French Culture Now

Archives: April 2-18, 2008

New French anti-anorexia law
BBC. Apri 18, 2008
The French National Assembly has passed a groundbreaking bill which seeks to criminalise the promotion in the media of extreme thinness. The bill targets pro-anorexia websites, fashion houses, magazines and advertisers that encourage girls and young women to starve themselves. French Health Minister Roselyne Bachelot called weight loss advertisements “death messages” which help create France’s estimated 40,000 anorexics.
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French health care gaps leave poor behind
WebinFrance. April 18, 2008
The poorest people in France suffer from the worst health and, not surprisingly, also have the worst health insurance coverage. According to an Institute of Research and Documentation in Economy of Health (Irdes) study, 24 % of poor households abandon seeking medical treatment because of health-care costs; while 14% of insured people neglected to seek medical care for economic reasons, and 22% report having stopped seeing the doctor entirely.
The people most at risk in France are young people between 20 and 29 years of age, women, and the elderly.
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Sarkozy: A Lowbrow in High Office
NewYorkTimes. April 18, 2008
Sarkozy’s fondness for showbiz pals, the music of Lionel Ritchie and Celine Dion, his marriage to the Italian model-turned-singer Carla Bruni and the appointment of a weak culture minister, Christine Albanel, have combined to produce of an anti-culture shock. France is wrestling with vulgarity in high office. Artists worry that the country may lose its grip on the notion of the arts as a national duty, not just a luxury.
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France has most holidays
Metrofrance. April 18, 20008
The French have the shortest workweek and the lowest retirement age — they also have the most days off. According to a Harris Interactive survey the French have 37 paid holidays in 2008, compared to 14 days for Americans. This puts France at the top of the league for the 8th consecutive year. Despite that, the French are the most stressed people in Europe, taking more tranquillizers than anybody else.
HT: Frogsmoke
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French inflation hits 3.5 percent - highest pace since 1987
IHT. April 18, 2008
French prices rose by the fastest pace since 1987 in March as the cost of food and energy soared, the French statistics office said Tuesday. The annual inflation rate rose to 3.5 percent in March, up from 3.2 percent in February, Insee said, using standardized European Union measures. For the month, prices increased 0.8 percent, the highest since January 1987, Insee said. The pace of price increases in the second largest economy in the euro zone adds to the dilemma of the European Central Bank, struggling to tame prices and boost growth.
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Sarkozy Keeps Lukewarm Support in France
AngusReidPolls. April 18, 2008
Public backing for Nicolas Sarkozy remains steady in France, according to a poll by Ipsos published in Le Point. 40 per cent of respondents have a favourable opinion of their president’s performance, down one point since March.
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French Oppose Commitment to Afghan Mission
AngusReidPolls. April 18, 2008
Many adults in France believe their country should not deploy more soldiers to Afghanistan, according to a poll by Ifop. 55 per cent of respondents oppose the government’s additional military engagement in the country.
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Paris was not so bad under the Nazis,
UKTimes. April 18, 2008
In the collective memory, Paris from 1940-44 was a grim, black-and-white place of hunger, roundups, humiliation and resistance. But a current exhibition of photos by André Zucca shows Paris in world war two as a sunny place, where people got on happily with life along with their sympathique Nazi occupiers. French officials are scrambling to denounce the show as not sufficiently sensitive to the negatice aspects of Nazi occupation. But Times columnist Charles Bremner says French officials should give their bad consciences a rest.
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Sarkozy’s Cultivated Anti-Intellectualism
Couterpunch. April 18, 2008
Anglophile Nicolas Sarkozy can’t speak English. He has a deep insecurity about the world of knowledge and intellectuals in particular. His attempts to channel France’s cultural and philosophical traditions are awkward at best. Sarkozy does not even pretend that he is in the least interested in literature or arts. He likes to present himself as a common man of the people but, says one writer, Sarkozy confuses familiarity with vulgarity.
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Segolene more popular than Sarkozy
SarkozytheAmerican. April 18, 2008
According to an Ifop-Paris-Match poll, in a head to head match-up with Sarkozy, Royal wins 50% to 44%, a jump of 7 points for her and fall of 9 for him in a period of three months. Her lead as First Secretary of the PS was also confirmed in the poll, with 38% of Socialists preferring Royal against 29% preferring Bertrand Delanoe. When put to the general populace, she trails him only by 3 points (26% to 29%).
