nice for a Russian-European summit.
The Kremlin conversation was recounted by Jean-David Levitte, Sarkozy's chief of diplomacy, to le Nouvel Observateur magazine which printed it today. Last August, I was down the corridor in the Kremlin with other reporters during the Sarkozy-Putin chat. Sarko was tense and shaky when he came out, announcing the deal to stop the war. The price was letting Russia keep the Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Assuming that it's accurate, the exchange tells you a few things. It confirms that Russia aimed to to depose the hot-headed Georgian president. It confirms that Putin, the Prime Minister, was calling the shots, not President Medvedev. It also shows how Sarko has ingratiated himself with the Russians. Using the familiar "tu" with Putin, Sarko allowed himself a cheap shot against President Bush.
Levitte recounted the conversation presumably to make Sarkozy look good and bolster the claim that he really did save Goergia. It also underlines the striking U-turn performed by Sarkozy since he ran for election last year promising to get tough with Moscow over human rights.
Sarkozy said in the campaign that he preferred "to shake the hand of Bush than Putin" and promised to end the cosy ties that President Chirac had enjoyed with the Kremlin. Yet as soon as he was elected, he rushed off to cultivate first-name friendship with Putin. Levitte and Bernard Kouchner, the Foreign Minister, are close to their Russian counterparts. Sarkozy and his advisers say that the goal is to engage the Kremlin and treat Moscow with the respect which it is due as an old power. Paris wants to be Moscow's advocate in Europe.
Putin has not reciprocated the chumminess, but Moscow is pleased by the way that Sarkozy is pushing the European Union back to normal relations after the Georgian chill. "I want to pay tribute to President Sarkozy's efforts to reinforce relations between the EU and Russia in all areas," Medvedev told le Figaro today.
Sarko has turned a deaf ear to warnings from old hands about the way that Russia operates. He was briefed by Vladimir Bukovski, one of the leading dissidents of the Soviet era. Bukovski, a veteran of the Soviet era labour camp, told the Nouvel Observateur that he warned Sarkozy about the former KGB clan that runs the Kremlin.
"For an hour, I told him that it was dangerous to play matey-matey with those people and that there was nothing to gain from it except their contempt and that he risked being taken for a ride.... It did not serve any purpose."
Sarkozy has been defending himself today, attacking Bush for weakness over the Georgian conflict. Bush telephoned him and urged him not to go to Moscow to try to stop the Russians, he said. "Don't go," Bush told him. "The Russians want to go to Tbilisi. They are 40 kilometres away. Don't go. Just condemn them."
Sarkozy insisted that he had done more for human rights by persuading the Russians to stop their advance than Bush who stayed in Washington and did nothing. Sarko was speaking after receiving an annual prize for "political courage", awarded by France's Politique Internationale review.
(below:Saakashvili)
Various barometers can be used to track the world's economic mood, from hamburger consumption (up when times are hard) to women's hemlines (down). Champagne sales must be one of the more reliable indicators, so it's no surprise that the producers of France's most famous fizzy wine have just reported their first downturn this century.
The big story is the United States, where sales are expected to slump by over 30 percent in volume this year. The slide began in March 2007, several months before the sub-primes crisis erupted. Britain, which went champaigne crazy in the boom years, is buying four percent less. Cognac is also suffering in the Americas, where it became fashionable in recent years. Sales in North America dropped seven percent over the past year.
The global champagne boom has been a constant story from Paris for eight years as demand exploded in Britain, the USA and more recently Russia and China. Sales had risen steadily since 1999. Up in the Champagne region, they are not panicking since the overall volume fall is expected to reach only three percent this year and exports will slide only about one percent thanks to demand from the east. Rich Russians are still loading up on the very high-end brands such as Cristal and sales to China are expected to rise by about 15 percent this year after 30 percent in 2007.
At Moet & Chandon, they say that that they have weathered war and revolutions, so they are not worried about a slide. Benoît Gouez, chief vintner at Moet, came up with a dubious argument for continued consumption. "It's probably when times are hard that people really like or need to dream more and luxury products are never more necessary as in the tough periods." he told the Associated Press.
Paris is missing its Americans. Visitors from the United States stayed 20 percent fewer nights in the French capital in the first six months of the year. It's nothing personal says the Tourist Office. The high euro and US economic trouble is being blamed.
But politics were clearly behind the 6.7 percent fall in Chinese visitors [table below]. Beijing travel agencies took France off their brochures in April in an anti-French boycott after the hostile reception in Paris for the Olympic torch.
The Japanese were also down eight percent, contributing to a an overall 2.6 percent drop in nights spent by foreign travellers in the French capital. Paris remains the world's most visited city and and tourists from the French provinces more than compensated for the first slide in foreign stays for years.
The owners of the expanding supply of ultra-luxury hotels are gleeful over the 14 percent rise of rich visitors from the Gulf states. Hotels in the "golden triangle", between the Avenue Montaigne and the Champs Elysées, are making a special effort to meet their late night and late-rising habits. A couple of cinemas in the district are doing well from showing Arabic films late at night. A Saudi prince paid 15,000 euros to have the Elysées-Biarritz theatre ship in a new film and show it to his friends at three am, according to Hugues Piketty, the cinema director.
