 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.]
The only thing that the ancient Gauls feared was that sky might fall on their heads, at least according to the Astérix comics. Their descendants have lately added a lot of other items to the list of terrors. The sky remains the source of one of them -- radiation from mobile phone masts.
You can understand the background, what with pesticides, asbestos and other modern menaces. But sometimes it seems that irrational fears are getting the better of common sense. France is one of four European states that remains shut to GMO crops despite the finding of the state food safety agency that they are harmless to humans. Fighting GMOs is a popular cause and José Bové, the anti-capitalist farmer is a hero for tearing up fields where they have been tested. He's now running for the European Parliament.
The latest case involves mobile phones. The government has just decided to limit the radiation risk to children. Cell phones are to be banned from primary schools and operators are being told to offer handsets that allow only text messages. Companies will also be required to supply telephones that only work with head-sets in order to limit the danger to the brain from electromagnetic waves, Rosalyne Bachelot, the Health Minister said.
This is no doubt reasonable, given the chances of long-term damage for kids who grow up with mobiles glued to their heads. Campaign groups wanted more severe measures, including a ban on mobile use by children under 14.
Less plausible is the other side of the mobile scare -- telephone masts and wi-fi networks. The Government agreed after a month-long consultation with campaigners and operators to consider the dangers of radiation from phone towers and it is likely that they will eventually bow to demands to restrict their power and locations.
The state and telephone operators are under assault by hundreds of local and national groups which are demanding the removal of phone masts near schools, hospitals and homes. Radiation is commonly blamed for insomnia, headaches, fatigue, cancer, dry cows and so on. Libraries and other public spaces in some cities have switched off wi-fi internet cover after reports that the radio waves are harmful.
Similar campaigns are under way in other countries. What is unusual is that French courts have sided with the opponents despite the absence of any evidence that electromagnetic radiation from the relay transmitters harm anyone.
The operators are alarmed by a decision from the appeal court in Versailles in February. This ordered Bouygues, one of the main operators, to dismantle a mast at Tassin-la-Demi-Lune, near Lyons, because families there feared for their health. The judges agreed that there was no evidence of a threat, but they said there was no guarantee that a risk did not exist. The "feeling of anxiety" of the inhabitants was therefore justified.
The revolt against the phone towers continues to build, with sympathetic cover in the media. Campaign groups style themselves as resistants against the ruling power. The main one is cleverly called Robin-des-Toits, or Robin of the Roofs, which is a pun on Robin des Bois, or Robin Hood. If you look at the site you'll see a lot of what they claim to be evidence of the evils of phone waves, BlueTooth and so on.
The judges' reasoning is known as the "principle of precaution", a doctrine that was used by the Socialist government in the 1990s when it refused to import British beef after it had been declared safe by the European Union. The principle, which is also behind the rejection of GMOs, emerged after Government was shown to have knowingly distributed HIV-contaminated blood in the 1980s.
That scandal gave birth to the idea of maximum caution whenever human health is at stake, but it obviously has limits. If the precaution principle was logically applied, cars would be banned, along with cigarettes, alcohol, red meat, tanning beds and so on. And what about all those nuclear power stations that provide 80 percent of France's electricity ? Other countries halted their nuclear industry and atomic power stirs fear in the United States, but very few people worry about France's 59 reactors and the waste they produce.
Jean de Kervasdoué, a former national director of French hospitals, pointed out the other day that zero risk is nonsense and obstructs progress. "It's dangerous... like the mediaeval inquisitors who demanded that heretics prove their innocence," he said in le Journal du Dimanche. "You cannot always prove your innocence."
Come to Abu Dhabi, visit the Louvre and take a degree at the Sorbonne. That seemingly odd idea comes closer to reality tomorrow when President Sarkozy starts the construction of a Gulf branch of the Paris art museum.
The Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo are not leaving town, but the world's biggest art museum and other leading state galleries are to lend hundreds of works to the Louvre Abu Dhabi. The venture has already earned 400 million euros just for use of the brand name.
The franchising of the Louvre is part of a push to extend French influence and power in the Gulf region. Since 2006, the Sorbonne, the ancient university in the Paris Latin quarter, has been offering law and human sciences degrees at its own campus in Abu Dhabi.
The "Louvre of the Sands" as it has been dubbed, will be housed in a sumptuous, marble-domed palace, designed by Jean Nouvel, on Saadiyat Island [picture above]. Nearby, work is already under way on a 200 million dollar branch of the Guggenheim. New York's modern art museum, whose affliliate is to open in 2011, a year ahead of the local Louvre, is said to have charged only 60 million dollars for use of its name.
The French cultural drive, started under President Chirac, is being matched by a new strategic effort in the Gulf. Tomorrow, Sarkozy is also opening a naval and air force base in Abu Dhabi, which is France's first new military outpost overseas in half a century. The step follows the new defence doctrine that focuses on the "Mediterranean, Arab-Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean strategic axis." Paris wants to signal to Iran its defence alliance with the emirates. "If Iran were to attack, we would effectively be attacked also," said an Elysée Palace official.
On his second Abu Dhabi trip in just over a year, Sarkozy is desperately hoping to convince Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan to buy the Rafale jet fighter. The very expensive new-generation aircraft, built by Dassault and in service with the French military, has so far failed to win a single export order.
France's entry into the culture export business ran into resistance when it was announced two years ago. Luminaries of the state art world staged a campaign called "Museums are not for sale" and charged Henri Loyrette, the Louvre director, with betraying the national heritage.
But the complaints have subsided as the state museums realised the windfall that is coming their way from the 30-year deal which Christine Albanel, the Culture Minister, estimates will eventually earn over a billion euros.
A new agency has been set up to coordinate loans for the first 10 years from many state museums, including the Versailles palace, the Musee d'Orsay, the Pompidou Modern Art centre and the new Quai Branly museum of primitive art. As well as going to the Louvre, the income will be spread around the state museums.
The Abu Dhabi affiliate is already starting its own collection. One of the first items is thought to be Piet Mondrian's 1922 "Composition avec bleu, rouge, jaune et noir", which sold for 21.7 million euros at sale of the collection of the late Yves Saint Laurent sale in Paris in February. The Gulf museum is also said to have bought European mediaeval figures and tapestries.
Loyrette is being congratulated for his pioneering work raising commercial funding for the Louvre, which with over eight million annual visitors is by far the worlds most frequented museum. Though heavily subsidised, the Louvre was until recently short of cash for new works. Loyrette is also opening a Louvre branch in the northern French city of Lens and a Louvre section has been on show in an Atlanta museum.
Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, the last Culture Minister, said the break with the old, conservative habits of the Louvre was an unmitigated success. "No principle in our museum policy has been abandoned," he wrote on his blog. "The inalienable caracter of our national collections has even been reconfirmed. We have given a new impetus to our ability to make France shine in the world," he said. Actually, he was even more gushing in French. There's no real English translation for rayonnement... shining out to the world, as France likes to think it does.
To close on Abu Dhabi, here's a nice bit of French rayonnement: The Helicopter by Hermès. The Paris leathergoods house teamed up with Eurocopter, the French-based European helicopter makers, to produce this luxurious flying machine. The first one has just been delivered to Falcon Aviation Services of Abu Dhabi. Perfect for taking you out to the Louvre of the Sands. And at only six million euros, it's less than a third of the price of the Mondrian and a fraction of one Rafale.
AUSTRALIAN NOTE:
President Sarkozy, who travels more than any of his predecessors, is to make history in early August by dropping in on Australia, a nation never before visited by French leader. Sarko and Carla Bruni can expect a boisterous welcome on their 36-hour trip to Sydney after a Pacific summit in New Caledonia. "Bonjour mate, allez down under", said the not quite French headline in the Melbourne Age.
Australia enjoys a fine reputation in France as a distant home to exotic animals and people, rugby players and Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman and Mel Gibson. However France's image is not so good in Australia thanks to disputes over farm exports, the Iraq war and, most of all the nuclear tests that President Chirac carried out in the mid-1990s in the French Pacific. Before that, in 1985, President Mitterrand poisoned relations with the antipodes when French secret agents blew up the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour. 
Australian anger has cooled in recent years. Australians have even come to France to teach the locals how to make "modern" wine and how to play rugby. At the weekend, one Australian newspaper chain described the Sarkozys as "the world's undisputed glamour political couple" -- a rank that neglects the Obamas and which I have never seen any French media bestow on them. My Adelaide sources tell me that Bruni's latest album of songs, a flop in France, has even been given a serious airing on a local radio station.
[Note for French readers, Oz is Australia]
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]
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."
A jinx seems to have latched onto President Sarkozy's scheme to make France the first democracy with an internet police agency. A furore is raging in the French blogosphere over the sacking of a television executive because he criticised Sarkozy's imminent three-strikes-and-you're-out law against illegal downloading.
The episode tells you about the cosy ties between Sarkozy and TF1, France's dominant -- commercial -- television network. Here's what happened:
Jérôme Bourreau-Guggenheim, 33, TF1's chief of technical innovation, voiced his disagreement with the internet law -- known as Hadopi -- in a private e-mail to Françoise de Panafieu, the member of parliament for his home district in western Paris. Panafieu is a one-time minister and veteran member of Sarkozy's UMP party (She's also my MP and her office is opposite my apartent). Her assistant forwarded the e-mail to the office of Christine Albanel, the Culture Minister [above], requesting points to make in response to Bourreau.
The deputy-chief of Albanel's staff then zapped a copy of the e-mail straight to TF1. Bourreau's boss called him in, read out his e-mail and told him he was fired because it betrayed the network's policy in favour of the internet law. When the story broke in Libération, Albanel dismissed it as absurd and indignantly denied before parliament that her office had forwarded the e-mail. Over the weekend, she reversed her story and admitted that the dirty work had been done by Christophe Tardieu, her staffer. He has been suspended for a month.
Albanel says she regrets the incident but is pointing out that nothing in the e-mail said that it was confidential. Bourreau (the name means hangman or executioner) is suing TF1 for wrongful dismissal, citing a law which employees' rights to voice political opinions.
At this stage I would argue that an executive in a sensitive post should be more careful about airing opinions in contradiction with an important company policy. But that's not really the point here. The scandal comes from the Culture Ministry ratting on Bourreau to the private company that it is involved in regulating.
This is being taken as proof of the incestuous network of friends and interests through which Sarkozy influences -- some would say controls -- the media. TF1 is owned by the billionaire Martin Bouygues, a Sarkozy friend who is is godfather to his youngest son. As we saw here before, Sarkozy last year got rid of advertising from public television -- a huge gift to TF1 -- on the suggestion of Bouygues. TF1's second-ranking executive is Laurent Solly, who was deputy director of Sarkozy's 2007 presidential campaign. And so on.
Bourreau is being hailed as a hero, admired with dedicated Facebook groups and a special song "Qui a tué (Who Killed) Bourreau-Guggenhem ?" He has been called the first "internet martyr" in the cause of resisting what is seen as Sarkozy's Big Brother Hadopi scheme.
Much of the emotion is over-blown, but the Hadopi law is beginning to look like a loser before it has even finished its tortuous passage through parliament. It is supported not just by the big corporations of the entertainment industry but also by many artists as the only way to stop their work being pillaged. But its foes have done a good job painting it as an out-of-date plot by the establishment to punish the young and poor who download music and films.
That case was put today by a group of 90 independent record labels which have signed a declaration attacking the Hadopi law (which takes its name from the acronym for the new High Authority which will track down and punish illegal downloaders). The independents, who say they represent 90 percent of French musical artists, attacked the majors for impoverishing them and supporting a policy "which designates the public as potential thieves rather than music-lovers."
The anti-Hadopi crowd could not have wished for better ammunition than the case of the unfortunate Mr Bourreau.
[Picture at top is Albanel in parliament last month after a first attempt to pass the Hadopi law was unexpectedly defeated. It's back for a new vote later this month and will very likely pass]
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.]
