L’affaire DSK – hurrying the Euro-endgame?
EU Commissioner Maria Damanaki let the cat out of the bag — or the euro out of its straitjacket — recently when she admitted that Greece’s exit from the euro “is now on the table.” (Read more online French News here) As Open Europe reported, Damanaki a former radical leftwing Greek MP and named to the [...]
China – The Shifting Balance of Prestige
While our hinterland, the navel-gazing Euro-zone flounders in political and economic crisis, pondering almost insoluable problems, China, as ever, is focused on long-term advantage. We republish the document below, with authorisation, because it highlights a current in North-Atlantic issues that may come to impact on the outcome of Europe and America’s very serious, multi-fronted crisis. Beijing, [...]
Storming the Bastille Version 2.011
They plan to Storm the Bastille, literally and figuratively to call a halt to further hijacking of European democracy by global bankers. The grassroots Reelle Democratie group is staging protests nationwide Sunday May 29, with the biggest set for Paris. (Read more online French News here) Inspired by Spain’s anti-crisis protesters and styling itself a [...]
A Concupiscent Billionaire
As FrenchNewsOnline reported here, Arthur Goldhammer, a US academic and Socialist-leaning commentator on matters French noted: “The damage done by the DSK Affair is still incalculable, and I am having a hard time envisioning a positive outcome…” . (Read more online French News here) Almost on cue the damage started and French Socialists are surely [...]
Backtrack on Speed Camera Warning Devices
The centre right government’s hasty U-turn on a hugely unpopular road safety crackdown is now complete; with an announcement that speed camera tracking equipment will not after all be outlawed in vehicles or on mobiles and other hand-held devices. Instead the makers will “convert” their trackers into devices that warn of “danger zones”. Road safety [...]
DSK, France and a Eurozone Collapse
In a sort of Death of a President or Samson sheared by unworthy Delilah moment… le Tout Paris has been beating its collective breast for days over L’affaire DSK. (Read more online French News here) As more and more damning details of the case emerged and the storm clouds darkened daily, Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK) resigned his highly-paid post [...]
French Women Bloggers on the DSK Scandal
French feminist bloggers and women bloggers writing on women’s issues, have gained a larger audience and a new respect in France in the aftermath of the Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK) scandal. They were the first and very few voices reminding that there was a woman involved, possibly a victim, and they drew attention to the biased [...]
Love Locks Back on Paris Bridges
The Pont des Arts may have started it — and prompted Paris City Hall to start a clean-up – but now undaunted, love locks are back and spreading. The Petit Pont de l’Archevêché is the latest Parisian lovelocker paradise — or eyesore, depending on where you rank as a romantic. For while widely seen as [...]
France: The Fall of Dominique Strauss-Kahn?
On Sunday 15 May, 2011, France awoke to a political earthquake: a sex scandal involving the (now former ) French president of the IMF (International Monetary Fund), Dominique Strauss-Kahn, arrested for an alleged sexual assault against a chambermaid in a New York hotel. Front page of the French daily newspaper “Liberation”. On day three after [...]
Gold: Back to the Future?
Too-big-to-fail, the facile justification intoned by cowardly European and US politicians to justify enslaving your grandchildren with unrepayable debts, is clearly a valuable get-out-of-jail-free card for bonus-addicted casino banksters. (Read more online French News here) As is made clear in the video clip below, letting banks go bankrupt is a good thing, it is the [...]
Festivals 2011 – Arles is for Early Birds
For the early birds of France’s Festivals 2011 season, the music feast kicks off at ARLES with the SUDS World Music Festival which runs from July 11 to 17. Here is the full programme and booking details. Each year the Les SUDS, à ARLES Festival attracts some 60,000 festival-goers and more than 200 artists for [...]