Jean-Bertrand Bros, the Deputy Mayor for tourism, says that the outlook is rosy. The flow from traditional tourist nations may slow further, but they are being replaced by a surge from the BRIC powers -- Brazil, Russia, India and China. Wherever they come from, they all want to see the three top monuments: the Eiffel Tower, the Sacré Coeur basilica and the Louvre.
Students of the Paris mentality should have a have a look at an internet site which collects amusing snippets of conversations heard around town. It's called Entendu à Paris (Heard in Paris) and is modelled on the popular Overheard in New York. It does not yet have anything like quantity of entries on that site, but there are a few funny glimpses of the Paris mentality.
Take for example the line heard between two fifty-something women in the posh Bois de Boulogne at 12.37 pm on August 4. "How can you admire Marie-Claude? She has made a complete mess of her life. She lives in the provinces." People do still talk like that.
Here's the league table of main visiting countries. The Russians, who number about 200,000 a year, were counted in "other Europeans" which are not on this summary from the Tourist Office. The British have long been the biggest visitors, especially since the Eurostar tunnel express brought London closer in 1994.
I'm back in Paris from Moscow but the news is still Russian. President Sarkozy has warned the Kremlin of the dire consequences that will ensue if it fails to pull its troops out of Georgia. If it does not, he will... call a special meeting of the European Union council. That will give Vladimir Putin pause for thought.
And we have confirmation today that a spectacular Belle Epoque villa on the Riviera is being bought by a Russian billionaire for the astonishing sum of 496 million euros (731 million dollars).
The two events can be linked. The Russian purchase of the Leopolda villa [above] is an in-your-face display of the power enjoyed by the oligarchs who have amassed fortunes with the indulgence of Russia's governing caste. We do not yet know who is behind the world record real estate deal. The French media reported that it was Mikhael Prokhorov, 42, [picture below], a nickel baron, who was humiliated by French prosecutors when he was detained him at Courchevel, the glitzy ski resort 18 months ago. He was held for four days on suspicion of bringing dozens of prostitutes from Moscow to entertain his Alpine party guests but no charges were brought. The episode was seen in Moscow as a French plot to humiliate a leading Russian. Prokhorov's office in Moscow has denied that he is the purchaser and added that he will not set foot in France until the French apologise for the way he was treated.
Whichever oligarch splashed out on the Leopolda, the deal symbolises the new Russians' taste for flaunting their power in a west which in recent decades gave their country little respect. The rush by the Moscow rich on London and French playgrounds, is part of the renaissance of Russian confidence and muscle that we have seen applied to Georgia over the past 10 days.
The hammering of Georgia has ended western illusions that Putin's Russia was still a tame, diminished version of the former super power. You can argue about who should be blamed for what, as a couple of hundred people have done so far on the last posting here. In my humble view, after last week in Moscow and watching Russia since the Cold War, the west sowed trouble and missed a big opportunity with its triumphalism after the collapse of communism and its condescending approach during the chaotic years of Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s.
After that, the west was naive towards the authoritarian, reviving Russia of Vladimir Putin. The Americans should have realised that pushing Nato into the Caucasus and Ukraine would sooner or later goad the Kremlin into action. Georgia's unwise attack on its separatist, Russian-defended, province provided the occasion. At the same time, Europe's western continental states have been over-indulgent towards the Kremlin, allowing themselves to become dependent on Russian energy.
Everyone has woken up now that the empire has struck back. The calendar seems to have been unwound by a quarter of a century as the west wonders what to do about Russia's assertion of power beyond its frontiers.
No doubt the answer is a modern version of the formula that worked before -- firmness along with a willingness to engage. But things are different this time. For all its need for Russian resources, the west has levers that it did not have with the Soviet Union. Think of that 496 million euro villa on the Riviera. Russia is now part of the global financial and economic system and it is eager to become a full member of the club. The west should make this, and the respect which Putin craves for Russia, conditional on good behaviour. At stake are Moscow's applicatoin for membership of the World Trade Organisation and its continuing presence in the club of rich nations, known as G8 since it was admitted to the G7 in 1997.
A more personal argument was set out to me in Moscow last week by Pavel Felgenhauer, a Russian military analyst who is critical of the Kremlin. "It's not like the Soviet Union invading Afghanistan or Stalin's days," he said. "The men in the Politburo weren't businessmen. In crises, they weren't worried about losing billions of their personal funds if things went wrong." Sections of the current leadership with big interests in the outside world are very worried about being ostracized by the west, he said.
--------
PS: Apologies to those who want me to get back into Franco-French matters. Next time, I hope, though there may be an incursion into Belgium first.
As the sun rose over a hot Moscow this morning, it was hard not to imagine that we are in the remake of an old movie. I was criticized by some here yesterday for making the cold war comparison, but it’s difficult to escape.
The radio I was listening to was not the old Radio Moscow of Soviet days. But Vesti FM, all jingles and sizzle, opened the morning news with an attack on the United States for fanning the flames of cold war via the Caucasus. The Georgian attack on South Ossetia was part of a plot masterminded by Dick Cheney, the Vice-President, we were told. The war-mongering neo-conservatives are using it to get the Republican John McCain elected to the White House in November. The Washington plot line, widespread in Moscow commentary this week, was last heard in the days of Presidents Andropov and Reagan.
