French Culture Now

Archives: January 19-23, 2008

EU objects to Sarkozy's Internet tax
HollywoodReporter. Jan. 23, 2008
French President Sarkozy's proposal for funding France's state-owned television stations through an Internet tax has been dismissed by EU Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding, who told attendees at a conference in Munich that such a measure would only hinder the development of new applications and content.
> More

Poll: “Too much Sarkozy coverage”
Reuters. Jan 23, 2008
The vast majority of French people believe the media has gone over the top with its coverage of President Sarkozy's romantic escapades, according to a TNS Sofres poll for La Croix daily on Jan. 23, 2008. It said 93 percent of people thought the media had dedicated too much space to Sarkozy's private life, while 52 percent thought too much space was given to covering his political actions. But stories about the French president boosted circulaion up 40-50% for magazines L'Express and Nouvel Observateur.
> More

France bans British immigrant scanner
DailyMail. Jan. 23, 2008
French authorities have blocked British immigration officials from using million dollar X-ray scanners to search for illegal immigrants in trucks, unless they ask for the stowaways' written permission. Given that the illegal immigrants do not want to be found, this is unlikely. The machines have been deemed a success, with illegal immigration down by 88 per cent to 1,500 in 2006.
> More

Google-Publicis advertising deal
Businessweek. Jan. 23, 2008
Google and the world's fourth-largest advertising agency, France’s Publicis Groupe, disclosed a confidential partnership already underway for more than a year in which they have melded Google technology and Publicis creativity in an effort to craft unified online ads. graphical ads and reach new potential consumers via online video and ads on mobile phones.
> More

French Jews seek boost to private Jewish education
JerusalemPost. Jan. 23, 2008
French Jewish organizations have joined together to found the Foundation Gordin, a new €25 million fund to expand private Jewish education. According to French Jewish businessman and philanthropist Pierre Besnainou, one-third of France's estimated 100,000 Jewish children study in Jewish private schools, but roughly one-half of private-educated Jewish children study in Christian schools because, Besnainou believes, the schools are better.
> More

French ban on gay adoption declared illegal
Euronews. Jan. 23, 2008
The European Court of Human Rights has condemned France for refusing a female gay teacher the right to adopt a child. The 45-year old woman in question has been rewarded 10,000 euros in “moral damages”. France had rejected the adoption request in 1998 on the basis that the woman was living in a ’stable relationship’ with another woman. The fact that her sexual orientation was one of the grounds for the refusal has now been deemed discriminatory.
> More

A recipe to save France
UKTimes. Jan. 23, 2008
Jacques Attali, the famous Paris economic strategist, and 40 lesser eminences have delivered a Sarkozy-sponsored report suggesting ways of improving the French economy. They could be entitled "300 ways to save France". The Attali report proposes old-fashioned heavy spending by the dirigiste state. But its stress on the virtues of competition will meet a chilly response in a week that much of France seems to be gloating over the misfortunes of the financial markets.
> More

Sarkozy: a post-modern president in a pre-modern society
Reason. Jan. 22, 2008
Sarkozy, with his ray bans and open shirt, looks more like a Corsican hoodlum than the president of a venerable nation. He may be vulgar but he has redefined what the presidency is all about. He is a post-modern president in a pre-modern society which is still mired in baroque rules, obstinate certitudes, veiled prejudices, and a surprising affection for hierarchy.
> More

Education Minister moves on student prostitution
Guardian. Jan. 21, 2008
France's education minister Valérie Pécresse has vowed to improve student financial support after a series of accounts by undergraduates working as prostitutes. A memoir by a 19-year-old student and a book of interviews with undergraduate sex workers has shocked France, lifting the lid on a practice which appears to be increasingly common. A new study showed a large online market for student prostitutes, describing how male clients, who are often rich, married executives, advertise online for young, undergraduate "escorts" whom they prefer to street prostitutes. These clients pay on average €400 (£300) for a two hour meeting with a student, including sex and "time to talk". One student union estimated that 40,000 students are working as prostitutes. Pécresse said the government had not done enough to "concentrate efforts" on helping poor students juggle conventional part-time jobs.
> More

Sarkozy’s behaviour embarasses France
NewYorker. Jan. 21, 2008
Sarkozy’s affair with Carla Bruni is seen differently in America and France.The Oo-La-La! division of the American press has portrayed the bizarre story as typically French. (Zey are a funny race.) The French press has seen in the story something so obviously second-rate and vulgar that it must be in some way American. Sarkozy’s most pathetic delusion is that Bruni is a notch on his belt, when he is so obviously a notch on hers. As the French president makes a fool of himself, revealing France’s dirty secrets and hormonal motivations, Adam Gopnik misses the good old days of organized hypocrisy.
> More

French immigrants are leaving Quebec
Toronto Star. Jan. 20, 2008
Un aller-retour, svp! Immigrants from France, highly prized and ardently recruited, are packing up in droves and heading for more welcoming climes. Lured by the Quebec government’s immiigration pitch and optimistic promises, many arrivals find success elusive. According to a Université de Montréal study,"There is a serious lack of consistency between the government policy of wanting to attract qualified new immigrants to the labour market, and the reality that confronts those immigrants when employers refuse to recognize their experience and qualifications," the study finds.
> More

French Sailor Joyon Breaks Round-the-World Record
Bloomberg, Jan 20, 2008
French sailor Francis Joyon completed his round-the-world trip today, breaking British navigator Ellen MacArthur's 2005 record by more than 14 days. Joyon, 51, finished a voyage that started on Nov. 23 in 57 days, 13 hours, 34 minutes and six seconds on his 95-foot trimaran boat IDEC.
> More