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.]
An old but fairly accurate cliché holds that France is a conservative nation that advances through periodic upheaval. A lot of people would like us to believe that we may be entering one of those moments.
There is even a touch of 1789 in the way that the strongest prophesy of insurrection has come this week not from a ragged sans-culotte, but from an outcast aristocrat who wants to bring down the king. Dominique de Villepin, the last Prime Minister and bitter foe of his former subordinate Nicolas Sarkozy, has pronounced that "France faces a risk of revolution". He did not say whether he had in mind something like 1789, 1848, the Commune of 1871 or May 1968.
Here's the case: The economic slump is destroying jobs by the thousand. Over 20 percent of the under 25s are out of work. The sense of injustice is being fed by the golden incomes still enjoyed by disgraced bosses; dismissed workers are kidnapping managers and one lot last week sacked government offices in the town of Compiègne; about a third of the universities are "blocked" by students protesting against President Sarkozy's higher education reforms. Electricity workers are pursuing a pay claim by cutting off the current from tens of thousands of people.
Next Friday, the labour unions are joining in rare May Day unity in mass marches to alert Sarkozy to the anger and plight of the working classes. Today's Journal du Dimanche, a conservative national newspaper owned by a friend of Sarkozy, is asking dramatically on its front: "Is a 'May 2009' possible in France?'. In other words, could we be about to live a replay of May 1968, the student uprising that ignited strikes and briefly shook the rule of President de Gaulle.
I will take the risk of answering the newspaper's question in the negative. There is a lot of anger around and insurrection is certainly desired by the usual crowd on the utopian far left -- Olivier Besancenot, the Trotskyite leader of the New Anti-Capitalist Party, students and the hardline labour unions such as the Trotskyite Sud federation.
But history is unlikely to repeat itself. May 1968 came as a surprise to a country that was enjoying unprecedented prosperity and high employment. It was also a time of cultural revolt and dreams of other worlds. It was followed by a period of industrial turbulence in the 1970s with far more strikes and factory sit-ins than now.
Revolution is being talked up by people in the Establishment with their own ambitions at heart. Villepin is the most glaring example. He is a never-elected diplomat who owed all his government appointments to his mentor President Jacques Chirac. He is to stand trial later this year on charges of trying to smear Sarkozy in the so-called Clearstream affair. Last Sunday he talked of possible revolution saying he feared that public despair would lead to "collective behaviour that we might not be able to control". On Friday, he announced that he hoped to stand against Sarkozy in the next presidential election in 2012.
That prompted a little mirth and jokes about his mental balance. The same response has greeted the utterances of Ségolène Royal, another member of the elite who is hell-bent on bringing down the elected monarch. Royal, the Socialist who was defeated in the 2007 presidential election and failed to win her party leadership last December, is waging a manic personal campaign against Sarko. She is issuing public "apologies" in the name of France for his imagined sins and she is all but preaching revolution, siding with the workers in every violent episode. Relations between workers and employers in France "remain in the Middle Ages", she said this weekend. Like Villepin, Royal is out for revenge against Sarkozy in 2012.
So, when you hear of unrest in France, add a pinch of salt. The mood is definitely dark, as it is in Britain, Spain, Ireland and the United States among other places. The work-place violence and street and student protests may increase, but we are far from revolution. People are not ready to risk their jobs, as some were in 1968. The French welfare safety net protects the unemployed and low-paid to a degree unimaginable to Americans or even the British. Revolution is not really in the air when the leader of the French Socialist Party complains that the French president should do more to follow the example of the president of the United States. Martine Aubry, the party leader, has just done that. And on the anecdotal side, many people are not suffering too much, judging by the traffic jams around the suburban shopping centres at weekends.
Sarkozy must have been comforted by an Ifop poll just published by Sud Ouest Dimanche newspaper. This found that despite all his unpopularity, if the 2007 election were staged again today Sarkozy would still beat Royal and all the other candidates who stood in the first round that year.
[Below: The struggle of 'les Contis', northern France workers demonstrating against their factory closure by German tyre company. Their case has become symbol of immoral action by rogue employers]
Get ready for a deluge of Chanel. In an astute bit of marketing, the Paris fashion and perfume company is about to relaunch its No.5 scent with a new muse: Audrey Tautou.
The actress with the girl-next-door looks replaces Nicole Kidman, who has been Chanel's ambassador-model since 2004. There have been only four or five such égéries, or muses, since 1921 when Coco Chanel invented the heady scent that became the world's best-seller. Marilyn Monroe [below], the first after Chanel herself, ensured its fortunes in the United States in 1954 when she was asked what she wore in bed: "Why, Chanel No.5, of course."
Tautou's role as Amélie (In France known as Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain) in 2001 made her the world's most famous young French actress. Chanel's move is clever because Tautou is about to star as the company's founder and the perfume's inventor in a would-be block-buster film which opens this week.
Coco Avant Chanel, directed by Anne Fontaine, is the most lavish among recent films and mini-series on the woman who was fashion's version of Picasso or Stravinsky. The new movie focuses on the young Gabrielle Chanel [Top picture]. It is the latest in a trail of French biopics trying to match La Môme, the Edith Piaf film that won last year's best actress Oscar for Marion Cotillard. [Coco trailer here]
Chanel hired Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who directed Tautou in Amélie and Un long Dimanche de Fiançailles, to shoot a commercial. Ridley Scott, Luc Besson and Baz Luhrmann did the same for previous Chanel muses.
[Kidman]
Jeunet said Chanel's brief consisted of only three words: mystère, frisson, émotion. He scripted a sepia-tinted, atmospheric yarn about an encounter between travelling strangers. From those words you know that we are talking about the Orient Express or an ocean steamer. For Jeunet it was the Express. He filmed for three weeks with a crew of 250 on locations from Paris to Istanbul. Luxury goods, it seems, cannot get enough of steam(y) romance. Only last year Catherine Deneuve perched on a suitcase beside the same train for Louis Vuitton.
In the Jeunet advert, a whiff of Chanel 5 enables Travis Davenport, an an American model, to find the mysterious reporter (Tautou) who was on the express to Istanbul. The couple finally embrace to the strains of Billy Holiday's I'm a Fool to Want You. The idea of tracing a woman by scent is apt for Chanel No.5 because it was one of the first "parfums à sillage", perfumes that leave a wake. Unlike the floral-based scents of the time, Chanel's product contained chemical aldehydes that gave the jasmin-based essence its lingering effect. Only three people know the formula, according to Chanel.
[Bouquet]
Both Fontaine and Jeunet have been saying that Tautou is the very incarnation of Mademoislle Chanel and the actress agrees. She told L'Express this week that she had always identified with the pioneering couturière. They had similar rural backgrounds and physique. Chanel believed in independence for women, said Tautou. "That's a view that I share."
In the trade, they say that Chanel has made a smart move cashing on the big movie and using a star whose approachable style will attract younger women to its venerable scent. The Coco film opens in France on Wednesday and the commercial airs on May 5. And note: I managed to write the above without using the icon word.
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."
--------
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]
We did not need an opinion poll to confirm that much of France supports workers who kidnap their bosses. This ploy, long a French speciality, has been used about five times in recent weeks by employees of firms that are laying off workers.
A survey by CSA for today's Parisien reports that 45 percent of France "finds this method of action acceptable". Fifty percent do not. A cynic might be surprised that only 45 percent approve of sequestration, as boss-napping is politely called. Even President Sarkozy, the champion of law-and-order, has sympathy for workers who practice it though he said today that it must stop.
Unions have won concessions and sympathy by detaining senior executives at Japan's Sony Corp, the American firms Caterpillar [picture above] and 3M, Michelin tyres and Préciturn, an engineering group. In the usual routine, detained executives are shut in their offices overnight. The workers order in pizza but do not always share it with them. The police keep a polite distance and in in the morning, the tired bosses give ground.
At Caterpillar's plant in the Alps, where 700 jobs are to go, four executives were kept from sleep by harassment. They were released after Sarkozy promised that he would "save" their factory. They were even given to understand that he would bring up their plight with Barack Obama.
Politicians of the centre and left have been competing to voice their understanding for the boss-nappers. Les patrons have never been popular in France, but their name is blacker than ever with fear of unemployment and the media full of fat cats awarding themselves bonuses and golden payoffs. Cashing in on the mood, Ségolène Royal, the Socialist, said that while it was illegal to deprive someone of their liberty, there were times when "workers must smash the barriers of absolute injustice."
Sarkozy's government is worried that locking up bosses could presage greater violence as the sense of injustice grows with rising unemployment. François Fillon, the Prime Minister, says that he will not tolerate more "hostage taking".
But in France, there is violence and violence, as all students of history know. Two years ago exactly, a certain presidential candidate took the side of angry fishermen who had smashed up their port. "When you resort to violence it is because you are desperate, because you feel condemned to economic death," he told them. "I will never put the anger of fishermen who do not want to die on the same level as the gratuitous violence of thugs." That was N. Sarkozy.
[Below: cartoon by Cabu in Le Canard Enchaîné. Caption: The boss: Never without my sleeping bag.
He says to his wife: I'm practising in case I am held in the office by discontented workers.
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.
>
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.
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]
Regulars here need no introduction to Nicolas Canteloup, the humourist who draws two million listeners on Europe 1 radio every morning with impersonations of politicians and celebrities. Improvising on the day's news Canteloup has a great talent for skewering, not always gently, President Sarkozy and the other big egos who crowd the public stage.
Canteloup gave me an hour of his time today in the Train Bleu, the Belle Epoque brasserie at the Gare de Lyon. He was on his way to the next leg of a sold-out two-year touring show. It was good to get a chance to sound out the man behind the famous pastiches of Super Sarko, sanctimonious Ségolène Royal and the inaudible goody-goody Carla Bruni. Canteloup had come from exercising the horses which are his escape from his day job of mocking France's rulers (a life-long equestrian and former riding instructor, he says his big ambition is to enter England's Badminton trials).
As often with comics off-stage, he is rather diffident, a little austere and modest about what he does. He claims to have no great skill at imitating voices but rather a gift for picking up people's tics and traits and turning them into caricature. He discovered his talent as an amuser when he was a child but only went professional after failing to make it into a police college while a law student at Bordeaux and then working at Club Med resorts.
"I rather fancied the idea of gendarmes and robbers. I suppose that's what I still do in a way," he said. Canteloup, who does not drink or smoke, says he is blessed with political "clients" you couldn't make up. "Sarkozy, with his hyperactivity, is a comic strip character who gives us a lot to work with. He's a gift." The trick is to latch onto the detail. "Every character has their mask, like the commedia dell' arte. For Sarko it's heavy wrist-watches, for Rachida Dati [disgraced Justice Minister] it's beautiful dresses. Carla Bruni, its the little voice and 'everyone is nice'. Bruni is difficult because she is a real pro, in complete control of herself in public -- unlike Sarko-- he says.
Canteloup tries not to meet the targets of his sketches and refuses invitations from politicians. He says that he avoids vulgarity and draws the line at mocking physique -- though his jokes about Sarkozy's short stature are a running gag. He recognises that some of his material skirts the edge of the acceptable. One example was a sketch in January on Israel's bombardment of the Gaza strip.
Most of his victims take the humour in good spirit, even when it verges on the cruel, he says. An exception was Ségolène Royal, who Canteloup sends up as a perpetually indignant victim. "When she lost the presidency, she tried to find the reasons. She said that I was one of them. I was wounded by that because I did not set out to make Segolene lose. I don't take political sides. My aim is to try to find what is funny."
Another who was wounded at first was Gérard Schivardi, a village mayor with a slurred southwestern accent who ran for the presidency in 2007 as candidate for an obscure Trotskyite party. Canteloup's Schivardi is permanently drunk as he offers his views from the supposed village cafe. This has turned the fictional Schivardi into a familiar character. "It has been a jackpot for Schivardi," says Canteloup. "He has gone from a near unknown to a celebrity. I hope he'll stand again for president." Canteloup does Schivardi well because, he says, the south-western twang is his own "native language."