The world is a different place since those times a quarter of a century ago, but the plot is familiar. The Russians are using military power to assert their authority over troublesome small neighbours in their “near abroad”. The Americans are flexing their muscles and trying push the frontiers of the Atlantic alliance eastward – this time into the Caucasus, a region which Russia has for centuries deemed to be its back yard.
As President Bush ordered the US military to take humanitarian relief into Georgia, Condaleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, made a direct comparison:
“This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russia can threaten its neighbours, occupy a capital, overthrow a government and get away with it. Things have changed.” Just like the old days, the tough stance in Washington is making the Europeans nervous.
The old-style language is all over the Russian media, voicing defensiveness and anger over what is seen as bullying by what used to be the other super-power. “The West has spent a lot of time, energy and money to teach Georgia the tricks of the trade … to make the country look like a democracy,” said Vasily Mikhachev, a former Russian ambassador to the EU. “We and many other nations see through this deceit. We understand that the seditious tactics of the so-called colour revolutions are a real threat to international law and the source of global legal nihilism.”
Last night, Sergei Lavrov, the Foreign Minister, a blustering but suave type, said Washington had been playing a "dangerous game" .
This time around, the Russians have more ammunition for the war of words since the Washington administration has put raw ideology high in its own public communications effort for years – especially over Iraq, as Russian friends keep pointing out. One friend made a sharp point: "In the old days under Soviet rule we didn't believe a word of our own propaganda but we thought that information was free in the west. We admired that and wanted to be like that. But we have learned since that you have your own propaganda and in some ways it is more powerful because people believe it. "
So how does this play out ? While most outsiders agree that Russia reacted with calculated brutality to Georgia’s attack on South Ossetia last week, there is disagreement on the way the west should respond.
It’s the old hawks and doves argument again. The old Soviet bloc states of Europe are behind Washington and pushing for a hard line against their old master. Other Europeans and some Americans believe that Washington’s drive for Georgia’s Nato membership and a US s anti-missile shield have needled Moscow too much. I was talking to Carlo Gallo, a Russia specialist at Control Risk yesterday. The US would be making a mistake to revert to a policy of containment – the old cold war policy, he said. “It would backfire and play into the hands of hardliners who argue that the west is always conspiring against Russia.” You hear the same from the French, who are trying to play the role of honest broker.
Meanwhile, down in the Caucasus, the hot part of the little war is not yet over. The Russians are reported to be starting to pull out of the Georgian town of Gori – - meeting one of President Bush’s demands yesterday. And Condoleezza Rice is about to arrive in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, to bolster a government that President Medvedev of Russia calls barbaric and a perpetrator of genocide.
Russia is back. Simplifying a little, that was the line that President Medvedev conveyed as he lectured us in the Kremlin about the new situation in the Caucasus after Russia’s lightning war with Georgia.
It felt like old times for someone who lived in Moscow in the days of the old Soviet bear. As the headline of this post, I almost wrote "Back in the USSR"
We had hung around for five hours under the splendid white and blue dome of the Catherine Hall of as President Nicolas Sarkozy of France huddled with Medvedev and, more importantly, Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister. The outcome was a cease-fire that restacks the Caucasian cards in Russian favour (story here) after Georgia’s ill-advised attack on South Ossetia. Putin, who remains the boss despite leaving the presidency, disappeared after the talks, leaving Medvedev to savour in public the fruit of what amounts to a short, sharp military lesson by Russia towards one of its upstart former Republics – which happens to be a protégé of the USA. “When crazy people scent blood, you have to use surgery halt them,” Medvedev said of Mikhail Saakashvili, Georgia’s young, US-educated president.
Breaking off his holidays on the Riviera, Sarko had come with Bernard Kouchner, his Foreign Minister, to mediate as current chairman of the European Union. (We had to pile onto the French Air Force Airbus at 4.30 am yesterday).
Usually the French president loves to grab the limelight as trouble-shooter, but he was on the defensive and a little sheepish when he emerged.
Continue reading "Russia calls the shots with Sarkozy" »
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Besson has one act to his credit. He resigned as economic adviser to Segolene Royal just after she released her totally irresponsible 100 point election plan. That would surely have been enough to drive most economists to immediate resignation.
Posted by: Judith | 18 Dec 2009 05:00:49
"that sounds remarkably close to the clichéd response "
So you mean that even if it is true, I should not saying, because you decided I would be after the anglo race, right. Well no. Lots of 'em are actually fine people, but many just feel like they come into conquered land when they go sun holidaying.
Posted by: Valentin | 18 Dec 2009 01:58:27
AZLOON:
"One minute it was roll up your sleeves like the Americans, work longer, bitch (and think) less, die earlier (but richer).
The next it was we have to get rid of the evil A-S financial model.
You don't need a weatherman to know which way the winds are blowin.'"
No, you only need to apply a tiny bit of logic in your general thinking before uttering such enormities, Mr. Arizona loon. That is, unless you actually intend to give your name that negative connotation.
The worst part of it is that I have read the same argument in a rightwing paper like Time Magazine last week.
Still, one ought to be blind not to see the stupidity in such statements.
And in which way precisely, mind you, "working more to earn more" would contradict fighting financial capitalism gone mad ?
