Doggedly Sharing Dodgy Secrets
Shaggy doggy tales are legion so it comes as no surprise that a recent poll of pet owners across Europe purports to have uncovered fresh insights into Franco-German relationships as far as shared doggy secrets go. Yes a survey of 6000 EU pet owners suggests the French, at just 29% are the least likely to [...]
French Kissing … by Numbers
As with other Latins in Europe, all the proper French will greet you with The Kiss, but the 100-euro question for the outsider is how many kisses and when — and the answers turn out to be a cultural labyrinth rivalling Reignac-sur-Indre. According to the Karambolage writers of this video clip, a proper and socially correct Greeting [...]
Tiring of Paris? Well What About Lyon
Tiring of Paris well head for Lyon and some of the hidden corners of the country’s second city — that’s the unsurprising advice from the MyLittleParis website — offered here in the little video below. Lyon of course has an envious reputation for its cuisine. Anyone lingering a while on a downtown pavement cafe soon [...]
Life is for Living not Cooking. Bon Appétit!
“I’m not interested in the arguments about how Foie Gras gets made; I like what it tastes like,” writes Sandy Abbot, blogger and author whose recent rant about cooking has struck an Internet chord. “If you are easily pleased and like to read books, you can actually buy my life story. It’s a book!” he says in [...]
Latin Invasion – What Would Napoleon Say?
Starting 1807 Emperor Napoleon of France invaded the Iberian peninsular in a disastrous Peninsular War campaign — leaving behind him mayhem and the Napoleonic code – so might a role reversal 200 years later be a belated form of poetic justice? Earlier still of course — beginning 1796 – Napoleon had conquered what is today northern [...]
No Fracking in France … Well Perhaps
Delphine Batho, France’s new Environment and Energy Minister is adamant there will be no fracking in France. Yet the pressures continue with the latest coming, surprisingly, from leading scientist Claude Allègre, no friend of climate warmists. “The government clearly and distinctly maintains the ban on exploiting shale gas because nowhere in the world has it been proven [...]
Our Grumpy Gardener on the Wild Blooms
The Grumpy Gardener – July Hints & Tips With Mike Alexander In his regular column for French News Online professional gardener Mike Alexander waxes lyrical as he contemplates wild blooms in his July garden. Wildflower Lawn Parsley and Wild Flowers Offer a Riotous Display With all the rain we have been having I seem to have spent a [...]
On V.O. Release in France – Adventures of TinTin
On V.O. Release in France The Adventures of TinTin The Adventures of Tin-Tin – coming to a cinema near you – French Title: “Les Aventures de Tintin”. That all-time comic-book favourite of French kids, Tin Tin,hits the big screen, courtesy of Steven Spielberg and his Dreamworks movie machine.. Since 10th January 1929, when the first [...]
Art Galleries Well and Truly Googled!
Google Art Project Mary Hickey, Oil on Canvas, by ? Art Galleries Well and Truly Googled! If you wanted to find out more about this painting… even go to see the original of this painting, where would you go? National Gallery, London? The Met, New York? Galleria Borghese, Rome? Well, your first stop should be [...]
Aveyron Book Group – The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge
Book Reviews Books, books, books The Aveyron Book Group Keen readers gather around France for regular book readings and reviews, usually over a cup of tea or a glass of wine. French News Online, in collaboration with one of these – The Aveyron Book Group – here introduces a regular book lovers’ page. The Aveyron [...]
Starts June 30 – Tour de France 2012
The 99th TOUR DE FRANCE starts Saturday June 30th and runs to Sunday July 22nd 2012 covering a distance of 3,479 kilometres. The 99th Tour comprises one prologue and 20 stages. According to the official website there are: 9 flat stages; 4 medium mountain stages – one with a summit finish; 5 mountain stages – two [...]
Don’t fleece France M le Président
The Audit Court has flagged up France’s potential 10 billion euro deficit, but focused on their electoral promises, the new Socialist government has unveiled an ambitious tax and spend programme at odds with German-led austerity. Here a leading French investment house has made its views known in an open letter to President François Hollande. Letter of Edouard Carmignac [...]
