Is the French Fashion World Racist?
Is racism really a blot on the copybook of the French fashion world? This is certainly the view of some 2,573 supporters of a Boycott Guerlain Facebook page, who are professing themselves to be fragrantly “angry and offended” at an unpleasant odeur created by the perfumer. This Facebook page, set up by “toutes les organisations [...]
Escargot and the Price of Pension Unrest
With escargot at the top of the menu it has been an expensive meal of unrest for the French since the end of summer — 3.2 billion euros lost so far to the economy and rising. Two days after the senate overcame a socialist-led filibuster and approved a widely-contested pension reform bill, Finance Minister Christine [...]
Grab a Bottle of ‘Vin de Merde’ – it’s a Sellout
They label it “Crap Wine” and litter its packaging with flies but this year the expensive Languedoc Cuvée will sell 100,000 bottles – nothing cr…ppy about that. Jean-Marc Speziale the 45-year old Herault restaurant owner behind the “Le Vin de Merde” brand — fly-blown catch line “the worst hides the best” — says: “I know [...]
Viva Green Bardot for President of France
French Greens are agog at the news that 60s sex symbol Brigitte Bardot might run as their candidate — on an anti-halal ticket — against President Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2012 election. The Bardot Belle, now a long-standing and feisty activist in all matters animal, has reportedly written to the incumbent president saying she may [...]
Radio France with an Accent Anglais?
In just a few short weeks a fluently French-speaking Brit with an unmistakeable accent, has provoked uproar among an elite Radio France audience who prefer the erudite to the trivial. Since the rentrée in September France Musique’s Musique Matin flagship slot has been presented by Alex Taylor, a 52-year-old polyglot, raised in Cornwall, and now [...]
Seen elsewhere…..
Merkel says German multicultural society has failed The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel says: “lmmigrants should learn to speak German”. Attempts to build a multicultural society in Germany have “utterly failed”, Chancellor Angela Merkel says. She said the so-called “multikulti” concept – where people would “live side-by-side” happily – did not work, and immigrants needed to [...]
Now Law – Burqa Ban Passes Last Hurdle
After six months of debate France’s highest legal authority the Conseil Constitutionnel has cleared the way for the promulgation of legislation that “prohibits the concealment of the face in the public space”, a measure targeting non-European forms of dress such as burqas and niqabs. However the Council said the measure may not apply to public [...]
You Have 177,000 Years to Pay, Mr Kerviel
The Paris court order for former Société Générale trader Jérôme Kerviel to pay the largest ever damages awarded against an individual in French judicial history, has sharply divided public opinion. Kerviel who brought the bank close to collapse when it was revealed that he had lost 4.9 billion euros in illegal betting on financial markets, [...]
A Post Scriptum to an Eco-fascist blog
When a top American physicist pens a resignation from his professional body in the terms used by Harold Lewis, Emeritus Professor of Physics at University of California, Santa Barbara, it is akin to Martin Luther, nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenburg church door. No wonder the good people of Languedoc are up in arms [...]
Geert Wilders’ Free Speech Trial Starts
As we blogged here way back in April 2010 Geert Wilders, the conservative Dutch “Party for Freedom” Member of Parliament is now on trial in a Western democracy, for freely expressing his opinions. This space is not the place to offer blow-by-blow coverage — the news agencies and the Internet will certainly do that. However [...]
Aluminium Scare, is it Poisoning Vaccines?
Concerns about human aluminium poisoning through food and medicine additives, a controversy that dates back more than 40 years, have been reignited by a Paris medical research team from the INSERM medical institute, worried about aluminium salts in vaccines. A book Quand l’aluminium nous empoisonne, (When aluminium poisons us) by French journalist Virginie Belle and [...]
Eco-Fascists and a YouTube shocker
Is this eco-helpfulness or just plain eco-fascism? Considerable outrage has greeted the latest efforts by the green movement to reanimate their planetary-disaster-awaits message after the ClimateGate scandal earlier in the year seriously eroded unfounded “science is settled” arguments. Alarmed climate change sceptics on the Internet have highlighted the “dangerous authoritarianism” reflected in the highly controversial [...]
Moonlighting Thieves Strip Vines Overnight
Police have photographed and sampled the mud tyre tracks left by mechanical grape harvesters in a bid to trace those responsible for spiriting away 30 tons of Cabernet Sauvignon grapes harvested from a Hérault wine farmer’s vineyard on the night of a recent full moon. Roland Cavaillé a wine grower in Villeneuve-lès-Béziers told Le Parisien [...]
Opera buff but stuck in the sticks?
If you’re an Opera buff, out in the sticks but happily hooked into the Internet, thanks to France’s enlightened nationwide roll-out of high speed broadband service, you’re in luck. Just plug an Internet radio into your router (what France Telecom brands its LiveBox) and you can listen all day long. The programme supply is vast [...]
