Pumpkins Sprout From Paris Kerbsides
Competitive urban courgeophiles are hard at it proliferating pumpkins in a contest to grow the largest legume in the most incongruous spot in Paris – so ensuring flaneurs look up for falling calabashes as well as down for dog poop. Agricultural endeavours in the capital are not restricted to pumpkins however. Street artists trundle toy lorries [...]
The Forces that Face (Socialist) France
France’s new Socialist President François Holland faces forces that could well undermine his manifesto pledges of growth and rollback before he even gets started. In the article below Martin Feldstein, Professor of Economics at Harvard University and President Emeritus of the National Bureau of Economic Research (extract reprinted with permission) reminds us that it was a [...]
Will France be Socialist after June Vote?
Having lost the presidency the Right in France is hoping to hobble the Socialist project by winning a Parliamentary majority. However Marine le Pen’s Front National is mounting a hostile takeover bid to become leaders of opposition to Socialism, following Sarkozy’s narrow defeat. Patrice de Beer, a former London and Washington correspondent for Le Monde, sets the scene in the piece below republished [...]
Polyglot Cafés Where Talk is Speed Speak
In Paris Café life is ritualised and sacrosanct but those intense Sartre-centered Left Bank debates are grudgingly giving ground to habitués sipping coffee with a spoonful of grammar, pinch of pronunciation and soupçon of Pygmalion-ism. Modern Café grammarians are likely to be more laid back than Henry Higgins, the phonetics pedant of Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, but just as motivated – and [...]
Death of The Euro: French Austerity Ahead?
As market tensions peak and Euro-politicians abjectly fail to end the (P)russian Roulette ravaging the euro, a question for the French is if banks in Greece, Spain and Italy fail how savage will ensuing French austerity be? The Death of The Euro: What Next? by Mitch Feierstein (Republished by kind permission of the author [...]
Warning: EU Ponzi Banking Scheme Ahead
How many trillions does the badly leaking eurozone ship need and how will the new French administration view options given that French banks, more than four times the size of its GDP, are heavily exposed to European peripheral debt? One analyst worries about a gigantic upcoming Ponzi scheme. Waving the White Flag By John Mauldin John [...]
World’s Best 50 Wines by Luca Gardini
The world’s top sommerlier Luca Gardini has released his list of the world’s best 50 wines led surprisingly by a Port wine from the Douro Valley but with France represented in second and many subsequent spots. Thirty-year-old Luca Gardini’s list was published in the Enciclopedia del vino, which includes a classification of the 3,000 Best [...]
Exit Merkozy But Will it Really be Merd*?
With Merkozy divorced, pundits are seeking a portmanteau for the new EU couple. France Inter tentatively tried ‘Homerk’ but the Financial Times rudely trumped that with ‘Merd*’ reflecting the euro turmoil seriously rumpling the marital bed. As Hollande flew to meet Merkel hours after taking office on May 15, his plane was struck by lightning and forced back to Paris – [...]
The Sun King First Lit the City of Light
Is Paris the City of Light because of earlier academic brilliance or the foresight of the Sun King? Toronto writer Philippa Campsie of the Parisian Fields blog takes a tour of lamps of all standards and remembers occasional revolutionary moments. Republished by kind permission of the writer. Lighting the City of Light Posted on May 13, 2012 Opinion is [...]
Oh la Vache – Cows get QR branded
Where once cowboys branded steers with red hot irons, farmers today do it with edible-painted QR codes … at least that’s the story in Morbihan and they’re sticking with it. (Read more French News here) While cows from the south of the country are sometimes regarded as crazy Catalan marauders those from the north-east would appear to [...]
Rising Olympics Star Driven by Candlepower
Gaël Prévost, one of France’s most promising juniors and a 2012 Olympic Archery hopeful, is an unusual 18-year-old prodigy proudly raised in an isolated Clermontois hamlet lighted only by candle power. The youngest member of France’s Archery Team selected for the London 2012 Olympics – which starts July 27 — says, with a reserved nonchalance but [...]
Mr Normal Takes Power, All Change ?
Mr ‘Normal’ — François Hollande, the recently-elected Socialist president –has promised to “change France”. For now “change” seems focused on rowing back from the widely-detested, hyperactive style of the defeated centre-right president. French election: what does normal stand for? In the article below, republished with kind permission of the author and OpenDemocracy Nilüfer [...]
The Change – Brightest Day to Darkest Night
Socialist president François Hollande may have scraped home May 6 but his opponents are determined to spoil the party especially as they hope for a cohabitation result in the June general election. France 24′s Presidential Pâté bloggers Sophie Pilgrim and Joseph Bamat have been analysing a blogging and Twitter-led campaign designed to rain on the presidential parade. They highlight a photomontage doing the rounds, that sets out [...]
Narrow Socialist Win Spells Trouble
Socialist leader François Hollande who narrowly scraped home in the presidential election run-off May 6 to become France’s first socialist head of state since the Mitterrand era (1981), faces a hostile environment in which to implement promised social, financial and political change. Worse while the turnout was unusually high (nearly 80%) for the second round, the electorate registered [...]
Top World Violinist Unnoticed in Subway
The place: a Metro Station in Washington, DC on a cold January morning in 2007. The event: A man with a violin playing Bach, six Bach pieces in fact, for about 45 minutes. During that time approximately two thousand people moved through the station, most of them on their way to work. After 3 minutes a middle-aged [...]
‘Hacktivist’ Poses Dilemma for Strasbourg
The man who brought portable pedestrian crossings to France has created a delicate moment for Strasbourg council by publishing a map on how to pee in public in the city without being caught. Florian Rivière who calls himself an “urban hacktivist” first hit the headlines with a range of ideas for adapting everyday items of [...]
US gain as Toulouse Loses People Power
Prolific pavement pounders – joggers and flaneurs — anticipating helping Toulouse harvest pedestrian energy to light street lamps via kinetic pavement slabs are now destined for disappointment. Two years after one of the most innovative new ideas in a panoply of advanced projects introduced by a council team under dynamic deputy mayor Alexandre Marciel, the [...]
EuroCrisis: ‘You Can’t Make Up How Bad It Is’
France goes to the polls on Sunday with a good chance of victory for a Socialist President — first since the end of two-term François Mitterand’s reign in 1995 — and a result that will likely shake Franco-German control of the Eurozone crisis as never before. Here ZeroHedge’s Tyler Durden relays the gist of a [...]
Can Monsieur Flanby Now Pull It Off ?
Socialist leader François Holland– unkindly dubbed Monsieur Flanby in reference to a caramel pudding reminiscent of his flaccid politics — appeared to be facing a tough battle in the second round of the presidential elections after a neck in neck race in which protest votes were the most striking outcome. This Youtube video which appeared [...]