Canteloup agrees that he and his colleagues -- Laurent Gerra, Stéphane Guillon and others -- are benefiting from the economic crisis. "We are in a September 11 atmosphere. There is a kind of world malaise, economic insecurity. People want release."
Taking my leave, Canteloup was curious to know why Times readers would be interested in him since he is not known in the English-speaking world and humour does not translate easily. My answer was that the current French comedy boom is a phenomenon that merits attention and he is one of the leading exponents. Now I have to make it work for the readers who, unlike those on the blog, have not gone looking for something to read about France.
------
[Below: Canteloup performing Sarkozy and his other characters on Michel Drucker's TV show. Unusually, he is impersonating one of them to his face: Bernard Kouchner, the perpetually breathless Foreign Minister. Canteloup caricatures Kouchner's emotional, old-fashioned rhetoric, complete with language mistakes. CB]
Canteloup et Kouchner chez Drucker le 26-10-08
[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. ]
![Bronzes_chinois[1]](http://timescorrespondents.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451d14e69e20112790e45ab28a4-400wi)
France often quotes a 1995 pop song by Alain Bashung called Ma petite entreprise ne connais pas la crise -- The crisis isn't touching my little business.
The title could be sung by the art market today after the spectacular sale of theYves Saint Laurent-Pierre Bergé collection. The three-day auction at the Grand Palais has defied the economic gloom and brought in 373 million euros, breaking several world records.
The song does not apply to the petite entreprise of Franco-Chinese relations. Beijing is using the sale of those two little Chinese animal heads to further its punishment of President Sarkozy for his antics last year around Tibet and the Beijing Olympics. The hare and the rat, stolen when the British and French sacked Beijing in 1860, went for 14 million euros each to anonymous bidders despite China's attempts to block the sale. Jackie Chan, the Kung Fu actor, jumped in on Beijing's side today. Here is my story.
Back to the rest of the art. The sight of all those bidders flush with their millions has not cheered France much as the bleak times hit home but it is being greeted as as a triumph by Sarkozy's government. Christine Albanel, the Culture Minister, called the auction in the Grand Palais a "a world success which shows that Paris is one of the major centres for the international art market."
In a market that is apparently withstanding the slump, you would expect works by Matisse, de Chirico and Degas to notch up records. For example, Matisse's 1911 oil "Les coucous, tapis bleu et rose" [right], fetched 32 million euros, the sale's highest price and a record for the painter whose collages inspired Saint Laurent's designs.
![YSL-fauteuil-dragon_large[1]](http://timescorrespondents.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451d14e69e20112790e83fe28a4-300wi)
But how about this elephant-like arm-chair from the early 20th century Art Deco era? The squat, very worn, brown leather seat by the Irish designer Eileen Gray sold for 21.9 million euros. Souren Melikian, the veteran expert at the International Herald Tribune, said today that this was "a price that was until now utterly unimaginable for any piece of Art Deco furniture."
Crisis or no crisis, the Paris auction had shown that there had been no change since the days of bubbling optimism, he said. "The prodigious vitality of the art market across the board cannot be doubted for a second. If the goods are there, the prices rise higher than ever before."
To close, we can admire this piece by Constantin Brancusi, the Romanian sculptor. It was made from stacked wood blocks between 1914-1917 and entitled "Madame L.R.". It sold for 26 million euros -- 33 million US dollars.
As a follow up to last week's post on the evils of wine, the Health Minister has just injected a little common sense in the debate. Roselyne Bachelot says that alcohol should be consumed in a "reasonable, cultural and balanced" way. That's Bachelot with the pink champagne above, with Xavier Bertrand, the new boss of President Sarkozy's Mouvement Populaire party.
Bachelot noted the conclusion of the cancer institute that a single glass of wine a day more than doubled the risk of certain types of cancer. But she added: "We are a country that produces wine. I enjoy a glass with my meals. Banning wine in our country is impossible and not desirable."
Growers are reassured. They are also pleased that the Government does not, as they feared, intend to forbid wine-tasting at winery cellars and food fairs. This prospect had arisen because a new law will ban open bars at public social events. This is intended to discourage youngsters from getting drunk. These as-much-as you-can-drink venues are said to contribute to the rapid spread of British-style binge-drinking among French teenagers and students. Wine-tasting has nothing to do with this, said Bachelot. "I have never heard of wine growers offering as much as people want. They usually just put a little drop in the glass."
The industry was also pleased to hear from Bachelot that the government will not prevent them from advertising and selling on the internet. A new law will set rules on the net and the alcohol trade. No pop-up advertising will be allowed and none will be tolerated on sites for sports or young people. But vineyards can continue to promote their produce and take electronic orders.
In the midst of the winter gloom, President Sarkozy's administration has chosen this moment to tell its people to stop drinking wine. You are hearing right. The Ministry of Health has issued rules for reducing the risk of cancer and one of the main ones is never drink alcohol.
"The consumption of alcohol, and especially wine, is discouraged," say guidelines that are drawn from the findings of the National Cancer Institute (INCA). A single glass of wine per day will raise your chance of contracting cancer by up to 168 percent, it says.
Not surprisingly, the wine producers are seeing red. Forget those 1980s findings that anti-oxidants in wine were good for your health. "Small daily doses of alcohol are the most harmful. There is no amount, however small, which is good for you," said Dominique Maraninchi, INCA's president.
Of course this is not new. Experts around the world have been telling people to go dry if they want to stay healthy. But it's sobering when the authorities in France, a country where wine is part of life and the national heritage, decide that it's time for everyone to get on the wagon.
The pleasantly-illustrated ministry brochure makes grim reading. In the interests of prevention, the INCA collated hundreds of international studies and summarized the relation between types of cancer with food, drink and life-style. As you can guess, apart from wine, the dangerous stuff is red meat, charcuterie, salt and so on. Sentences like this do not do much for the appetite: "The risk of colon-rectal cancer rises by 29 percent per 100 gramme portion of red meat per day and 21 percent per 50 gramme portion of charcuterie."
Being over-weight greatly increases risks of certain types of cancer. As well as eating a balanced diet, the ministry tells us to undertake 30 minutes of vigorous exercise at least five days a week.
Alcohol facilitates cancers of the mouth, larynx, oesophagus, colon-rectum, and breast, says the guidelines. "The cause is above all the transformation of ethanol in alcohol to acetaldehyde, which damages DNA in healthy cells."
The wine producers are calling foul, accusing the "ayatollahs" of the health lobby of trying to kill one of the glories of the nation. They are noting the suspicious coincidence that France now has its' first tee-total president. Nicolas Sarkozy sips mineral water and orange juice when all around him are knocking back the Champagne and Burgundy (Carla Bruni, his wife, is not so abstemious and both she and Sarko are smokers). "This persecution of wine has to stop," said the General Association of Wine Producers. The growers say that the scientific evidence is contradictory and they point to a World Health Organisation study that found that moderate consumption had a preventive effect against cancer.
Xavier de Volontat, president of the producers' assocation in the southwestern Languedoc region, told us by phone today: "The extremists must not be allowed to take consumers hostage... Wine consumption has dropped by 50 percent over the last 20 years in France but cancer has increased. You have to admit, that's a paradox."
"We never said that alcohol is not dangerous for health," de Volontat said. "We give advice on our internet sites and at public events. We are for responsible, reasonable and moderate consumption. .. It is not in our interest to see our consumers dying of cancer or in car accidents."
I would like to believe Mr de Volontat and his fellow growers. It's hard to imagine a good meal in France without wine (if you're not working, driving or piloting planes afterwards). But I remember reporting similar defensive arguments from the tobacco industry when they were fighting cancer claims in the 1980s.
Recognising that the French people are not super-human, the ministry says that if you are unable to stop entirely, the main thing is to drink only occasionally. It's wishful thinking, I suppose, to imagine that maybe an extra dose of my daily exercise will cancel the damage from the daily wine.
[Below: Bordeaux vineyard]
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.
--------------------
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]
No apologies for another French nostalgia post so soon after the last one. It would be impossible to ignore this item. The Citroen car company has just set pulses racing with news that they are to take a leap back to the future by relaunching their legendary DS model.
Word of the rebirth of the symbol of post-war driving dash prompted a burst of day-dreaming. Could we be in for a revival of the swooping-nosed flying-saucer of a car that came out in 1955 and defined the style of the de Gaulle era? "Please don't change a thing," pleaded one Citroen die-hard on a Californian web site. A radio commentator wondered: "What will be back next? Young Brigitte Bardot and the Caravelle (airliner) ?"
[Read The Times original 1955 review of the DS from our archives, here]
[Below:Bardot in her DS. Top picture: fanciful advertisement of the era]
Well, it seems that Citroen may be pulling a bit of a hoax. The company has rushed to calm the excitement, pointing out that its new DS series will not be a replica but a modern homage to the "spirit" of the car whose initials are pronounced déesse -- goddess. The new models which are due to be unveiled tomorrow and sold from next year, are apparently not an exercise in retro design like the Volkswagen's New Beetle, BMW's Mini and the new Fiat 500. Citroen, whose cars long ago lost their magic, may be taking a risk if they are just using the revered badge for a marketing exercise at a time of slumping sales.
Citroen fan sites the and media have seized on the DS news to revisit a car that qualified for the much-abused word icon. Libération,which one would expect to be ideologically opposed to the symbol of the 60s bourgeoisie, produced a two-page tribute with an A-Z of DS lore. B was of course for Roland Barthes, the semiologist who elevated the DS to cultural object in his 1956 book Mythologies. The DS was "one of those objects that have descended from another universe...from science fiction. La Dé-esse is firstly a new Nautilus," wrote Barthes.
Unlike the humble originals of the Beetle and the other modern retro-mobiles, the DS was a luxurious big car with a revolutionary design for its time. Adored by film stars, President de Gaulle and the well-off, the DS was as sophisticated as its proletarian sister, the Deux Chevaux (2CV) was primitive [my 2CV post]. Its aerodynamic looks came from jet designers and its hydraulic suspension, steering, brakes and transmission were beyond the abilities of many a rural mechanic. It scored only modest sales in Britain and the USA, although many are kept running in both countries by loyal admirers.
The DS bowed out in 1975 but a decade later its quirky looks were still so futuristic that Hollywood used one in Back to the Future II as a taxi set in the year 2015.
Citroen, which is part of the Peugeot-Citroen group, has never since managed to recapture the old excitement. President Sarkozy is driven around in a Citroen C6, as well as in a Peugeot 607 and Renault Vel Satis. Sales of the flagship C6, a big saloon that was launched two years ago as a "Mercedes-beater", have been disappointing.
This imposing 20-foot tall hunk of steel is drawing curious glances on the Champs Elysées. It's not sculpture or a bit of a movie set. It's the original top of the bow of the SS France, the great 1960s ocean liner.
The four-ton slice of maritime history, which inevitably brings to mind the Titanic film, is the biggest item in an auction of relics from the liner that was once the pride of the nation. Most of the collectible items from the France were sold off years ago, but world-wide enthusiasm for old French design has opened a new market for unlikely memorabilia.
Jacques Dvorczak, a nautical enthusiast, went to the Indian shipyard where the former France is in the last stages of being broken up. They cut up the bow and he shipped it along with 445 other pieces for the sale at the Artcurial house on February 8 and 9. The items, which range from a captain's chair and deck stools to portholes and railings, are being estimated at between 10,000 to 80,000 euros each. Among the odder objects are children's nursery decorations and a control panel from the engine room of the 57,000 tonne vessel that was the rival to the Queen Elizabeth and the USS United States.