French nuclear revival raises waste concerns
AP. Jan. 20, 2008
France is the world's most nuclear-energized nation and is now rushing asales of nuclear technology to a dozen nations including China and Algeria. But he problem of long-term nuclear waste disposal remains critical, with no advances in decades. France’s nuclear giant Areva stores waste underground in Normandy, and claim that there are no health risks. But Greenpeace questions state-run Areva's safety figures, and accuses the government of playing down accidents and soil and water contamination.
> More

France is sick of the Sarko-Bruni show
UKTimes. Jan 20, 2008
Sarkozy’s affair with Italian model Carla Bruni reaches a new publicity level as the possible future first lady of France stars in a TV ad for Lancia luxury cars. Bruni is being widely attacked as a rich, spoiled, promiscuous opportunist. Polls show Sarkozy’s popularity continues to drop as his jet-setting and self-indulgence are undermining the country’s diginity. Inside his own governing Gaullist party, there are fears of a backlash in municipal elections in March.
> More

French Nightclubs stifling from body odor
Liberation(French). Jan. 20, 2008
Since the banning of smoking in nightclubs, French partiers are being grossed out by “une odeur très particulière” - the stink of body odor, formerly masked by cigarette smoke, reports Liberation. Clubs are working on machines to perfume the air. Other commentators have a simpler solution: soap and deodorant.
> More

Suburbs plan disappoints Nicolas Sarkozy
UKTelegraph. Jan. 20, 2008
When Fadela Amara, the popular 43-year-old junior urban affairs minister, announces France's much-awaited €1 billion "Hope for the Suburbs" plan on Jan. 22 at Vaulx-en-Velin, a working-class suburb of Lyons, President Sarkozy will be absent, because the plan is known to have deeply disappointed him. In fact, last week he quietly commissioned a trans-cabinet task force to come up with more radical and wide-ranging reforms for his own presentation of "the details of the suburbs plan", scheduled for February 8, 2008.
> More

Bruni: the French are "miserable"
DailyMail. Jan. 20, 2008
In a frank interview conducted not long before she met her lover President Sarkozy, the Italian model Carla Bruni revealed her true feelings about the "miserable" French people and the "unbearably polluted" Paris. She also added: "French people are always negative. They also are crazy about their own language, so every time there's something that's not in French, they get so mad about it."
> More

Editorial: French Presence in the Mideast
ArabNews. Jan. 20, 2008
France’s remarkable decision to establish a naval base in the UAE adds clout to its strong commercial links, extensive arms sales, and pledge to build nuclear reactors in the region. Critics worry that Sarkozy is preparing a stepping stone inc case the US decides to attack Iran. Others feel Sarkozy is too sensible a politician to imagine he could achieve anything positive by flourishing a saber at the Iranians.
> More

Sarkozy spent $52,000 on election cosmetics
UKTelegraph. Jan. 20, 2008
President Nicolas Sarkozy of France splurged 35,000 euros (approx. $52,000) on make-up to impress the French electorate in thw 2007 presidential elections. French auditors were reportedly stunned to discover that Sarkozy had spent in some cases 450 euros an hour on face and hair makeovers. However, his defeated rival, Segolene Royal outshone him, by reaching 52,000 euros (approx. $70,000) for make-up and hairdressing.
> More

Sarkozy’s religious rhetoric causes waves
EuropeanJewishPress. Jan. 20, 2008
President Sarkozy’s recent statements about France’s Christian roots and his increasing references to God have been criticized in France by people who accuse him of violating the country’s law separating Church and State and making religion a political issue as in the United States. Sarkozy, of partial Jewish descent, defines himself as a "cultural Catholic.” Socialist leader François Holland stated, "This is not respect for the separation of church and state. This is an ideological stand that makes religion into an instrument to promote French products (such as) civilian nuclear plants for Muslim countries.”
> More

Sikhs protest French turban ban
Ekklesia. Jan. 20, 2008
Sikhs from across the world joined in moral and practical support of a peace march in New Delhi, India, on jan. 19, 2008 to protest against a French secularity law that bans the wearing of sacred turbans (as well as the Muslim hijab, the Jewish Kippa and Christian crosses) in public schools in France. For Sikhs, the turban is one of five key symbols of their faith. Civil rights campaigners say that the French law is unacceptably prohibitive, and an example of "eliminative secularism.”
> More

Will Bruni damage Sarkozy’s image?
AFP. Jan. 20, 2008
French President Sarkozy and his new flame Carla Bruni have transfixed the world's gossip press for weeks, but the jet-setting romance seems to have backfired among French voters worried their president is taking his eye off the job. Experts are divided over how a marriage would affect the president's popularity, which tumbled into negative ratings for the first time this month.
> More

France's Sarkozy hardly the model of savoir-faire
HoustonChronicle. Jan. 20, 2008
The French have long tolerated adulterers, liars and hypocrites in their politics. A simpleton is another matter, and President Sarkozy's public frolic with a former model and singer of heavy-breathing songs does not speak of emotional complexity. It even suggests he may be a serial “modelizer” with a screw lose. The French now have as their "first couple" an exhibitionist president and bad girl who loves publicity.” Woe is them.
> More

POLITICS AND SOCIETY NEWS AND EVENTS ARCHIVE JANUARY 2008-4