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French Muslim war graves defaced
BBC. April 14, 2008
Vandals have desecrated 148 Muslim graves in France's biggest WWI cemetery near Arras in northern France. A pig's head was hung from one headstone and slogans insulting Islam and France's Muslim justice minister were daubed on other graves. President Sarkozy condemned the attack. About 78,000 colonial subjects of France, including many Muslims from North Africa, died in the war. Studies show that anti-Semitic hate crimes in France are down since the election of pro-Israel Sarkozy (himself of Jewish descent), while anti-Arab hate crimes are steady on the rise.
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French cabinet schism adds to Sarkozy’s woes
Time. April 14, 2008
Plagued by a dismal macro-economic outlook that his highly-touted policies and reforms have failed to set right, President Sarkozy this week was also tormented by the spectacle of his own cabinet engaging in a nasty public spat. Junior environment Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet called fellow conservatives "an army of cowards" after a cock-up involving controversial legislation on genetically modified crops. Prime Minister Fillon ordered Kosciusko-Morizet to apologise or be fired if she refused to. Critics said she was being publicallly humiliated by a machist government. Others said she was being censored. She knuckled under and ate crow but her apology was considered pro forma and forced.
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French march against school plan
Between 19-30,000 school students and teachers have demonstrated on the streets of Paris against a proposed reform of the French education system and government plans to cut some 11,200 education jobs this year, including 8,500 teaching posts. The protest is the fifth in two weeks. There have been smaller protests in other French cities, including Bordeaux, Toulouse, Lyon and Grenoble.
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Concierges are an endangered species
AP. April 13, 2008
Concierges have been part of French life for centuries, The concept is literally built into buildings where the concierge (like the “super” in American apartment buildings) lives in a strategically placed small ground-floor dwelling to keep an eye on the premises. But in the last decade, Paris alone has lost at least 10,000 concierges, and France has lost 100,000 -- replaced mainly by cleaning companies, according to experts and those behind a campaign to save them.
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Panel moves on Sarkozy's plan to eliminate TV ads
Bloomberg News, Reuters
Published: April 10, 2008
Advertising on French public television could be phased out from 2009 to the end of 2011, a special commission set up by President Sarkozy said on March 9. 2008. The elimination of public TV advertising caused the stock prices of private TV channels, many owned by Sarkozy’s close industrialist friends, to jump.
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Sarko “Babes” cause headaches
Scotsman. April 14, 2008
President Sarkozy's appointments of glamorous young women ministers to his rainbow cabinet was once welcomed as the dawn of a new era in sexual and racial equality in the traditionally macho, white world of French politics. While admired for their beauty and style, however, their outspoken approach has been a headache for the president. Rama Yade, 30, the Senegalese-born human rights minister; suburbs minister, Fadela Amara, 43, of Algerian descent; Rachida Dati, the justice minister, was born to poor North African parents; and Ecology Minister Kosciusko-Morizet have all embarassed Sarkozy in public, been reprimanded, or criticised for their lavish spending and high living.
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Journalism in France
Economist. April 14, 2008
The daily printed word has been dying a slow death in France. Between 2000 and 2006, overall sales of newspapers and magazines in France fell 10%, and advertising revenues by 20%; in 2007, circulation of all print media dipped again. One sector has been prospering: the weekly news magazines. In 2007, their combined circulation was up 7% on the previous year, thanks to the three ring circus and soap opera that is President Sarkozy’s pubic and private life.
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Robot anaesthetist developed in France
AFP. April 14, 2008
A prototype robot that can induce a general anaesthetic for operations has been developed in France using American equipment and tested on some 200 patients, the project team leader has announced. The automatic pilot system relieves the anaesthetist of one of his tasks so that he can devote himself to the extremely important job of monitoring the patient's state. The French system has been tested on more than 200 patients in 10 French hospitals.
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Olympic torch protests hit paris
Christian Science Monitor. April 14, 2008
The Olympic torch made a much-interrupted journey through Paris on April 7, 2008, at various points hustled off the street, carried into a tunnel, transferred to a bus, and extinguished as French protesters staged the biggest China-bashing demonstration in Europe so far. Reporters without Borders is leading a campaign to boycott the Summer Games in Beijing. Human rights minister Rama Yade condemned what she called China's "colonization" of Tibet. Human rights activists acted within their rights and their responsibilities, said Foreign Minister Kouchner. Olympic chief Rogge appealed publicly to Chinese authorities in Beijing to find "a quick and peaceful solution" for Tibet. But few experts seemed to think that the torch-relay protests alone would change much, either in China or in France.