[TUESDAY UPDATE: see item on new DS Citroen at end of this post]
The SS France was the ultimate in ocean-going elegance but entered service late, when the jet airliner was putting an end to the old New York-Europe liners. It was sold off in the late 1970s and ended its days as a cruise liner called The Norway. It's demise as the flagship of the nation was mourned in a famous lachrimose pop-song by Michel Sardou, "Ne m'appelez plus jamais France" [Never call me France again"]. (watch video here)
"The buyers are people who want to take away a little bit of one of the great works of French industrial history," François Tajan, the auctioneer in charge of the sale, told us. "A sale like this is like a final homage. In these days of economic crisis, these sales are very far from financial speculation. They are tangible, real, human objects from an age of progress... They symbolise both technical success and un art de vivre. Today everything is different, all about zapping."
[Below: the France]
Despite the slump, the sellers hope that they will follow other recent auctions which have scored unexpected millions for remnants of France's stylish industrial past. In October 2007, the auction of 1,000 parts from Concorde supersonic jets -- a Franco-British technical triumph of the 1960s -- brought in a million euros, four times the estimate.
Several slices of a dismantled iron staircase from the Eiffel tower (left, with Gustave Eiffel) have been sold off for hundreds of thousands of pounds the past two years. Two of them grace restaurants in New York and New Orleans.
Excitement is also building around the imminent sale of the rusting, eight-trumpet siren [below] that graced the historic Renault car factory at Billancourt, on the edge of Paris. Installed in the 1930s and used in the war to warn of British bombing raids, the siren is an emblem of France's heroic industrial age. Described by le Nouvel Observateur magazine as an "icon of the working class", it is expected to raise over 30,000 euros.
![Sirene_renault[1]](http://timescorrespondents.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451d14e69e201116836ec68970c-150wi)
In similar vein serious sums are being paid for the few surviving black and white Renault 4CV cars of the Paris police in the 1950s. Also being auctioned are the gaily decorated advertising cars [below] that followed Tour de France cycle race in the 1950s distributing free sweets and product samples.
![Voitures_pub_tour_de_France[1]](http://timescorrespondents.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451d14e69e201116836ef0e970c-200wi "Voitures_pub_tour_de_France[1]") Another piece of retro nostalgia now on sale is a DS Citroen [below] that was custom made in 1973 for Philippe Bouvard, a star radio journalist who is still going strong. The DS was one of the great design monuments of the age. Roland Barthes, the semiologist and author of Mythologies, famously dubbed it the French cathedral of the 20th century. Bouvard's version, with coachwork by Henri Chapron, was equipped as a mobile office and radio studio, with a double walnut desk in the back.
All these are symbols of a time when France and its design had a much more distinctive flavour. "They are the symbol of a history that has come to an end," said Hubert Delobette, author of "Crazily French", a book on great French objects, such as the Bic ballpoint and the Solex mo-ped (celebrated here last month). "We are afraid of tomorrow," said Delobette. "These familiar objects are reassuring. There is nothing like that today. There is the grandeur of French luxury products, but they do not move people like the SS France and the Eiffel tower."
UPDATE: Citroen cars have just announced that they are about to relaunch the great DS model. The original ended production in 1975 after 20 years. They are to unveil the prototype later in the week. Like the new Mini, Beatle and Fiat 500, it will be an attempt to revive the design in modern form, keeping a flavour of what made it so special. I'll post on it when there is a picture available in a couple of days. The car will be marketed from next year, they say.
[Bouvard's Citroen DS 1973]
![Ds_bouvard_1[1]](http://timescorrespondents.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451d14e69e2011168390bfd970c-320wi)
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]
President Sarkozy faces the broadest revolt in his 20-month reign this week when state workers and other disaffected groups vent their discontent by staging a day of strikes and protest that they hope will paralyse France
Sarkozy has faced down public transport, school and hospital strikes before, but this time he is worried that the usual ritual of disruption and street marches could herald more general unrest.
The stoppages on Thursday are being led by the usual conservative crowd -- the public transport, teachers and hospital unions who are resisting Sarkozy's cost-cutting reforms. But all the main trade unions are piling in, along with students, some private sector workers and the slowly-reviving Socialist opposition. The idea is to register a giant ras-le-bol, a display of anger towards Sarkozy, his reforms, falling incomes, the economic crisis and the system in general.
The hardliners, such as Christian Mahieux [top picture] and his SUD union, want nothing less than old-fashioned insurrection and the overthrow of France's semi-capitalist state. Libération gave pride of place today to Alain Badiou, a philospher, who said: "My dream is that Sarkozy will be chased from office by the street."
Badiou is indeed a dreamer, but remarks like that are striking a chord beyond the usual radical world. As I reported last week, the hard times are breeding sympathy for the the old revolutionary devil, though in a limited way. People feel that they are bearing the brunt of the crisis while Sarkozy's friends, the bailed-out bankers, are walking off with their money. This explains why, according to a CSA poll last weekend, 70 percent of the country sympathises with a day of strikes that will disrupt their lives.
Sarkozy is said to be fearing a flare-up driven by unions and students of the type that came from no-where in the peaceful France of 1968 and almost overthrew President de Gaulle. Some members of his UMP party say that there is a dangerous mood afoot. Sarkozy is doing his best to sound reasonable. He dropped into a factory near Chateauroux today and said that he found it normal that people were protesting to express their fears but that he had to keep up his reforms.
"I understand your difficulties. I understand the problems of rising costs, of paying for retirement, the kids' school.. but I have to see things with sang froid and not react to what is written in the newspaper or the person who is shouting loudest," he said.
Sarkozy may be right to be worried. It does not take much to spark one of France's regular upheavals against the ruling power. But the time does not seem to be right for revolution. Outside the job-protected state sector, which accounts for the overwhelming majority of French strikes, people are more worried about holding on to their work than overthrowing Sarko.
The President can take comfort from his latest ratings. The monthly BVA poll today reported that he remains relatively popular compared with his nadir this time last year. He slipped by only one point since December. Forty-seven percent approve of his performance while 45 percent disapprove.
The in-tray of Barack Obama may be piled high, but he might like to put aside the banks, the Middle East and health care to focus on a truly urgent matter: the French cheese emergency.
The new President could blow the great goodwill that he enjoys in France if he fails to reverse a parting shot by George W. Bush against that symbol of Gallic gastronomy -- roquefort cheese. We could even face a new round in the war against Yankee junk food, with Coca Cola and MacDonald's in the firing line.
The story began last Thursday when Washington suddenly tripled an already heavy duty on the pungent blue cheese from the southern Massif Central. The idea was to punish Europe for maintaining a longstanding ban on beef from US cattle that had been administered with growth hormones.[background here] Roquefort had been under a 100 percent retaliatory duty since 1999.
Some in France have been quick to see the new Washington measure as petty, belated revenge against the "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" for their opposition to the 2003 Iraq invasion. The Americans slapped new duty on an array of other EU food imports, including fruit, chocolate and chewing gum, but none was subject to the 300 percent reserved for roquefort.
Michel Barnier, the Agriculture Minister, has urged Obama to reverse the roquefort decision and head off another French campaign against the symbols of US fast food. "I hope that he will avoid mediocre little measures like the one just taken against roquefort," Barnier said. France is to protest to the World Trade Organisation.
Philippe Folliot, a centrist MP for the Tarn, near Roquefort village, called for a super-tax against Coca Cola. "I find it especially shocking that the Bush administration, at the end of its term, should take roquefort hostage again," he said.
Jose Bové [left], France's most famous campaigning sheep farmer, threatened a follow-up to his 1999 destruction of a McDonald's outlet in the name of roquefort. His bulldozer assault that year on a restaurant under construction at Millau turned the mustachioed Bové into a celebrity and anti-capitalist hero. "If Obama maintains the supertax, then we will find a new symbolic target," said Bové, who was a roquefort milk producer at the time of his 1999 stunt.
The producers of the ancient cheese -- a favourite of the ancient Romans -- have kept their foothold in the US market despite the 100 percent tax over the past decade. Only 400 tonnes a year -- two percent of their production -- goes to the US, where it is treated as a luxury food. Their hopes of expanding will be scuttled if the new administration confirms the duty, which is to take effect in March.
Some say that they have few illusions since a Democratic administration -- under Bill Clinton -- imposed the first roquefort tax. Speaking of Obama, Béatrice Weinrich of the regional Union of Ewe Farmers said: "The boy must have a lot of other priorities."
Paris is insisting, however, that the prohibition on US hormone-fed beef will remain in force for health reasons, as will another EU measure contested by Washington: the use of chlorine to disinfect chicken carcasses.
A hint of revolt is floating in the French air these days. It's not dramatic enough to grab foreign attention, like rioting on the Left Bank or cars ablaze in the ghettos. But you get a sense that, with recession biting, a small part of the country is spoiling for a bit of old-fashioned insurrection.
There is a whiff of the old civil war which France has never really resolved since the revolution of 1789. President Sarkozy is, as usual, stirring it up, demonizing the foe. The adversary is embodied by Olivier Besancenot, the anti-capitalist figurehead, and a cast including a bloody-minded trade union called SUD, radical school students and an assortment of dreamy anarchists.
The most dramatic incident so far was the 24-hour shut-down by SUD workers last week of the Gare Saint Lazare, France's second-busiest railway station. Their wildcat strike caused havoc for hundreds of thousands of Paris commuters. It made a mockery of Sarkozy's new law on minimum public service during labour disputes. He told them that they would not get away with it again.
This was a new kind of strike -- or social movement, to use the funny euphemism. The SUD people have been gaining power over the past few years. They use the hard language of revolt and make clear that they want to break the system, not earn more money or retire earlier. Even the CGT, the communist-led union that used to dominate the railways, flinched from supporting SUD stoppage.
Besancenot, the cherubic Trotskyite who is one of France's most popular political figures, backs the SUD movement -- which extends beyond railways -- and the other radical stunts which have been making headlines.
Among the odder episodes has been the affair of the "Tarnac gang". This involves a group of anti-capitalist, middle class university drop-outs who were arrested in a spectacular police raid on a farm in November. They were charged with terrorism. Their alleged offence was to have stopped three high-speed TGV express trains by sabotaging their electricity lines. All but the alleged ring-leader have now been released on bail. Their rural neighbours are rallying behind them, the leftwing media like them and concerts are being organised to support them.
Then there are the highly publicised raids on supermarkets by self-appointed "Robin Hood" groups. They walk through the aisles of busy supermarkets piling up carts with food and drink, including luxury items like champagne and foie gras. They proceed to the check-out and refuse to pay. They explain to management that they are "liberating" the food for distribution to the poor. In all but one of about a dozen raids so far, the Robin Hoods have got away with their goods after causing a scene that risked driving customers from the store.
Since a raid that garnered 5,000 euros of food in Paris on December 20, the Monoprix chain has been attempting to prosecute these 'subversive shoppers' for robbery with violence and insults. Civil disobedience of this type is sometimes organised via Facebook. It is encouraged by various websites and leftwing media such as Libération and le Nouvel Observateur. Cheeky stunts like that please older journalists who remember chanting "Property is Theft" back in the demonstrations of their youth.
The Obs published an admiring piece last week on "Those French who don't want to play the game". It tracked groups that go around switching off department store lighting and state post-office workers who disobey orders to raise the price of services.
Writing approvingly of the "collectives" who raid supermarkets, Libération said: "The politicians would be wrong not to listen to these sounds from a society pushed to the limit, which feels that the straightjacket of ultra-liberalism is being torn apart." Of course Libé talks like that. It was born in '68. But it is also a respected mainstream daily, so that gives a flavour of the mood in part of France. (And for the record, I love Libé and it's the paper I buy first in the morning)
Sarkozy's people say that the President has been getting warnings from police intelligence that discontent is brewing, especially among the young. He is worried that a hard year will stir unrest in the streets. Fear of Greek-style riots by teenagers caused him over Christmas to shelve plans to reform the Lycées -- the high schools. The left are pointing out, with some cause, that Sarkozy is using the threat of the hard left for his own political ends in the same way as President Mitterrand used Jean-Marie Le Pen, the far right bogeyman in the 1980s and 90s. By inflating the importance of Le Pen, the Socialist president discredited the moderate right. Now, with the Socialist opposition in semi-coma, Sarkozy is exaggerating the dangers of Besancenot and the potentially violent left.