France Bans Anti-Speed Camera Devices
In a hasty and apparently unpopular move, France has abandoned a soft- touch, do-drive-carefully approach to road safety in favour of a harsh clampdown on electronic alerting devices and ‘delinquent’ drivers. Cabinet committee meets to toughen road safety. Photo: Yves Malenfer – Matignon (Read more online French News here) The changes from an approach where [...]
Growing calls for Greece to leave Euro
Open Europe – Press Summary – Euro crisis Europe EU working on second Greek bail-out in order to get the first one back on track; Irish Cabinet Minister: Ireland may also need another bail-out Reuters reports that the EU is drafting a proposal for a second EU/IMF bail-out for Greece to ensure the country receives [...]
A Chic, Rare, Costly, Ego-booster
Nicole Wisniak ranks the creative eccentricity that erratically brings forth her top-selling, elegant Egoïste revue, on a par with the hand-crafting of a Hermes handbag — stylish, time-consuming and frankly only for the discerning. (Read more online French News here) In that vein she has little time for the demands of digital age readers that [...]
Flash: Parliament Bans Fracking
The Assemblée Nationale May 11 passed the first reading of a government-sponsored bill banning the use of the controversial hydraulic fracturing technique in the exploration and exploitation of shale gas in France, says Le Nouvel Observateur . (Read more online French News here) The legislation was passed by 287 votes in favour to 186 votes [...]
“Don’t Let Go of the Anger” – NYT
We’re happy to say we’ve been banging a rather similar drum for some time, as regular readers know. So more power to the elbows of the “Make Big Banks Pay” crowd, we say. After all if the American public doesn’t take a lead on this one no-one else is likely to. (Read more online French [...]
A Mosque Here, A Church There – Berlusconi
The recent French ban on all face covering (burqa for short) in public space, is apparently encouraging other European political leaders to strike out boldly. (Read more online French News here) In a speech on May 7 at Palasharp Milan Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi reportedly said that he has nothing against other religions, but that it [...]
Total and Utter Madness
The total, utter culpable madness of the Ponzi bankers who broke the world economy in 2007 and left the euro in our pockets jittering in collapse, is starkly illustrated in two reports on the ruination of the Irish Republic. The most recent is by Theodore Dalrymple a British writer and journalist. Dalrymple (real name: Anthony [...]
A Guest Blog: Is The EU Cracking-up?
The “The EU Crackup” guest blog that follows below, reprinted with permission, was published in the wake of the Finnish elections where the True Finns party gained enough votes to become power brokers in a Helsinki where resistance is strong against further EU bailouts for a deteriorating Euro-zone. Some weeks after the guest blog was first published, an [...]
Reckless Global Bankers Back in the Spotlight
Bankers are back in the news for all the wrong reasons. Bank executives in the EU disdain a European directive to end ramped-up bonuses, North Atlantic banks filibuster government financial market reforms, and a London newspaper suggests that Fred ‘RBS-destroyer’ Goodwin, was an extraordinarily reckless choice to run the world’s biggest bank. (Read more online [...]
No to Scientology, Yes to Life – Deputy Mayor
Fabien Robert, deputy Mayor of Bordeaux is a brave man. He and fellow councillors have been on the streets of this famous wine city, countering the activities of Scientology, one of the world’s most aggressively litigious cults. (Read more online French News here) Wearing tricolour sashes, the familiar badge of office of local Mayors and [...]
Gaz de Schiste – Fracking Fight Far from Over
The fight against fracking in France is far from over warns FNE- France Nature Environnement which fears a white wash lies ahead driven by intense lobbying from powerful oil industry interests French activists fear this photo shows what the wine-producing Lot Valley could look like unless shale gas licenses are cancelled and the whole idea of [...]
La Bardot Lashes Minister over Bullfights
A chastened Culture Minister Frédéric Mitterrand, tongue lashed by the feisty Brigitte Bardot and facing the fury of animal rights groups, appears to be wavering on the cultural heritage status of the bullfight. (Read more online French News here) The row over a move that has seen French bullfighting listed as part of the national [...]