Anti-Semitism back on the agenda in France
As Paris July 16 remembered the 70th anniversary of the Vel d’Hiv Roundup and deportation to Auschwitz of 13,152 Jewish men, women and children, signs of resurgent anti-Semitism are worrying officials in big cities such as Lyon. This time however the threats and violence are coming from disaffected “French youths of North African origin” as [...]
Indignados reshaping European Democracy
Far-right nationalist parties — expressions of deep weaknesses in European democracies — show an impressive ability to shape public opinion and policies beyond their actual national base, writes Jordi Vaquer on Open Democracy, just as democracy seems under further threat from global financial psychopaths. Reclaiming democratic demands from the populists by JORDI VAQUER As citizens lose confidence in democratic [...]
France – World Champions in … Champagne
To celebrate the national fête – Bastille Day — and ahead of the July 27 opening of the London Olympics, a French magazine has been pondering the unashamedly chauvinistic question of where France leads the world … The sun for instance never sets on France. Thanks to the Dom Tom – or overseas territories (comprising island territories in [...]
France Festivals
France Festivals – Non-Stop, Year-Round Arts Update | Scoop.it Summer in France is a cauldron of cultural fervour, with Festivals and cultural events dominating the landscape, the agenda, the holiday plans and the life of communities from one end of the country to the other. Major highlights include the great musical and associated festivals of Languedoc and [...]
Fattening Boeuf Bourguignon on Wine
Noticed any tipsy-eyed cows unsteady on their legs in your local pastures lately? Well they are no mirage. For cattle of an inebriated gait are the latest way of creating an expensive new taste experience for Parisian gourmets. The jet set will soon be able to order prime Saint-Geniès des Mourgues boeuf to complement their Château Pétrus in those [...]
Krys Transatlantic Race headed for Brest
The Tonnerres de Brest 2012 Festival of the Sea this year will also be the Bastille Day finishing line July 14, of the first New York – Brest transatlantic, multi-hull Krys Ocean Race for which the starters’ cannon boomed on July 7. CREDIT: Start of race photos by R Umar Abbasi, a New York City-based freelance photographer. R Umar Abbasi is [...]
European Democracy Hijacked by Crisis?
Authoritarian threats to European democracies have increased in direct proportion to the worsening of an EU sovereign debt crisis fomented by recklessly out-of-control global bankers who appear to have captured the Brussels machine, regulators, and governments. The article below adds a further piece to the jigsaw of dubious intent this newspaper has drawn attention to since [...]
Reprising a Myth: Death of French Culture
Publishing an 3000-word article in Time magazine headed ‘The Death of French Culture’ is, one might think, a sure way to bring down the wrath of all France on your head. (Read more French News here) Strangely, according to the man who did it, former Time magazine staffer Don Morrison, it didn’t quite work that way. [...]
Homage to Minitel – RIP Petite Boîte Marron
After 30 years of clunky yet uniquely profitable operation, France Telecom, the former state monopoly, has thrown the switch and darkened Minitel screens across the nation. France’s telematics pioneer which preceded America’s now global Internet has conceded defeat for the commercial operation of videotext technology that when it first appeared in 1980 was rightly hailed as a [...]
Euroland Mega-Meurons will Destroy Us
Would you feel safe in a country ruled by morons and populated by zombies? Well that is one very senior economist’s rating of the leadership of the EU sovereign debt crisis, now of course steered by Horkel (Hollande-Merkel). Eurozone crisis: between meurons and zombies Europe’s financial-existential crisis has been intensified at every stage by the [...]
That Famous Mustard … uses Canadian seeds!
Terroir so tied to the mystique of France, its luxury food, wine and famous names, has long been a magnet for outsiders hunting ’genuine’ France. (Read more French News here) Yet if this website is correct, at least nine popular produits du terroir are anything but 100% French. Among the products flagged up by the buy French website [...]