On the plane coming home from the Middle East two weeks ago, King Sarko I sounded a little anxious about his fickle subjects and his possible fate. "France is one of the most difficult countries to govern," he said. "Louis XVI, with his young wife, was one of the most loved kings for 10 years. Both of them ended with their heads on the block." Don't worry. No-one imagines that Sarko and Carla Bruni will end up on the guillotine.
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]
This little jingle from 1986 has been used almost unchanged for the past 22 years to announce the commercials on France 2, the main public television network. At 8pm tonight it disappears, as President Sarkozy's reform in state TV takes effect. [see TV Sarko post]
All advertising is to be halted in the evening and commercials will be dropped entirely from 2011. As we've seen, it's part of Sarkozy's attempt -- decreed without warning or consultation last January -- to create a quality state broadcaster modelled on the BBC. His idea is that the public channels will no longer have to chase ratings with low-grade fare.
Sarko's most questionable act was to anoint himself the effective chief of state broadcasting. He did this by scrapping the procedure in which public TV and radio bosses are appointed by the supposedly neutral broadcasting authority. He has also amalgamated all the state TV channels into a single company.
All this has created an upheaval for the broadcasting world and the row shows no sign of subsiding. News staff at France 2 and France 3 are striking today and tomorrow over what they see as a threat to their editorial independence and incomes. The opposition is accusing Sarko of shovelling advertising money towards his friends who own TF1, the main commercial network... and so on.
The story today is the little revolution in French habits that may be wrought by the monarch's decree. Since the beginning of time, or so it seems, the main networks have opened their prime time entertainment at the same moment at 8.50 pm. This comes after a long "tunnel" of commercials following the ritual 35-minute 8pm news. Forty percent of the French still eat dinner while watching the 8pm Journal Télévisé on one of the main channels. The 15 minutes of advertising and programme trailers are used for clearing the table, going to the lavatory and so on. Now France 2 gets the jump on the others and is starting its entertainment at 8.35. It has even been advertising the change with jokey spots warning people to relieve themselves before 8.35.
For the moment, the main rivals are sticking to their later slot in the belief that France will resist changing an ancient habit. Nonce Paolini, the chairman of TF1, says the French do not want their 'biorhythms' disrupted. The media are full of arguments in both directions today. The behaviour of over 20 million viewers is at stake.
The fuss is obviously overdone. People are much less set in their television ways than they were a decade or two ago, before cable, satellite, digital TV and the internet. It will be interesting to see if commercial-free public television becomes any better than its mediocre predecessor. They are making an attempt to go up market tonight. France 2's new prime time opens with a documentary on the fascinating world of the Dogon people in the African nation of Mali. That will please Sarkozy, but I have a feeling that many people will wait for Avalanche, the sentimental thriller that is being offered by TF1.
For nostalgists, here is a medley of more recent versions of the quirky France 2 commercial jingle:
Before getting onto the usual subject, let me wish everyone a Happy New Year and thank you for the messages by way of the blog and e-mail.
Nicolas Sarkozy has launched 2009 true to energetic form. In his traditional address to the nation (video below), he opened by saying that "2008 has been a rough year". He promised blood, sweat and tears to get France through a new year in which "the difficulties will be great". Under Sarko's guidance, France will emerge from the crisis stronger and a new world will be born, he said. "We have to prepare ourselves by working more."
It was no surprise to learn that Sarko plans to continue as de facto leader of Europe although at midnight France ended its six-month turn in the Union's rotating presidency and handed over to the Czech Republic. He announced that his latest mission is to bring peace to the Middle East. He is off to trouble-shoot in Jerusalem and the West Bank on Monday, with no mandate beyond his enthusiasm for crisis management and France's historic weight in the Arab world.
Sarkozy's intervention over the Gaza strip confirms that he has no intention of taking a back seat after what he sees as the most dynamic turn by any leader in the Union's rotating chair. With his usual chutzpah -- and contorted syntax -- he boasted that he has shaped not just France but the whole world since he has been "President of Europe".
"The initiatives which I have undertaken in the name of the French Presidency of the Union -- coordinating the action of all the Europeans and bringing the heads of state of the 20 biggest world powers to Washington -- have enabled the world to avoid sliding down the slope of 'everyone for themselves', which would have been fatal." That's quite a claim.
In Sarko's view, the leadership of Europe cannot be left to the Czechs, a small, recent member state with a Eurosceptic Government. The Union needs a powerful figure from a founder state to steer the Union through dangerous times, he believes. "Of course I will be taking initiatives," he told the European Parliament the other day after a triumphant review of his management of the financial turmoil and his peace-brokering in the Caucasus war.
To bolster his claim to senior statesmanship, Sarkozy has invited Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister, to chair a grand two-day conference from next Thursday on the theme of "A new world, new capitalism". Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who does not get on with Sarkozy, has agreed to attend the closing speeches. The star speakers include a batch of American Nobel economics prize winners and Francis Fukuyama, the economist who is remembered for predicting the end of history in 1989.
Super Sarko is reported to be telling colleagues that he is worried that France will feel small after he has been commander of Europe. "He has one fear -- becoming again the President of an average country, disarmed in the face of recession and confronted by soaring unemployment," said Le Monde.
Sarkozy was reported yesterday to be persisting in a plan -- rejected by Germany -- to appoint himself leader of a new governing council of the single currency states for 2009. The justification is that the Union is chaired by two non-euro nations this year -- the Czechs and Sweden.
According to le Canard Enchaîné, Sarkozy has persuaded Jose Luis Zapatero, the Spanish Prime Minister, to co-chair the new group with him. Spain takes the EU presidency in January 2010. Sarkozy argues that the euro needs an economic government at a time of upheaval and that the existing "euro-group" of finance ministers does not have the power for the job.
Sarkozy is banking on the support of Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister, with whom he has good relations. The pair share a common scorn for the European Commission, which Sarkozy believes he has cut down to size by asserting the power of the council of national leaders.
Despite his boasting, it should be recorded that quite a few of Sarkozy's political foes have admired his energetic tour of European duty. Michel Rocard, a former Socialist Prime Minister, praised his courage today. Europe, said Rocard, had weathered the financial crisis because it had the luck to be chaired by Nicolas Sarkozy, "who is impulsive, courageous and has culot". That last word translates as nerve or chutzpah.
Others have tried to cut Sarko down to size. Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the far right National Front, dismissed his Euro-Presidency with a typical sneer. "The half-year of Mr Sarkozy will be forgotten in two weeks time," he predicted. For all his poisonous side, Le Pen is often a sharp observer of the political scene. In this case I think he's wrong. Sarko is going to do his best to make Europe -- and President Obama -- think that he is still in charge of the continent.
Until lately, France's luxury brands were claiming relative immunity from the slump that has hit purveyors of more common goods. Demand for the high end was holding up, driven by the nouveaux riches of Russia, China and other emerging powers, they said.
The denial has faded over the past month, as the now suffering Russians and Asians have stayed away from the boutiques of the Paris Golden triangle and from the luxury districts of London and New York. French luxury business in Japan has positively slumped.
LVMH, the biggest luxe conglomerate, has just cancelled a plan for a huge Louis Vuitton megastore in Tokyo's Ginza district. Profits in the 170 billion euro world luxury market are still expected to be substantial this year but LVMH has lost 44 percent of its share value in 2008. Richemont, the Swiss owner of Cartier and Montblanc, has suffered a similar share slide.
The latest signs of trouble have come from Chanel, one of the grandest of fashion names. A week ago, the firm, which is privately owned and secretive about its affairs, called off a glitzy travelling art show as it was about to arrive in London from New York. Now we hear that Chanel is to lay off 200 of its French staff.
Over the weekend, the house unions reported that the firm is dismissing all of its 200 personnel who are on fixed-term or temporary work contracts. Sixteen of them work in the firm's historic home in the rue Cambon where the late Coco Chanel dreamt up her little black dresses and No 5 perfume in the 1920s. The company employs 16,000 worldwide. "In the little world of luxury goods, the news has had the impact of a bombshell," said le Parisien.
By coincidence, French television is tonight showing the first part of an Italian-American miniseries on the life of the pioneering Paris couturière. Shirley MacLaine plays the older Chanel. Coco Chanel is suddenly movie material. Two other new biopics -- one starring Audrey Tatou -- are to reach cinemas in coming months. [picture Audrey Tautou in forthcoming Coco before Chanel]
The trouble at Chanel is mirrored across a French-led luxury industry which enjoyed an historic boom with sales growth of about 10 percent a year since 2003. The experts are predicting about a four percent decline in sales in 2009. Not everyone is suffering to the same degree. Swiss watchmakers have been hardest hit while Hermès, the Paris leather goods and silk-square firm, has seen its share price rise by nearly 16 percent this year and it expects about a 10 percent sales growth.
Most of the leaders of les marques de grand luxe say that they are sanguine about what they hope will be a soft landing. But some in the trade believe that times will be hard after a decade in which greed and easy money led to hubris. That's the view of Alain Nemarq, Chairman of Mauboussin, a Place Vendôme jewellery firm which has taken the risk of diluting its exclusive image by offering lower priced items.
The luxury world had gone wild in pursuit of the idea that nothing could be too expensive and no profit margin too exorbitant, Nemarq wrote in le Figaro. Some firms had been ticketing their goods at ten times the cost price he said. "It is the end of the rapture, the crash of the hubris...The pursuit of exclusive trophies... is finished. We will now return to reason, decency and discretion."
While much of the industry believes that the key to survival lies in maintaining exclusivity, Mauboussin has created a stir by reaching for a wider market, opening new, less expensive, shops, in Manhattan and Tokyo. "Let us resolutely drop our profit margins and offer affordable luxury products," said Nemarq. The alternative would be fire sales and empty shops, he predicted.
It's hard not to see his point. In my ignorance, I am still reeling from the price of the standard Burberry scarf that my daughter requested for her 15th birthday last month (don't ask).
 It's been a good Christmas week in Paris, with freezing weather but sunshine every day. Shops and restaurants have been doing roaring trade and just about everywhere is booked up for the New Year's celebrations.
President Sarkozy will be back from his beach holiday in Brazil to deliver his seasonal pep talk on Wednesday night. He aims to look on the bright side -- or positiver, to use the vogue word.
Sarko is said to be telling colleagues that he is worried about the impact of recession on the national mood. He thinks that fast-rising unemployment -- especially among the already very under-employed young -- could trigger one of the uprisings that punctuate French history. "La France n'est pas fragile mais elle est éruptive," Sarko told visitors the other day -- France is not fragile, but it has a tendency to erupt. Fear of protesters explained his retreat a couple of weeks ago over Sunday shop opening and on a promised high-school reform.
As we've often noted here, it's always hard to gauge France's mood because the default mode is pessimism, whatever is going on in the economy. France has believed itself to be en crise for the four decades that I have known it. The news media do not help. Over Christmas the top domestic story was the accidental death in hospital of a three-year-old boy. Close behind was the suicide of a teacher in her school and a sleeping pill overdose by a former minister who was France's first woman astronaut. The need to sound gloomy, at least in public, is just part of the national character. Where else would a performer make a good career with a name like Grand Corps Malade -- literally big sick body? That's the nom de scène used by Fabien Marsaud, a 31-year-old slam music star (picture above). A clinical-sounding word is used to convey the obsession with looking at the dark side -- la sinistrose, or sinistrosis.