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Meet the Sarkozettes: All the president's women
Guardian. April 14, 2008
Meet the so-called Sarkozettes: the glamorous, politically powerful women who make up half of Sarkozy's cabinet. They have been the cause of feverish debate in the press, which portrays them sometimes as fashion victims, or regards them as political tokens. But these women have fought their way to the top and they see themselves as fully fledged members of the government. They celebrate the differences between the sexes rather than seeking to obliterate them. They act and speak in bold, pugnacious, often infuriating ways that have caused France to re-examne the role of women in power.
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France’s deficit woes
AFP. April 13, 2008
France is under mounting pressure from its EU partners after acknowledging it will be unable to balance its budget until 2012, two years after an agreed-upon eurozone target of 2010, an extension of previous deadlines. The French government is talking tough about the gaping shortfall in its public finances but its prescription for balancing the books remains vague and unconvincing, analysts insist. Critics fear that government austerity plans would disrupt the lives of millions of French people.
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Sarko and Fillon More Popular
Angus Reid Polls. April 8, 2008
French prime minister Fillon has become increasingly popular in France, according to a poll by BVA published in L’Express. 51 per cent of respondents think Fillon’s performance as head of government has been good, up seven points since February. Sarkozy’s popularity is also up. 40 per cent of respondents describe his performance as good, up four points in a month.
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Breteau Bretteur
FrenchPolitcis. April 8 2008
"Eric Breteau, the leader of the Arche de Zoé, claims that he had the backing of the French government for his operation, that he received advice from "advisors of Nicolas Sarkozy and Bernard Kouchner," and that Rachida Dati and Cécilia Sarkozy were set to welcome 103 "rescued children" personally at the Vatry airport. He has written a book in captivity and will be marketing it assiduously with a full media blitz."
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French Reject Larger Role in Afghanistan
Angus Reid Global Monitor. April 8, 2008
Many people in France are against their president’s proposal to deploy more soldiers to Afghanistan, according to a poll by BVA released by Sud-Ouest. 68 per cent of respondents oppose Nicolas Sarkozy’s plan to increase the number of French troops in the country.
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Carla Bruni a hit with French public
AFP. April 8, 2008
French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is proving a hit with the public in her new role, a poll showed Sunday. According to the CSA poll, nine in 10 French people see her as “elegant” and “modern.” Sixty-percent of respondents expected she would help to modernise France’s image abroad, and 47 percent that she could help to promote French culture.
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New York Times can’t get a shoe shine in France
New York Times. April 6, 2008
In a recent Op-Ed, New York Times columnist Roger Cohen moans: “Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of societies: those where you can get a shoe shine and those where you can’t. France falls into the latter category.” According to Swami Cohen, the “egalitarian” French don’t like to have their shoes serviced, while American are comforted by it, but Sarkozy may change all that for the better. FrenchPolitics blog calls this article “obtuse” and asks "Can he be as dim-witted as he seems?"
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France may return to Nato
WashingtonPost. April 8, 2008
President Nicolas Sarkozy signaled a revolution in French security policy by announcing he will decide in the coming year on returning to NATO's military command, which Paris quit in 1966. He also confirmed France would reinforce NATO troops in Afghanistan by sending 700 extra soldiers to the volatile east, and in a goodwill gesture to Washington gave cautious support to U.S. plans for a missile defense shield in Europe.
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French Protestors Disrupt Olympic Flame Run
Spiegel. April 8, 2008
The approx 3,000 French police guarding the Olympic torch had to douse it three times in attempts to evade anti-Chinese protesters in Paris. Eventually the Chinese authorities in charge of organizing the relay decided to take the torch to the end of the route by bus rather than by runners, cutting short the planned five-hour event.
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France Announces Mission to Broker Release of FARC Hostages
Spiegel. April 8, 2008
Ingrid Betancourt, the French-Colombian politician who has been held captive by FARC guerrillas in Colombia's jungle for six years, is thought to be dying. Sarkozy telephoned the Colombian president, Alvaro Uribe, and announced France's intention to launch "a humanitarian mission without delay to make contact with the FARC and obtain access to our compatriot," according to a statement from Sarkozy's office.
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French taxpayer bails out public TV
Variety. April 2, 2008
The French Culture Minister Albanel has agreed to inject Euros 150 million ($231 million) into the coffers of France Televisions to offset plunging ad revenues at the pubcaster. She justified the bailout by arguing that FT’s ad sales had been hit by President Sarkozy’s decision to nix spot commercial advertising on France Televisions. Flagging ad sales are also in part the consequence of escalating fragmentation across the French TV market. France Televisions has set itself an ambitious full-year ad sales target of E849 million ($1.3 billion). But it was reportedly already $56.2 million below guidance through Feb. 12.