Supporting what we call entrepreneurial capitalism is one thing, and it does mean working more, as a necessary condition to earn more. And it also opposes financial capitalism. No contradiction in there, just more anglo B*T.
Posted by: Valentin | 18 Dec 2009 01:51:24
"When Besson produced his pamplet, Sarkozy "was" a firm free-market fundie, and even pledged to introduce France to the joys of unfettered mortgaging, aka subprimes, if he was elected ...
Lest we forget his "louanges d'antin" for the system Britannique."
(ROCKET & DOMINIQUE 2)
These are a mere bunch of misrepresentations - to be polite and netiquette-observant. Otherwise I would have to call them both by that word starting with B and ending in T.
First, N.S. has never been "freemarket", let alone ultraliberal (or neocon - someone French will have to explain to me why these notions seem to be interchangeable).
He supported more flexibility in the French job market (objectively famous for its rigidity) - and showed Britain and Denmark as examples; for a more nuanced take on pecuniary gain, traditionaly a mortal sin in France. He never promoted ultraliberal policies. He promised to protect France in the new globalized economy, not to make it an ultraliberal heaven. Finally, he spoke about making France a nation of homeowners, but never by means of uncovered, unpayable loans, which the subprimes are. And he always, way before the electoral campaign in 2007, warned against the dangers of financial capitalism, as our favorite journalist here :) can testify.
Posted by: Valentin | 18 Dec 2009 01:42:06
http://tinyurl.com/yg64rn5
The above is why Air France is my most hated airline in the world. Has been for 25 years.
Posted by: rocket | 17 Dec 2009 23:45:07
I heard Paris has lots of graffiti. Now I know this is true.
Posted by: celebrity tube | 17 Dec 2009 21:55:25
[Just noticed Charles' résumé has changed in the "Your Writer" box. Hope he's not brushing up for a career move!] Johnny Foreigner
Or that the Times is planning to send him back to Mexico to cover the drug wars (when were you there CB?).
I am hazarding a guess that someone at the Times, perhaps our own blogger-in-chief, thought better of the description of the French as the 'exotic species' (or whatever the bio said) across the Channel.
Posted by: azloon | 17 Dec 2009 19:42:44
Rick/Richard
‘AND THE GASOMETER PRIMPS AND PUCKERS FOR A HALF-HEARTED SUNBEAM.’
Thank god for google. I was able to figure out what a gasometer was, then fully appreciate the 'color/colour' of the cricket banter. It's hilarious.
Posted by: azloon | 17 Dec 2009 19:19:23
TO RICK,
John Arlott I crossed because he was 1/2 of the party that arrested a REME Staff Sergeant who acted occasionally as my driver in 1944, after Market Garden, for Intelligence liaison conferences with the Americans and the newly constituted French forces, wherein image was vital.
The sergeant, on one of his leaves near Southhampton, was accused of murder and I was asked by his wife if a) the crime could be tried under military law - I never understood her thinking behind this question, and b) If I would appear as a character witness for the defence. Thus I met J. Arlott (Police Sgt)around Christmas 1944 and again around 1955 at a jazz concert, perhaps the only one of that epoch, in the Wigmore Hall.
Footballers I avoid both in the UK and Argentina and have never voluntarily been to a professional football game - the only sport in the world in which a player may be expelled from the field of play for acting badly and bad acting.
Posted by: richard jones | 17 Dec 2009 18:36:11
I admit to the occasional profanity, LEO, but you’ll have to spell out the rest. Are you telling me that your rustics are above suspicion? I’d like to agree with you, but you’d only think me naive.
AZLOON, this is sheer poetry:
‘‘Talbot’s stance reminds me so much of the great J.C.B. Hanley the Worcestershire and England player of the mid-twenties’, when there was some microscopic change in the weather. ‘AND THE GASOMETER PRIMPS AND PUCKERS FOR A HALF-HEARTED SUNBEAM.’
RICHARD, as I understand things, the first test match series after the War was played against South Africa, starting on 11 June 1947. According to David Kynaston, this was Denis Compton’s annus mirabilis for he scored 18 centuries during the season. And can you remember 10 May that year when at Hampden Park 134,000 spectators watched Great Britain walloped the Rest of Europe at the other game, 6-1? BTW, if you tell me Stanley Matthews and Tommy Lawton were pals of yours I won’t bat an eyelid. Now I’ll make myself a cup of cocoa(!*?*)... no, Barbera cough mixture, I think, and read the rest of what you and DOT wrote.
Posted by: Rick | 17 Dec 2009 17:18:03
“In reality, I think that there are social and economic aspects of the age and under what conditions children leave home. I don't think it possible to generalize on the subject”. Lex
No you can’t generalise. It depends on your nature as well.
In some culture, the group and family matter more than the indivual. I have a Greek friend with an extended family who can’t stand time on her own. Every endeavour involves members of her family she drags around, using sugar or spice to get her way. She gets panicky, her son wants to leave ( 32) but she has found pretext after pretext to have him by her side. She has no desire to stand on her own. All his girlfriend are vetted and only the ones supple enough (to bend to her will) pass the mustard. He no longer introduce girlfriends. Nothing that threaten the group homogeneity is allowed, despite the fact that stories of old hurts gets dragged out all the time. The gay boy has been ostracised, nobody challenges the status quo. My mother who has no family to speak of really felt may years as the “pièce rapportée “ in my father’s clan. I could have had a nice house bought for me by my parents and would have lived a nice cosy life, strangely I wanted adventure and stand on my own 2 feet. Some people feel strength and security in a group and others ( me after a while) feel smothered and trapped. If everything stays as it is, and no tension is allowed, is there any progress? Not that all progress is good. Saying that I go home 3 times a year and could not see myself not spending Christmas with my parents or my family.