There will no doubt be a lot of groans if Sarkozy sounds too up-beat on New Year's Eve. France is not yet officially in recession, but it is entering what is expected to be the worst one since at least 1993, according to the experts. Yet, as we've seen here recently, there are quite a few factors that suggest that the slump will not hit France as hard as other places.
One is France's failure in the past decade to capitalise, like Britain, Spain and elsewhere, on the boom in banking, financial services and real estate. Another is the much-decried and very expensive welfare state.
Elie Cohen, a prominent economist, looked on the bright side in le Parisien on Friday: "As a country with little economic specialisation and average growth, France is drawing benefit from its past failing. Add to that the fact that we have a state that redistributes wealth and which is acting as a formidable shock-absorber. We are rolling quite well with the punches."
Just listening to the middle class chatter in Paris, you hear grumbling but it's clear that people are not hurting as much as they are in Britain, Spain, Ireland, or the USA. The property boom arrived relatively late and France still has a relatively low level of home ownership. People put fewer savings in the stock market and they do not live on credit to anything like the degree of the US or Britain. I don't know anyone who has taken out a second mortgage on their flat or house.
And the French save much more of their income than the European average. In recent years they have been putting aside 15 percent, in third place after the Germans and Italians, at 16.5 and 15.8 percent. The Spanish save only 10.6 percent and the British 5.5 percent.
These are just a few elements and many point the other way -- such as France's high national debt and budget deficit compared with Germany. But Sarkozy will be entitled to sound a positive note on Wednesday.
[Update: here's my related story on Ariane launch Saturday night]
---------
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" »
The European Parliament has just voted to end Britain's exemption from the maximum 48-hour working week. The usual horse-trading with member governments should water this down, but on this side of the Channel they are wondering why Britain bothers. France is reversing a question that has long come from Britain: Vous n'avez toujours pas pigé? -- haven't you got it yet?
Since the early 1980s, les Anglais have been lecturing Europe on the virtue of hard work as the path to prosperity. While the grasshopper French were awarding themselves a 35-hour week in the 1990s, the British fought for the right to sweat away in the name of competing with emerging the ants of Asia. Britain has closely guarded its 1993 opt-out from the EU's working-time directive which set the maximum at 48 hours. France's short week, which is applied to most wage-earners, has kept incomes lower but enabled people to enjoy non-working life more.
Now the shoe has switched foot. There is no French word for schadenfreude but there is a lot of it around. No-one is saying "we told you so" too openly, yet it is impossible to escape the smugness over the failure of the virtuous modèle Anglo-Saxon. The media are regaling us with tales of misery in Britain, from the collapse of Woolworths to the plight of the unemployed legions of the City. This morning a radio network featured a Sunday Times investigation that exposed allegedly Dickensian practises at Amazon UK, where employees work seven days a week and are fined for sick leave. "Even working like that, they still don't make it," said the commentator.
Of course France is suffering from the slump too. Lay-offs are multiplying, money is tight and the housing market is in retreat. But the pain is nowhere near as bad as in Britain and the United States. America's slide began with the dollar a couple of years ago, but the belittling of Britain has come as a shock.
British prosperity, flaunted by pound-rich house buyers and Eurostar weekenders, was until lately the envy of stuck-in-the-mud France even if people sneered that it came with Victorian working conditions and stone-age services. Only last year, Nicolas Sarkozy won election on the slogan "Work more to earn more". He also encouraged people to retire later. That seems a long time ago.
Since even George Bush has now temporarily abandoned the free market, "Sarko l'Américain" has switched camps and has started talking like a lefty. On Monday, he dumped a long-standing promise to allow Sunday opening for all shops.
Seen from Paris, there is little to be gained from emulating les Anglo-Saxons and their brilliant institutions if it ends in tears. The Gallic model was right all along, or so it seems to many in France. You can actually have your butter and keep the money for the butter -- French for the cake-eating concept. Super-Sarko has been rubbing it in, pointing sorrowfully across the Channel and saying that he would never give up a manufacturing industry in favour of financial services.
France has been profligate. It has piled up national debt and keeps a heavy trade deficit. Labour taxes are extraordinarily high, even by European standards, and red tape stifles entrepreneurs. But it has been helped by the conservative institutions and attitudes that looked so old-fashioned to the outside world. It has especially been protected by the strong euro -- albeit kept that way with the help of German austerity.
Against all the prevailing doctrines, France resisted investment-funded pensions, kept its big car industry, its generous welfare state, its 80 percent nuclear-generated electricity and expensive high-speed trains. And it has managed this while working the world's shortest week. Writing as a new-poor Brit in Paris, there may be a lesson here, or perhaps this is just another exception française.
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" »
It's always sad when a newspaper closes. Britons living in France -- especially those in the western regions with the big expat population -- felt a sense of loss this week when they heard that French News had folded.
For the past 21 years, the monthly, based in the Dordogne, has been serving the fast-growing community of Brits who moved across the Channel in search of of the Gallic good life. Its liquidation on Tuesday was the end of a little institution. The paper, edited and co-owned since 1995 by Miranda Neame, had a readership of up to 120,000. Without, I hope, being unfair, I'd say that it was especially appreciated by recent arrivals and the Britons who feel part of a community that keeps a little distance from French life.
The end of the News is a symptom of the struggle that thousands of British residents are facing with the economic crunch. Everyone on sterling incomes is suffering a double hit. As well as the general slump, their incomes have shrunk as the pound has slid by 22 percent against the euro since September last year (French-based dollar-earners suffered a similar fate earlier). For us expat workers, the sterling slump is mildly painful. It is truly hard for people on sterling pensions and those in the property and British-linked services and trade.
Some are giving up the struggle and going back to the UK. It's difficult to gauge the flow or conclude that the great cross-Channel exodus to France in the past decade has come to an end. But some removal firms are reporting roaring trade in shipping Brits back to Blighty.
We tried to get a measure of the mood by phoning around the country over the past two days. Thank you to regulars on the blog who filled me in on the scene where they live. Obviously I have an incomplete picture. It would be helpful to hear from others who might like to tell us how they are bearing up.
Continue reading "La belle vie ends for British expatriates in France " »
Back in President de Gaulle's days, France's only television channel sent its news scripts to the Information Minister for clearance before broadcast. Memories of the old ORTF, the 1960s state broadcaster, are stirring today as staff at France Télévisions have gone on strike. Forty percent of of the personnel at the public tv and radio networks have stopped work for the day and programmes have been suspended.
The cause is a revolution by President Sarkozy that will bring the public broadcaster under closer state control. As well as de Gaulle, Sarkozy's other model may be Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister and media magnate who controls public and private TV in Italy.
The story began last January when Sarkozy decided out of the blue to end advertising on the state television channels (It was during his slightly unhinged period between wives when he announced a torrent of odd projects, most of which have evaporated). Commercials produce a third of the state TV revenue, with license fees making up most of the rest. In Napoleonic form, Sarko also decreed that henceforward he would appoint the boss of France Télévisions and the public radio networks. For the past two decades the jobs have been the gift of an independent supervisory body, the CSA (Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel).
The President said that he was acting in the noble cause of relieving France2 and the other channels from the need to attract audience ratings with low-grade programming. The state would make up for the 450 million euro drop in income from advertising, he promised. They would now be free to start producing high quality programmes "just like the BBC". The British public broadcaster is Sarkozy's model, although it has an independent charter that makes it very different from the politically-controlled entity that he is creating for France.
Sarko's lieutenants say that presidential appointment of the TV chief will merely simplify things because everyone knew that the Elysée palace had the ultimate say on the matter even though the CSA is notionally independent.
 [The ORTF in May 1968 poster]
Few beyond Sarkozy's camp bought these arguments. He was accused of giving an advertising windfall to the private networks and mainly Martin Bouygues, his friend who owns TF1, the biggest channel. The president's entourage also fanned worry about the arrival of a de Gaulle-style "TV Sarko" with instructions on the type of programming that they expect from the new France2. This includes slots to "explain" government policies. Frédéric Lefebvre, a parliamentarian and spokesman for Sarkozy's UMP party, listed the presenters and formats that they want to see in prime time [watch him here].
 [Demonstrator from France Television today]
The Parliament has started to debate the television bill today. Commercials will disappear from prime time from January and completely by December 2011. The promise to guarantee the gap in funding has yet to be fulfilled. The money is supposed to come from new taxes on the commercial networks and mobile phone companies but the TV companies have just had their levy halved to take account of the economic slump -- and the new digital channels that are eating into their revenues.
The reform will take effect despite the opposition's promises to fight it in parliament. Among one of the more shameless amendments by the Sarkozy camp is a rule designed to protect TF1 when it runs 10 straight minutes of advertising at the end of the 8pm evening news. At present, both TF1 and France2 broadcast commercials in this slot after their parallel half-hour news shows. To deter viewers from zapping to France2, the state broadcaster will in future have to fill the parallel slot with public service messages on education, health and social matters -- a real flash-back to de Gaulle's days. .
Some of Sarkozy's criticism of France Télévisions is justified. The company suffers from over-staffing, bureaucracy and aggressive labour unions. Their programming is less diverse than that of the far richer BBC but it is still of a higher quality than the more crowd-pleasing output of TF1.
The presidential interference has stirred hostility on a broad front, including much of today's print media. Of course you would expect Libération to dump on TV Sarko with glee, but it's worth quoting Laurent Joffrin, its editor. "Nicolas Sarkozy will have managed to put under his influence almost the entire broadcasting landscape of France... After one year we are returning to the belle epoque of the ORTF."
Sarko is far from finished with the media. He has now set out to rescue the printed press from its steady decline -- what he sees as largely self-inflicted. More on that later.
It is a wintery Monday morning. The French Socialist party is tearing itself to pieces and President Sarkozy is down at the Elysée palace trying to persuade a reluctant Angela Merkel to spend German money on rescuing the sinking European economy. He didn't succeed.
With all the gloom around, le Parisien decided to devote its first four pages to the question that we often run into here. What makes the French happy ? They ran a national survey asking "what things would you like to have in order to be happier today?".
Here are the top 13 answers:
1) More money
2) Better health
3) More time for myself
4) To have the feeling of being useful to society
5) More going out and leisure activities
6) A more pleasant living environment
7) A more fulfilling job
8) More recognition from others
9) A more united family
10) More love
11) A better home
12) More friends
13) Celebrity
People everywhere would probably say more money and health. I am surprised that celebrity ranked bottom and suspect that people are not being honest. What is perhaps most interesting is that the third wish is not love, friendship or a better job but simply time to spend on oneself. The age group that most wants spare time are 15-17-year-olds. [Parisien story here, but it's only a summary]
People with comfortable incomes rank personal time second after money, ahead of health. That seems to run against the foreign stereotype of France as an idle place with high unemployment, early retirement, Europe's shortest working week and long holidays. The French feel just as rushed as everyone else. And there is built-in frustration with the equation that more time off would probably mean less money.
Thierry Paquot, a philosopher and author of "The Art of the Siesta", was asked to comment on the poll, conducted by the CSA institute. Modern society makes people feel guilty if they are not continuously productive, he said. "Dreaming, thinking, letting go is viewed as doing nothing... Even on holiday you have to pile up activities."
A fascinating figure came out of the survey. Three quarters of the French say that they are living the lives that they dreamed of. Only 12 percent say that their lives do not conform at all to their hopes. Eighty-one percent of under 30s say that their lives are mainly living up to their hopes.
That's a pleasant surprise given what often seems to be France's state of gloom and the way that the French rate themselves among the least happy of all nations in global rankings. It appears to confirm my belief that that French public pessimism and cynicism mask a real joie de vivre.
Gustave Flaubert was probably being cynical when he defined the three conditions for happiness: stupidity, selfishness and good health [Etre bête, egoiste et en bonne santé, voilà les trois conditions voulues pour être heureux].