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French-UK nuclear power deals
BBC. April 2, 2008
Sarkozy’s recent visit to Britain profited from a warming nuclear synergy between the two countries. "The UK is the only country in Europe that could soon be setting up a new nuclear programme with lots of reactors," notes the director-general of the OECD's Nuclear Energy Agency. "The UK needs to replace 20% of its electricity, it has to deal with climate change; the most important thing the UK could do to help France would be to place orders." British companies workig with the French could pick up a slice of the global nuclear action.
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French kidnappers amnestied
BBC. April 2, 2008
On March 31, 2008, Chad's President Idriss Deby pardoned all six members of the Zoe’s Ark charity convicted of kidnapping 103 African children. They had been sendtenced to eight years of hard labour in Chad, then were repatriated to a French prison where the hard labor clause was dropped. It still remains unclear wht the French nationals were doing smuggling 103 African kids (who were not orphans, and all had living parents) to Europe. The amnesty is clearly a “thank you” from Deby to Sarkozy for France’s role in defeating an opposition rebellion in February. Deby clearly has his eyes on more loot: he has demanded that the kids’ and their relatives (all penniless) be paid €6.3 million in compensation ! FrenchPolitcs blog commented: “If anyone can see the moral in this sad tale, let me know; I see only ironies.”
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Actor Amalric slams Sarkozy
Premiere. April 2, 2008
French actor Mathieu Amalric has been drawing heavily on the “crazy” personality of the French President Sarkozy for his protrayal of villain Dominic Greene, James Bond’s opponent in the upcoming film Quantum of Solace. Amalric says today’s poltiicans are all actors, and the better the acgor the slicker the politician.
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Sarkozy’s son promoted to local party chief
The career of Jean Sarkozy, the 21-year-old son of the French president, took a leap when he was made chief of his father’s centre-right UMP party in Neuilly-sur-Seine, their home town and one of France’s richest boroughs. Jean was elected to a safe, $40,000-a-year seat on the council of the Hauts de Seine département, earlie this year at his father’s behest. The promotion of “Sarko Junior” to party bigwig was a move by the President to regain control of the suburb of Paris he ruled for nearly two decades. Just another proof that what counts in France is it not what you know but who you know.
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USA should reject Sarkozy's NATO demands
National Review Online/CBS. April 2, 2008
French President Sarkozy is expected to unveil a series of proposals for rejoining NATO’s integrated military command structure at the Bucharest Summit on April 2-4, 2008. But Washington ought not be tempted to accept this offer and bargain away the future of the transatlantic alliance. France’s relationship with NATO has always been complex and troubled, and her introduction into the organization’s command structure is highly unlikely to improve the effectiveness of NATO’s operations.
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Sarkozy: The man who's made a mockery of France
UKDailyMail. April 2, 2008
Sarkozy is the most unpopular President of France for the past 35 years. He has made an entire nation feel foolish, after weeks of watching their him cavorting around the world with his new bride, the former model Carla Bruni, while simultaneously insulting a host of political allies and the public alike.
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French hate crimes drop almost 25%
EJP. April 2, 2008
The French government’s National Consultative Commission for Human Rights (CNCDH) said in its annual report to Prime Minister Fillion that the number of racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic incidents in France dropped by nearly a quarter last year. However, it said racist propaganda is on a growing rise on the internet. France's North African, Muslim immigrants were the main targets of abuse.
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EADS probe finds insider dealing
BBC. April 2, 2008
France's stock market regulator said it has uncovered evidence of insider trading and market abuse at Airbus parent firm EADS, following an 18-month probe. Shares were dumped in June 2008 before bad news about the A380 caused stock prices to fall 26%. Former Prime Minister De Villepin and other officials were under scrutiny, but EADS and government bureaucrats all denied knowledge. The case is now referred to Paris prosecutors.
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French Asses Major Events of Century
AngusReidpolls. April 2, 2008
A poll reveals the mojor events impacting France in the second half of the 20th century: the legalization of contraception, the oil crises, the May 1968 protests, the abolition of the death penalty, the end of the Cold War, the war of Algeria, the Socialist electoral victory in 1981, and the strikes of 1995 had an important effect in French society. This according to a poll by CSA published in Le Nouvel Observateur.
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French support euthanasia
AngusReidpolls. April 2, 2008
The vast majority of people in France would support legislation to allow a doctor to end the life of a person with an incurable disease or unbearable suffering, if this person requests it, according to a poll by Ifop published in Paris Match. 91 per cent of respondents would be at least partly in favour of enacting such a law.
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POLITICS AND SOCIETY NEWS AND EVENTS ARCHIVE APRIL 2008-1