Posted by: do-re-mi | 17 Dec 2009 16:27:46
ROMAIN,
French government since 2007 are a festival of comic peaople, remember the former Culture and Communication Christine Albanel and her firewall in OpenOffice!
Posted by: WilliamB | 17 Dec 2009 15:26:51
Dot
From the looks of him (above), Ridly apparently has thrown his full support behind the viniculturists.
He's got that pastey, sallow, hang-dog British look with a hint of hangover.
He really doesn't look like a 'five daily fruits and vegetables' sort of guy, does he?
.
Posted by: azloon | 17 Dec 2009 15:00:40
Dot "Perhaps Mr Scott and his ilk could bear that in mind from time to time."
Mr Scott and his ilk are the least of the problem... people want cheaper food and Carrefour or Tesco are only too happy to provide it. If the majority are willing to trade quality for price then the Pierres of this world will struggle.
Posted by: FC | 17 Dec 2009 14:23:40
DRM
My son lives in the midst of the large, extended Italian-American family of his wife in the Chicago area. They are forever in each other's houses, lives, businesses. It is a comfort to them, but annoying sometimes for interlopers like my son. He has had to 'draw his boundaries' firmly so as not to have ten family events to attend each weekend (slight exaggeration). And they all talk to each other on the phone several times a day, each time someone goes to the bathroom, I think.
He jokes that every living relative shows up at every single family party, which seem to occur at least once every two weeks or so, and that they cheerfully enter the house, back-slapping and joking, but then get the hell out quite early, clearly suffering from over-exposure to their clan. I mean there's only so much you can talk about when you work with each other, see each other several times a week, then try to socialize weekly as a group.
Posted by: azloon | 17 Dec 2009 13:47:31
When I moved to Boston, I was surprised to see that children stayed at home until they married. It is also common for people to marry closer to thirty than not, which evidently has something to do with our low divorce rate.
In a history I read about the British Navy, it said that the English had the tradition of turning children into the street when the house got full, regardless of their age. This lead to an unstable and dangerous society, to say the least.
In reality, I think that there are social and economic aspects of the age and under what conditions children leave home. I don't think it possible to generalize on the subject.
A friend from El Salvador tells this story: after he and his mother had lived in the US for several years, one day he says to her, "I am going to go to my room now. It isn't that I don't love you, it's just that I want to be alone."
Posted by: Lex Stevens | 17 Dec 2009 13:39:48
Dom2
No, I clearly recall Sarko's chameleonic 're-positioning.'.
One minute it was roll up your sleeves like the Americans, work longer, bitch (and think) less, die earlier (but richer).
The next it was we have to get rid of the evil A-S financial model.
You don't need a weatherman to know which way the winds are blowin.'
Posted by: azloon | 17 Dec 2009 13:31:27
Oh, Dan Brown fans are PLENTY gullible enough. They simply don't have the money to spend on this stuff.
Posted by: Gleno | 17 Dec 2009 13:30:40
Just noticed Charles' résumé has changed in the "Your Writer" box. Hope he's not brushing up for a career move!
Posted by: Johnny Foreigner | 17 Dec 2009 13:27:25
Nice one, DOMINIQUE II! Have you ever played cricket?
(The above was intended as a compliment)
Posted by: Rick | 17 Dec 2009 12:10:13
While he must have been worn out after a number of concerts, being he is no spring chicken
JOHNY
You're right - and a few days ago we had news of two doctors being flown out from France to check on Johnny and one is left wondering why they don't think the American doctors can handle things.
But then it transpires that the doctors are medical experts for the company insuring the Route 66 concert tour and are only there to see whether he'd be up to carrying on or whether his condition justified cancelling until further notice.
Which just goes to show that in his performer context JH is a property, nothing more - let all those wannabe stars of telly reality heed the warning . . .
Posted by: dot king | 17 Dec 2009 12:02:20
DANIEL - you watched Canal +? Are you OK? Maybe a little double-schnapps and a nice lie-down. :)
Ah, but aren't you forgetting to say that the Tsarko dodged rather a lot of questions whilst managing to be holier-than-thou on saving the planet.
Michel Denisot (who after all, as Didier Porte once said "n'est pas le dernier des kamikazes") asked him how he was going to cut down his own CO2 output (we assume he already cycles everywhere and doesn't leave the tap running while brushing toothypegs) and he attacked "What? You think I should stay in my office with my arms folded? If I hadn't gone to Trinidad and . . . somewhere else where it's nice and warm in November . . . then what would I have achieved?" And all the while, things are deteriorating by the minute in Copehnagen - which is a barrel of laughs if you can be bothered.
He didn't really answer any questions, he said his set pieces and was aggressive when he didn't care for the question - business as usual, quoi.
Hmm, article's about Besson - beneath contempt.