And as a footnote to the desire for more money, the French are surprisingly unaware of where their euros come from. A national survey by the FNEGE business foundation has found that only six percent know that over 80 percent of national wealth is generated by commercial firms. The majority grossly under-estimated the share. French prejudice against the business world is born out by the survey, in which respondents scored an average of 30 percent correct answers. Take the self-scoring test here. You need to know France well. I'm ashamed to say that I only scored 14/20, which is not good for someone who is paid to be an expert on the country.
After a weekend playing statesman in Washington, President Sarkozy must be toasting the Socialist party today. France's main opposition group spent the past three days tearing itself to pieces over a new leader.
They gathered in Rheims, the champagne capital, to pick a chief and revive the party that was last relaunched by the late François Mitterrand in 1971. They failed and the upshot from the disastrous congress is a showdown by ballot next Thursday between two women who loath one-another: Ségolène Royal (above right) and Martine Aubry (left).
A third candidate, Benoît Hamon, a leftwing member of the European Parliament, remains in the race. He is a distant third, so it is likely that the party will come under the command of either Royal, 55, its failed presidential candidate last year, or Aubry, 58, who gave France its 35-hour working week when she was Labour Minister a decade ago.
The congress did achieve one thing. It ended the national ambitions of Bertrand Delanoe, the Paris Mayor, whom everyone was betting on until a couple of weeks ago. Whoever wins Thursday's vote -- or more likely a second round run-off on Friday -- the Socialists are set for long-term civil war. The differences between the Royalists and the orthodox camp are too great to heal soon.
For the moment, the betting is on Royal although most of the party elders hold her in contempt. They see her as incompetent and border-line insane with her evangelical, emotional discourse. She is known as Saint Ségo, Jeanne d'Arc or, more recently, la Sarah Palin du Parti Socialiste.
Royal's hectoring, poetic, self-dramatisation sends her detractors into a rage. Among them is François Hollande, the outgoing leader, father of her children and her partner until she hijacked the presidential candidacy in the autumn of 2006. Hollande said yesterday that he was ashamed of his party. Some, such as Michel Rocard, a veteran former Prime Minister, are threatening to leave the party if "the usurper" wins.
Yet Royal enjoys strong support from of the party's 230,000 membership, or "militants" as they are annoyingly called. She came out several points ahead of her rivals in a preliminary vote before the congress. Much of the grass roots adore her for her charisma, her spiritual, almost religious rhetoric and also because she is the victim of so much hatred among the party upper ranks. Royal's appeal correlates with level of education. Her base is among the least educated section of the membership.
Aubry, who is Mayor of Lille and a solid old-guard socialist, may manage to rally Delanoe's supporters into an anti-Royal front. Delanoe is blaming the uncharismatic but respected Aubry for the weekend disaster because she refused to desist in his favour. Today, he swallowed his pride and called on his backers to vote for Aubry. If she wins, the old party structure will survive intact though she has plans to bring younger blood, women and non-whites into the very white male machine. If Royal wins, she aims to turn the party into a decentralised organisation, with more power at the roots. She also wants to leave the machinery to a lieutenant while staying above the detail and preparing for another run at the presidency.
One casualty of the mess has been doctrine. The party has been torn for years by its failure to embrace openly the pro-market social democracy that it practised while in government since the early 1980s. The world crisis has now pushed its would-be leaders back into nostalgic, semi-Marxist rhetoric. Royal, who held the centre ground a year ago, has recast herself as the scourge of the capitalists. This goes down well with the teachers and civil servants who account for a large section of the "militants".
I won't predict the outcome of the fight. We will probably not know it until early Saturday morning. But it's worth noting that the winner may not be in the country. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, boss of the International Monetary Fund, remains France's favourite Socialist despite his recent brush with scandal. He is hoping to be called in as saviour to oppose the re-election of Sarkozy in 2012.
|
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
STEPHANE (a bit late) AFAIK a troll is somebody who gets his jollies by incensing fellow bloggers with outrageous posts, which generally have nothing in common with his true opinions (if he has any). AZLOON's posts are consistently monochromous, thus probably sincere, and he's not the most obdurate basher - I'm not even sure I would qualify him as a basher, more as an honestly prejudiced product of his education and environment.
Posted by: Dominique II | 17 Jul 2009 08:38:03
‘There was a German U-Boote commander who had to be promoted to a land-based posting after he underwent a deep nervous breakdown: a torpedo he launched was one of the many pieces of defective ordnance the Kriegsmarine had in its arsenals... and the target was a dreadnought with Churchill onboard. But for a rusty gasket or a leaking joint, you might now be in thrall of Lord Halifax, Prince of Peace and Gauleiter von der See.’ [DOM2]
Whether this is true or not is a matter of profound insignificance. The past is cluttered with ‘what ifs’.
On the other hand this kind of recourse to the realms of theoretic possibilities – non-realised – is richly illustrative of the state of your troubled psyche.
Posted by: Rick | 17 Jul 2009 08:11:09
‘RENE MOYA : wow, was that a cavalry charge or carpet bombing? you sure don't take prisoners. A pleasure to meet you, sir.’ [DOMINIQUE II]
It takes one to know one. DOM2, herewith your diagnosis:
Denial. Ego defence mechanisms are psychological strategies brought into play by various people to cope with reality and to maintain self-image. The observed features include:
persecution fantasies, morbid fear of straight questions, rationalisation, (deliberate) misunderstanding, misquoting, bad faith, intellectual dishonesty, shooting the messenger, projection, moral cowardice, obfuscation, narrow-mindedness, wishful thinking, mythomania, provocation, the ‘smear and sneer’, hypocrisy (‘cheap and cheerful’), hypocrisy (advanced, tangled), deceit, self-deceit, delusional vanity, ‘fool’s paradise’ syndrome, ‘exceptionalist’ delusions, morbid inability to admit to mistakes, recourse to not-entirely-convincing-or-comprehensible American demotic mode of speech, narrow vision, lacunae in comprehension of standard English, anxiety-projection on near-to-hand ‘hate object’, minimal self-awareness (‘figure of fun’ syndrome), retreat into Oblomovian womb-substitute, compensatory tactics ( ‘Francophonie’), xenophobia, ‘esprit de clocher’, localism, infantilism, and so on... oh, and chickening out of straightforward questions (bis).
Now, how many of these boxes do you tick? Sorry, pal, but your credibility is shot to hell.
Posted by: Rick | 17 Jul 2009 07:59:20
"the infrastructure in the United States is not crumbling."
Remember what I was saying the other day about believing that 'saying it makes it so'?
"For example, the inter-state highway system is proably the best in the world."
Do not confuse the extent of the system with the quality of the roads. (The Autopista in Spain is first rate. I hear that the Autobahn is something to behold.) The Interstates I've been driving in various parts of the US in the last couple of years are in bad shape. In a couple of places it is downright dangerous. It has not always been this way. Billions have been spent on improvements, while far too little has been spent on maintenance.
"The infrastructure falling down bit was way over exaggerated by politicians from the Left"
Fox or Limbaugh, no doubt. Bridges? School buildings? Power grid?
Posted by: Lex Stevens | 17 Jul 2009 07:40:46
AZLOON, I presume that the first two paragraphs of your most recent posting were not intended for me. We MUST continue to disagree like this and set - as I know you will agree - a fine example in the art of reconciliation.
For the last two paragraphs, thanks.
Posted by: Rick | 17 Jul 2009 07:13:48
‘CHARLES - I am, as you know, not David Moorcroft, nor he I.
However he (David Moorcroft) makes a very fair point.
A very fair point indeed.’ [DOT KING]
As, usual, DOT KING is her own worst enemy. A few months ago, I complained about her antics. These actions make her ‘fair game’, now and in the future.
‘‘I do not post under anything other than my own name (except I was Henry Wilt briefly last week only to take the p-ss, quite gently, out of Rick as a teacher*’ [DOT KING] Beneath contempt. Worse, the problem of assumed identities again rears its head. (Henry Wilt from the Tom Sharpe novels) In this writer’s case, we’re into anonymity and poison-pen territory. How charming! Like the Yanks, I can take this kind of thing, but can’t help wondering: ‘What if it had been someone else?’’
Posted by: Rick | 17 Jul 2009 07:02:49
"They convey a reaction against the problems of mobility in general." -- Bruno Martzloff
I think he is referring to the difficulty of getting around in a large city. So many people spend a couple of hours each day going to and from work and doing other errands, which can be tiring and frustrating and sometimes infuriating. People may lash out at the bicycles because they are seen as taking money away from the metro, buses and roadway improvements, which would more directly improve the lives of the vandals.
How respectful of pedestrians are bicyclists in Paris? I have been run over and knocked to the ground three times in Boston, each time while walking down the sidewalk.
I imagine that it is difficult to know if the vandalism is being done by various types of people for various reasons, or if there are a handful of people doing most of the destruction. A dedicated few can wreak a great deal of havoc, as with graffiti.
In fighting graffiti in New York, the metro found that if no train which had been painted left the yard, the graffiti artists derived no pleasure from their work. Eventually, most of them lost interest, and went on to other venues where their work would be seen.
In Australia or New Zealand, they have tried insinuating that men who drive too fast have small penises. I have heard how well this has worked.
Others perception of one's act seems to be important in anti-social behavior. Maybe the ad campaigns should focus more on only losers vandalize bikes, or cool people ride bikes, or girls don't date boys who do such things.
Posted by: Lex Stevens | 17 Jul 2009 06:45:16
To all those forlorn French (and French-loving) souls who are offended by my remarks, let me try to establish my bona fides as an admirer of things French. I came to this blog as a lifelong admirer of French culture which began when I first encountered the wonderful word of french film as a teenager. If this is 'trolling,' I plead guilty.
So Let Us Now Praise the French:
Agnes Varda, whose wonderful film autobiography is just opening here, is one of the world's truly great film makers, and she only happens to be a woman. And she had the good taste and good fortune to marry another of the planet's true film masters, Jacques Demy. The French invented great film making, and the world is in its debt.
Nuclear Power. The French fearlessly surged forward in this fleld when the rest of the world cowered. It will now reap the benefit of being the 'go to' country for all things nuclear which is as it should be. Chapeau.
Health Care. French citizens can rest easily knowing that their health care is provided for, and high quality health care at that. Not having to face debilitating anxiety, as many do in the u.s., about catastrophic illness, the French can pursue their life interests with more zest and assurance. The country also has world-class pharmacological research and development.
Cultural Preservation. With a culture worth preserving, the French do this as no other country. And the natural beauty of France is taken seriously and protected. A great example for others.
Innovational Financial Instruments. France has been ahead of much of the rest of the world in the development of sophisticated derivative instruments used in risk management. It's regulatory approach to its financial services industry is an example the u.s. might well have followed (and may yet:)) A nod to you, Daniel.
This may or may not dissuade you from your impression of some of us inveterate critics of contemporary French goings-on as cretinous French bashers. Some of us actually like the place. And we take our cue for our criticism from Voltaire, and our deep solace from Montaigne
I believe that if this were a blog about Fiji, we'd be talking now about Fiji-bashers. Please lighten up a bit. Life is short.
Posted by: azloon | 17 Jul 2009 02:24:35
DON -
And how is California doing?
Posted by: christopher muir | 17 Jul 2009 02:23:43
1. Discussing bike theft as if it were a uniquely French tendency is bollocks. In Holland, bicycle theft is as normal and expected as the sunrise. The expression quoted in a WSJ article concerning the composition of the canals below the water line was:
"een derde Modder
een derde Water en
een derde Fiets"
2. And the idea that any American, where most every violent crime rate far exceeds that in France - while many LE budgets have been slashed, has any moral high ground from which to lecture about enforcing the law is laughable at best.
Posted by: RH Omea | 17 Jul 2009 00:40:32
GILL,
Bona fides is also used occasionally in French. However, one would not use it (or its translation "bonne foi") to say that a word or expression is correct because it is listed and defined in a recognised dictionary.
