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 – [...]
Financial Napoleons out to Crush Europe
EU leaders are in a multi-layered bind of their own making but it is European taxpayers who will pay dearly for the Euro vanities of politicians desperate to save the battered common currency by dancing around in ever-diminishing and ever-more expensive circles. Finance, according to Michael Hudson Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, [...]
More Power to your Footfall says Toulouse
Pavement pounding in Toulouse is now an officially encouraged leisure activity, as people begin to power-up the city! (This report has been corrected see update below) Alexandre Marciel, Deputy Mayor of La Ville Rose told FrenchNewsOnline that flaneurs out strolling or shopping will be happy to know that as they use up their shoe leather [...]
Euro Crisis Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid
The cry has gone up in the financial heartlands of Lisbon, Madrid and Dublin, the bears among the bond traders are salivating over the woes of the common currency, that means of course the euro in the pockets of the French resident readers of this newspaper and everyone else in the zone. Be afraid we [...]
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, [...]
Languedoc Opposes 180 Wind Turbines
The State and EDF-Energies Nouvelles (a subsidiary of the national energy utility) want to plant 180 wind turbines in the sea between Cap d’Agde and Gruissan off the Languedoc-Roussillon coast and the locals are up in arms. Why you may ask is France — world leader in nuclear energy — so keen on hugely expensive [...]
Halal – France’s Future Nouvelle Cuisine?
France’s new self-styled “beurgeois, (from slang for Arab) — or halal gourmets, as the New York Times recently described them — are entrepreneurs changing the image of halal food from its earlier associations with grubby immigrant street markets, into a multi-million-euro business. But Halal is not brand neutral. It carries a health warning and as [...]
Jet2.com Flying to Brive From May 2011
Barely two months after the new Brive – Vallée de la Dordogne airport opened, Jet2.com is signalling its confidence in the new route and launching a Manchester – Brive summer seasonal service from 21 May 2011. Jet2.com thus joins CityJet (an Air France/KLM subsidiary) and Airlinair to become the third airline to offer a vote [...]
WWOOF – An Organic Bite to that Holiday
Forget the bark, WWOOFers — a long-established world-wide movement — are a quiet sturdy breed, offering a different way of discovering another face of France. Hardy WWOOFers claim working holidays on farms around the country are a cultural experience, offering unique insights that are never forgotten. The WWOOF world-wide network started in the UK in [...]
Californian TGV hangs on holocaust record
French efforts to win a share of California’s planned $45bn, 800-mile TGV, or high-speed, rail project are bumping up against some potentially embarrassing historic buffers. Bob Blumenfield, a Democratic assemblyman in that US state, has pushed through a measure requiring firms seeking contracts with the California High-Speed Rail Authority to “make full disclosure of any [...]
A Farmer’s Lot is not an ‘Appy One
Life on the average French farm is no easy ride, agitated, often lonely and in old-age frequently penurious, farmers are in the spotlight for many reasons, few of them good. In a country with centuries of rural tradition and a food and wine heritage the envy of the world, the plight of rural folk is [...]
You Think the Banking Crisis is Over?
The global financial crisis which had its roots in the U.S. sub-prime mortgage scandal that surfaced in June 2007 and virtually broke the back of the banks, plunged the world into the worst crisis since the recession of the 30s. Many hundreds of column inches have been written about what went wrong and despite the [...]
Can Wine Worshippers Tolerate Screw Caps
Would anyone sip and savour a $40,000 Jéroboam of Dom Perignon White Gold whose bouchon went “clik” rather than “blop”? The cork industry, discharging double barrels in its fight to the death with synthetic “cappers”, sincerely hopes true wine lovers will resoundingly choose “le blop”. Indeed the industry might be asking (but hasn’t) what self-respecting [...]
Flu “pandemic”: Scam, Scandal or Waste?
Reports surfacing in France, the UK and Italy suggest the 2009 swine flu pandemic scare bore signs of a significant overreaction to reality. Oreste Rossi an MEP for Italy’s Northern League is seeking a European Parliament inquiry into the World Health Organisation’s handling of the swine flu affair. In France an official parliamentary report shows [...]
Bettencourt Feud Ends Up in Court
Here begins the tale of a billionaire, a sweet-talker, an estranged daughter, a butler with some tape transcripts, a minister’s wife and a possible whiff of political scandale. For the media anyway, L’affaire Liliane Bettencourt surfaced some 3 years ago as a family dispute, involving the cosmetics billionairess and a society photographer-confidante said to have [...]
Le Blanc – Where the French Franc is Still King
In Le Blanc (a town of 7000 souls in the Indre département) shopkeepers are happy to take French Franc banknotes for anything they sell – and they do a roaring trade. For with euro-strain on the gain and the 11-year old eurozone under intense speculative attack and looking vulnerable, some think they may be [...]
Official Unhappiness Over Holiday Home Lets
A boom in the use in France of specialist, person-to-person, second home and holiday rental sites, is leaving the national tourist authorities less than happy. Local tourist offices say should holiday-home owners continue to drift to such sites they will obviously stop using similar fee-based facilities offered by regional tourism boards – who have their [...]
25 Dead in Mid-Summer Flash Flood
The killer flash flood which struck the Var mid-June has left at least 25 people dead, with 13 still missing – among them holidaymakers in campsites, a baby and a number of elderly people attempting to flee their homes. Devastating storm waters rose more than 10m in a matter of minutes flooding homes and causing [...]
Where ‘Apero’ Meets ‘Auto’ in the Entrepreneurs World
Apero What ? Well May You Ask. According to their rather sparse website its a good opportunity to have a drink with the (mostly young) sole traders now flourishing under France’s auto-entrepreneur or sole-trading scheme, to discuss and exchange ideas, meet others and generally network. Launched a little by accident in Paris, aperoentrepreneurs are fast spreading [...]
The Rich Get Richer
The number of very wealthy households in France increased between 2004 and 2007, says Insee, the French statistics institute.
Fraud hits auto-entrepreneur scheme
The runaway success of the auto-entrepreneur scheme has brought signs of growing fraud. A clampdown is coming