Hortefeu - beneath contempt.
Nadine Morano - beneath contempt.
Valérie Pécresse - pretty damn stupid.
Patrick Devidjian (aka Cassius) - cunning, lying in wait, knows more than he's letting on, a lean and hungry man - such men are dangerous . . .
It isn't b--ls these people have, it's a platform from which to belch out verbal pollution.
Posted by: dot king | 17 Dec 2009 11:48:22
Identity crisis Besson may be close to cracking but his boss has never been in better form. His 'how I'm going to save the world at Copenhagen' interview last night was absolutely priceless. Example -
challenged by an otherwise cowed Denisot about his frequent flights and consequently massive carbon footprint, he says that he has to run around otherwise nothing would budge on climate change and anyway, and this is the killer, maybe French planes pollute less than others!!! And then at the end there was a marvelously mellow sequence when he spoke touchingly about his precious Carla and her affection for him, in spite of which he might have to seek a second term out of duty to the nation!!!.
Canal+ should rush out the DVD in time for Christmas. It would provide endless hours of holiday mirth and wonder.
Posted by: John O'D | 17 Dec 2009 11:45:43
This is something Mr Ridley Scott should hear - I hope some bloggers who don't listen to Inter will take the time to listen to the "Interactive" part of the "Sept-Dix" this morning. The Agriculture Minister replies to questions from the journalists and specialists in the studio and a representative from Les Jeunes Agriculteurs.
Towards the end of the clip linked below, came a call from one Pierre, fruit farmer in Provence.
For those who have difficulty with fully understanding the French, this is the summary of his intervention: I'm a Provence fruit farmer, this year at the end of the picking season when I'd sold all my harvest, I was €15.000 down on last year and hadn't any money to pay my workers' salaries. I'm not a beggar, I work all year round and I've nothing to show for it, people talk all the time of "the market", but before harvest, for farmers, there is no market. (At this point he broke down so completely that he could no longer speak.)
The minister was asked for a reply to give Pierre time to pull himself together again. Naturally he spoke of aids, grants, loans, admitted that the cost of employing workers was too high and they were investigating the problems.
Then Nicolas Demoran asked Pierre whether he was getting all these benefits, grants and loans. Pierre replied that he didn't want aid, grants and loans - these, he said, are the leash that attaches you by the neck. He added that paysans are accused of all the ills - pollution, pesticides - (he mentioned others which I can't recall) that it was time to recognise and value their work and to realise that when a farmer goes broke, it's several families who lose work; His son has already left and will not farm, and if he has another year like this, it'll be the end.
Anyway, his call starts at 13m 28s of the link, slide the cursor along unless the whole 20 mins are of interest as well - during Pierre's call the atmosphere in the studio was very charged - you have to hear him to get the full weight of what he's saying.
http://sites.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/em/septdix/
Bearing in mind too that the Ministry of Health has radio and TV campaigns encouraging everyone to eat 5 fruits and vegetables every day and 3 dairy products. Presumably they want them imported, not home-grown.
The world isn't just made up of bankers, traders and politicians. Perhaps Mr Scott and his ilk could bear that in mind from time to time.
Posted by: dot king | 17 Dec 2009 11:24:45
Azloon,
I know in then” Individuality society” children get out of the house. In Europe it’s a bit different, you live with your parents until you get married or shack up. In the US you tend to move for work, in Europe you don’t do it too much, moving away from your family is not a cultural thing, that is changing a bit now. When I went to Italy I couldn’t believe how young people looked so good ( if lacking in imagination) and could afford so much stuff, when you have seen an Armani outfit you have seen them all ( ok I exaggerate). They all live with mum and dad and didn’t have rent to pay, also they worked and mummy had cooked dinner and watched their clothes as well.
Here it might change as the housing bubble and crisis have made it impossible to rent and save for a deposit at the same time. Finding your feet and becoming independent is looking like a bad financial decision if character building. Also the money in the bank is not earning any money right now.
By some coincidence Halliday’s wife is on the cover of the French Elle, she looks very childlike, making him look even more ancient.
Posted by: do-re-mi | 17 Dec 2009 11:05:35
WILLIAMB,
Don't forget Nadine Morano who was castigating young muslims in a political meeting.
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Posted by: ibrahimali | 17 Dec 2009 10:44:09
Since Sarkozy's election, France weeks pass by with the rhythm of our government proof of stupidity.
Another one just for the fun, which happen yesterday : after Besson sent the nine Afghan refugees back to Kabul, Lefebvre (the Spokesman of the Union for a Popular Movement, and one of the best stupidity supplier of the country) and Mariani (an UMP deputee who tried to make a law which establish an DNA test for every migrant who try to come in France to reunite with family here), said that is fair that Afghans refugees was sent back to Afghanistan, because as French soldier are fighting there, Afghan people must stay there and fight the talibans instead of trying to find a place far of violence!
Just hopeless, and thinking we have tree more years with this government (if Sarkozy is re-elected, I leave France, I just hope that other countries don't make me come back in order to fight against Sarkozy...)
Posted by: WilliamB | 17 Dec 2009 10:27:43
RICK Dylan Thomas was in Italy in 1947 – notably Elba but this won’t work for reasons already ascribed. However 1951 would, when Dylan was there for the last time.