Posted by: Daniel Strohl | 17 Jul 2009 00:21:11
AZLOON,
No major problem with French bashing or whatever bashing, as long as it is not morbidly obsessional and not courageously :) anonymous.
Fortunately, you don't fill these criteria since old hand posters like myself and others know your name and address and know also that you are not morbidly persuaded that you alone (along with your country) hold the universal truth :).
Posted by: Daniel Strohl | 17 Jul 2009 00:09:07
The 14th July always produces mixed feelings. There is the toy soldiers' bit like the parade of tanks and bridge layers in my local High street or our miniature Joan of Arc military parade in front of the statue in my street (8th May).
But it might be worth reflecting on the ambiguity of the situation : a French army and navy with its aristocratic officers still in a very anti-British tradition. No meaningful participation in World War II (the soldiers were all made German prisoners). Yet a Franco-German axis it is said (German president was there too). Yet an army that put down immediately after the war the Algerian, Vietnamese etc populations using Gestapo torture methods. I would like to think that modern France is that creator of republican freedoms.
In, case in any one thinks the Sarkozy interview was an exceptional example of bad French journalism, remember the exploitation by Giscard and Mitterrand of journalists who could be on very intimate and private relations with the same politician (the French word is 'couché'). On the other hand French viewers who look around their channels can find excellent discussion programmes for the happy few (C dans l'air, or the excellent parliamentary channel LCP AN.
,
Posted by: paul | 16 Jul 2009 23:29:14
DANIEL,
I had thought perhaps that nous was only UK English and not American English but I was obviously wrong. It is in the Oxford English Dictionary which I think proves its bona fides (bonne foi in French?)
Posted by: Gill | 16 Jul 2009 22:59:18
The problem in Paris must be related to the fact that it houses a large proportion of the under-priveleged in relation to the highly priveleged but I cannot understand why Norway should have the worst vandalism. I am sure if this scheme is introduced in London, as has been mooted, we would also see a high level of vandalism.
Posted by: Gill | 16 Jul 2009 22:51:02
RENE C MOYA AND STEPHANE,
I know that Azloon is old enough and big enough to look after himself but I cannot ignore your comments. Azloon made valid comments on Charles' article and asked some equally valid questions. You, however, have contributed nothing constructive to the discussion and I am not even sure if you have read Azloon's comments in their proper context. All you have done is to criticise another blogger for no readily apparent reason. Who are the trolls?
Sorry, Charles I do not normally get this uptight but this incensed me.
Posted by: Gill | 16 Jul 2009 22:42:44
On a more practical note, I've been using Velibs in Paris since the beginning.
The system was horrendously complex to work out on the first time, but once you'd went through the hoops once, it was OK.
However, there has been a dreadful fall in the quality of service since the system was launched. The proportion of out of order bikes, docking posts or even whole stations is staggering.
Vandalism is bad enough, but it's not the only culprit. Many bikes obviously in working order are locked onto their posts, with a red light signalling that the computer won't release them. Sometimes, half of all the bikes on a given station are unavailable because of that.
It's not uncommon for a whole station to be out of order, because of a mysterious computer glitch.
There's also one particularly irritating and now frequent failure -- or should I say deliberate scam ?
If you pay by the day as I do, the machine gives you a ticket. You need it if you want to take advantage of your "subscription", which enables you to as many further free rides as you wish during the next 24 hours, provided they last less than 30 minutes.
More and more often, the expected ticket does not appear at all. If you wait too long for a ticket that refuses to come out, you've lost your 1 euro : you are entitled to begin the process all over again for free -- except that you need to punch in your client number, which is supposed to be printed on the ticket, which doesn't exist.
Knowing the French, I suspect some foul play is at work there.
I'm about to give up Velibs altogether.
Posted by: Robert Marchenoir | 16 Jul 2009 22:27:14
And then you surpassed yourself, RENE:
‘I've got to say, Charlemagne, that this post by itself--and the tendentious Europhobia it displays--is more than enough to get me off reading your blog, and almost enough to get me off reading the Europhobic, Psycophantic/America-Praising Economist as a whole.’
Posted by: Rick | 16 Jul 2009 22:09:44
On March 12 of this year a RENE C MOYA addressed the European correspondent of ‘The Economist’ as follows:
‘Charlemagne, Your logic is impecable(-ly stupid).’
‘...but did The Economist hire you because there was a gap in the 'tortured logic' department?’
Needless to add, you continued in this way for a long time. You’ve got ‘form’, boy.
Posted by: Rick | 16 Jul 2009 22:06:23
"I don't really know what that means."
A delightful understatment by our favorite British correspondent.
Actually, he's far too polite to give it straight to you : most French sociologists, and 100 % of those who get quoted in the media, are half-wits on the state payroll churning out leftist propaganda -- and that's in the rare cases where anyone can make some sense out of their pronouncements.
Posted by: Robert Marchenoir | 16 Jul 2009 21:56:50
DAISY "Perhaps the french [sic] should learn to lighten up a bit and poke fun at themselves. If they did, others wouldn't have to do it for them."
Ma petite Marguerite, perhaps you should learn some French and peruse some French media. We laugh at ourselves much more, and much more cruelly, than you could even dream. Why, think you guys actually keep bleating Sarko is the best ever thing that happened to France... when he is the most mocked man in the country.
What we find unpleasant and boring is the endless repetition of prejudiced stereotypes which only advertise the inanity of those who mouth them with such naive self-assurance. And what makes these inanities unpleasant is not that they hurt our pride, which they don't; it is that they end up building a wrong, adversarial, despicable picture of a great people we always liked and admired.
Now, Daisy dear, do feel free to "poke fun" at us. As long as it is - you know? witty. Funny. To the point. Otherwise, don't be surprised if you're booed. And, it now appears, from both sides of the pond.
Posted by: Dominique II | 16 Jul 2009 21:50:32
RENE MOYA : wow, was that a cavalry charge or carpet bombing? you sure don't take prisoners. A pleasure to meet you, sir.
Posted by: Dominique II | 16 Jul 2009 21:35:50
p.s. to Daniel
You can't be oblivious to the fact that there is liable to be more french-bashing on a blog about France that there is to be A-S bashing. Just the way it is. If we had met on a blog about Fiji, we'd be arguing about Fiji-bashing. :)
Posted by: azloon | 16 Jul 2009 21:26:03
[Azloon, may be you are not the best placed to qualify a person or a nation as being hypersensitive - I remember some of your reactions which one could have qualified as "réactions de vierge outragée" :)).]
sans doute, c'est vrai. why am i supposed to 'best placed to qualify' in order to spout off? that' no fun.
and do i have to be insensitive myself in order to accused others of excessive sensitivity? not possible :)
Rick, my comment about Indian troops was truly simpleminded, in keeping with my simple mind. Marching 'british style' means behaving marginally like those who are occasionally derided by he French. that' all. about u.s. troops? just another potentially controversial invitation. no big deal, or deep meaning.
Posted by: azloon | 16 Jul 2009 21:23:00
'the xenophobia of some half-wits'
'Perhaps WASPs could stop being so self-righteous. That includes you, in case there is any doubt.'
STEPHANE, are you applying for the post of judge or the accused?
By the way, you have a nice line in reasoned argument - not.
Posted by: Rick | 16 Jul 2009 21:12:12
Daniel
"The reason why the American army deems it necessary to have more personnel in logistics than for instance the French army is now fully clear for me: they have to transport all the extra stuff needed by their lady warriors - creams, powders, mirrors, combs, mobile showers with huge water reserves, hair dryers with powerful generators to feed them adequately in the desert and so on :). I am not sure whether the yield is optimum..."
Whereas in the case of French soldiers, both men and women no hygienic products necessary. (very wide grin)
Posted by: rocket | 16 Jul 2009 21:10:16
[Perhaps the french should learn to lighten up a bit and poke fun at themselves. If they did, others wouldn't have to do it for them] Daisy
Daisy, your check is in the mail. :)
and, of course, as usual, you are spot on !
But don't expect widespread French 'lightening' soon. it's a bit endemic, but mercifully not universally accurate, witness several French posters here, Dominique II being a prominent example (he will probably disavow any praise from me out of concern for his reputation :)).
-----------
To: Rene C. Moya
Rene, I welcome your characterization of me, unflattering though it is. You've got spunk, a good brain and write well.
But, of course, as we all are from time to time, you're dead wrong in this matter.
You said:
[And then of course you round on the French by obliquely suggesting they're either law-breakers ('...a population that thinks taking your boss prisoner is just fine.') or too watery to hold criminals to account] Rene
'Lawbreakers' is a perfect description of the French in the matter of sequestration (what the rest of the world calls 'hostage-taking'), and it's done with a wink of the eye from police. If you had participated on this Blog as long as i have, you might recall CB's piece that cited a poll showing more than 50% of all French approve of 'sequestration.' Enough said?
And as for bicycle vandalism? Is it not fair, and completely logical, to inquire of about law enforcement efforts to catch offenders? You may not be a particularly curious person. I am.
I obviously feel no compunction about defending France's reputation, or the u.s.'s for that matter. Stupid is stupid, wherever it occurs, and there's no known cure for stupid. If you want a tamer blog, a little more polite, and sugar-coated, may I suggest La Petite Anglaise.
---------
[But on most blogs and chatrooms the likes of Azloon are just called trolls] Stephane
About other chatrooms/blogs, I wouldn't know since I participate in none of them, and never have. I've been here two and half years and have made my share of outrageous comments. But my reading of the various definitions of 'troll' leads me to believe I don't quite achieve a level of troll pathology.
But I'll accept your verdict if enough other posters here agree with you. You're off to a good start with Ms. Moya, and Jay Whachamacallit.
BTW, are you aware that you are not required to read the posts of those who annoy you? This isn't a school exam. You won't be tested on everything printed here. :)
Posted by: azloon | 16 Jul 2009 21:03:20
[I wonder, Azloon, how you manage to have nothing better to do than come to this blog just to make snotty comments about the French. …. Because that's a sure-fire way of getting the generally high-quality public services the French have...as opposed to, say, a decrepit train network as in the UK, or a crumbling public infrastructure as in the United States. - Rene C. Moya]
Rene, the infrastructure in the United States is not crumbling. For example, the inter-state highway system is proably the best in the world. The infrastructure falling down bit was way over exaggerated by politicians from the Left to get the Obama stimulus bill passed a few months ago.
You think the French have “generally high-quality public services”? Tell that to the 15,000 older people who died in ONE month in France a few years ago (Aug. 2003). That would be equivalent to 75,000 older people dying in one month in the United States. Not even close.
Or how about the deficit of 200,000 people willing to work in the French health care system.
http://www.webinfrance.com/france-hopes-to-recruit-200000-young-people-over-5-years-to-hospital-jobs-in-france-221.html
For two generations young French people have been avoiding going into probably the most important of the public services in France. If it is so ‘high quality” then why are they avoiding it like the plague?
Or the fact that the average age of a French surgeon is over 55 or that they periodically go into exile in Spain or Britain (strike). Why is this? Or the fact that almost no new drugs, diagnostic procedures, surgical procedures have been developed in France over the past two generations. The U.S. produces 80% of the world’s new drugs, diagnostic procedures (e.g. MRI scanners) etc.
You might want to read several books by French authors who have detailed the many, many years of America bashing by the French. (“Anti-Americanism” by Revel, “The American Enemy – History of French anti-Americanism” by Philippe Roger.)
The criticism of the French by Americans is a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny percentage of the bashing the Americans have taken from the French for many decades. Think I am
exaggerating? Read those books and contradtict the facts that they recount and document copiously. Revel was a member of the Academie Francaise and hardly a Francophobe.
Wouldn’t you do better to get your facts straight before going after Azloon? Just a suggestion.
Posted by: Don | 16 Jul 2009 20:28:20