DOT
I once had a delightful young lady working for me in the late 40’s called Wendy Wimbush who left banking and went into the Bill Frindall cricket stats (from the French états?) world. She became quite renowned in that domain for inventing a thing called ‘wagon wheels’ that diagrammatically showed where in the outfield a batsman scored his runs.
Commentating on cricket – a serious art form. I used to love it when at 11:30 (they start at silly times now – complete disrespect for pig’s bladder repletion recovery) and play was delayed, but with an inspection by the umpires perhaps an hour away. I would suppose most people switched the wireless (which it wasn’t) off and rejoined when play started, and this is perhaps why John Arlott’s greatest (IMO) quote is never – well – quoted.
It was a dialogue with Rex Alston. The ground (t’was the Oval), the spectators – enrobed in these new plastic macintoshes - the circling ornithology had been discussed at length, as had the likelihood of play after the inspection. The duo were just starting to compare various players in that wonderful formal style of the time ‘Talbot’s stance reminds me so much of the great J.C.B. Hanley the Worcestershire and England player of the mid-twenties’, when there was some microscopic change in the weather. ‘AND THE GASOMETER PRIMPS AND PUCKERS FOR A HALF-HEARTED SUNBEAM.’
Brian Johnston, of course, has the absolute quote ‘The batsman’s Holding the bowlers Willey’.
Eddie Waring – that kinda rugby – the purloiner of great Welsh talent in the amateur days of Rugby Union. ‘Up and under’ or ‘Garryowen (a Irish rugby union club)’, is not used much in League until the late fifties. Before that date, to encourage a passing rather than kicking game, any kick fielded on the full meant a set scrum back where it was kicked and with the catcher’s side’s to put in.
And, finally, having totally kidnapped the thread topic, the best Rugby Union commentator was Bill McClaren.
Posted by: richard jones | 17 Dec 2009 10:11:47
ROMAIN,
Je serais curieux de soumettre nos phrases test respectives à un logiciel de reconnaissance vocale, pour voir ce qu'il recracherait :).
Il y a un certain nombre d'années, j'avais fait des essais avec Via Voice d'IBM. Ca marchait pas mal pour l'époque (processeurs lents, mémoire vive réduite).
Posted by: Daniel Strohl | 17 Dec 2009 10:08:13
DOMINIQUE II,
"that Sarkozy's opinions are fickle, to say the least"
:))
Sarkozy tries to adapt his opinions to the changing world and to the changing economy. Most of his opponents try to persuade the electors that they are able to change the world and the economy to adapt it to fit the perfect society they say they will built for their electors :).
Unfortunately (or may be fortunately :) they failed to persuade 53% of the electors in 2007.
If they want to win the elections in 2012, "ils ont du pain sur la planche" :). The first thing would be "d'accorder leurs violons pour limiter la cacophonie assourdissante"; the second, to find a credible candidate. The third, to send back to Germany Cohn-Bendit, accompanied by Bové and Mamère as a gift :). Our German friends would no doubt appreciate...
Posted by: Daniel Strohl | 17 Dec 2009 10:03:18
TO VALENTIN,
Let me assure you that your lot are as nasty,invidious, separatist and above all arrogant as anything I've ever seen or heard of from 'anglos' in France.
My little finger is in excellent shape, thank you, although my shoulder is playing up from phoning all I can to get rid of this invasion - mostly from Paris - as you'd expect.
Posted by: richard jones | 17 Dec 2009 09:52:36
There is always one guy in an office who nobody trust , the Iznogood type. They are very useful to their bosses, they get all the ugly tasks done and people are on their best behaviour or leaning against the wall to avoid backstabbing. These types hate human beings anyway and don’t even like themselves. Sarkosi and Besson obviously wants to stick it to their daddy, and they have. Everybody knows their name and like algae they thrive in acid condition. Hate from other people is nothing compared to their self-loathing anyhow. Obscurity and an attention blackout brings them in a tailspin that is not funny to watch.
Besson’s wife was an idiot anyway, if a man on your wedding day in front of the priest he is not going to be faitfull, going ahead with the wedding and sticking with the man for 30 years should qualify you for the straight jacket not for the wronged-wife badge or our sympathy.
His chin does not help and surrounding jowls neither.
Posted by: do-re-mi | 17 Dec 2009 09:43:11
Valentin "Many anglos are fine people, met more than a few of those actually, in real life as well as online"...
that sounds remarkably close to the clichéd response of your regular homophobe/racist or in this case anglophobe... "some of my best friends are gay/black/anglo!"... it doesn't really work.
Posted by: FC | 17 Dec 2009 09:25:56
"Ganelon, Ganelon... now why do my thoughts take wing to the Hindu Kush?"
That's harsh on Karzai, an enlightened opportunist at worst.
Posted by: Dominique II | 17 Dec 2009 09:19:15
RICK, you vicious misquoter, you. / I said "as long as" in this context here: [VALENTIN]
Yummy, do I get a second bite at the cherry?
Posted by: Rick | 17 Dec 2009 08:33:38
Ganelon, Ganelon... now why do my thoughts take wing to the Hindu Kush?
Posted by: Rick | 17 Dec 2009 08:20:48
Dom2
When Besson produced his pamplet, Sarkozy "was" a firm free-market fundie, and even pledged to introduce France to the joys of unfettered mortgaging, aka subprimes, if he was elected - yet another forgotten promise, thank Gods.
Lest we forget his "louanges d'antin" for the system Britannique.
Posted by: rocket | 17 Dec 2009 08:14:10
Johny Halliday was never really a rock singer, but he is a great ballad singer; It's not the be all and end all; he never made it in England anyway.
That country has no class in music now for sure. Just look at that nonsense manufactured talent show the masses get hysterical about; the X factor, tells you everything.
Orchestrated by that smug faced mother of cheap thrills; Simon Cowell.
Concerning Halliday"s after effects from his operation, everybody is quickly blaming the French Doctor; but who in their right mind would jet off to the States, just 4 days after a spinal operation. It's known that pressure in long distance air travel is never good after an operation or illness. Halliday was asking for trouble. But like everything else in France somebody always has to be responsible, when something goes wrong, except the real culprit.
While he must have been worn out after a number of concerts, being he is no spring chicken.
Not everybody can run around for ever, and come up regularily smiling, with perhaps one exception Tiger Woods. Perhaps the secret was in the "Gatorade" drink.
Posted by: johny | 17 Dec 2009 08:12:45
RICK
"What a pity Ridley Scott wasn’t called Roman Polanski. Welcome to France, home of Human Rights, applied with discrimination, of course."
As Rocket would day: What's thee point of your post?
Posted by: Leo | 17 Dec 2009 06:10:14
"'Neo-conservative' is a bit of an exaggeration since there is no such animal as a dirigiste neo-con"
I am surprised that as shrewd an observer of French politics as AZLOON has not noticed that Sarkozy's opinions are fickle, to say the least. When Besson produced his pamplet, Sarkozy "was" a firm free-market fundie, and even pledged to introduce France to the joys of unfettered mortgaging, aka subprimes, if he was elected - yet another forgotten promise, thank Gods.
As for Besson - he nicely complements the erstwhile duo France has committed to its long memory: Ganelon and Cauchon. To each his brand of fame.
Posted by: Dominique II | 17 Dec 2009 00:07:30
"something – call it an intuition, call it my little finger – tells me that if Ridley Scott had been a lawbreaker on the run, then the villagers would have been happy"
Another one with an ailing little finger.
Well you're probably right in saying that the French are compassionate with a man in hardship.
Not that they would be the only ones feelign that way - if we only think of Bonnie and Clyde.
Posted by: Valentin | 16 Dec 2009 22:58:55
RJ : "A small island in Greece (1200 souls) is repulsing an invasion of 400 French invaders. On the basis of your last post I suppose you would be fighting on the beach with the invaders"
Me sortof doubts that the 400 French colonised your islanders the way your fellow anglos usually do when they install down south, you know, in 'savage land'. Your little finger doin' fine, otherwise? :)
Posted by: Valentin | 16 Dec 2009 22:52:54
RICK, you vicious misquoter, you.
I said "as long as" in this context here:
"Who cares about the name, as long as ils ne se laissent pas faire, and know how to barricade inside the said village."
It was about the name that you mentioned, Albert something. I never said anything about some bad behaviour that would be justifiable - especially that since it is about an anglo, resistance is one of those acts securing a place in heaven. With 50 virgins, or not.
Posted by: Valentin | 16 Dec 2009 22:48:45
Besson an immigrant?
Don't make me laugh!! the son of a french military born in a french colony !!!
the "product of the french colonial empire" would be more accurate.
Posted by: Dominique | 16 Dec 2009 22:39:50
CNN Backstory just did a gut splitting piece on Johnny Halliday in hopital in the US interviewing all kinds of people and asking if they knew him.
http://tinyurl.com/yl3zj5f
video (partial)below
http://edition.cnn.com/video/
Posted by: rocket | 16 Dec 2009 22:33:17
On pissoirs, here's what French Wikip. says: Curieusement le nom allemand pour cet objet est Pissoir qui, bien que d'origine française, n'existe plus dans notre langue. Le même mot est utilisé dans toutes les familles des langues slaves. CB]
Easier to pronounce and one less syllable than "pissotière" Plus many people around the world associate the sound "oir" with the French language thus (In English the word "our" is very close in pronunciation) facility and familiarity leads use to nôtre nouveau né - PISSOIR
Posted by: rocket | 16 Dec 2009 22:25:56
Paul
"When the French venture out of the kitchen, style eats itself.
Poor chap probably got infected from the amount of Botox he pumps into his face."
Don't think he uses Boxtox. Look at his face. It looks like the the surface of the moon and I can definitely make out the man in the craterface. I think the French are planning their first moonshot there.
You know. The good ol' moonshot!
Posted by: rocket | 16 Dec 2009 22:11:46
Dot
"No Dahling - that was your wife"
ça vas pas la tête?
My wife was dating Tiger Woods! Might still be. Better check her phone.
Be right back
Posted by: rocket | 16 Dec 2009 22:07:33
Il y a aussi l'expression "plein vent arrière" ou naviguer "au près". Une autre version de "à voile ou à vapeur". I believe sheets to the wind corresponds to "prendre un ris" i.e. fold or deploy the sail.
Posted by: Romain | 16 Dec 2009 21:11:55