Steven Spielberg's
3-D Tintin film is in the can, but it will take two years for the
computer animation to be completed, producer Peter Jackson has said.
Seventeen
executives at Airbus parent company EADS (European Aeronautic Defence
& Space Co. NV) went on trial this week for allegedly making
millions in profits in 2005-2006 by selling shares and exercising stock
options basedon insider knowledge of a delayed A380 superjumbo project.
The accused include many French execs including EADS co-CEO Noel
Forgeard; former deputy chief executive Jean-Paul Gut, and chief Airbus
salesman John Leahy.
WallStreetJournal. Nov. 24, 2009
François-Henri Pinault, chief executive of French luxury giant PPR SA,
revealed his plans to sell off the company's retail divisions like Fnac
and Conforama (worth an estimated $6 billion) and refocus on its global
brands, like Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent and Puma.
President Sarkozy wants to dig 130 kilometers (80 miles) of tunnels for an entire new Paris subway system.
The
lineswould focus on the capital's outskirts, with trains making a
figure-8-shaped route between suburban business hotspots, research
centers and the airports. The $31.4 billion project, a subject of
intense debate, goes before the lower house of parliament this week.
Incumbent
Nicolas Sarkozy leads a list of potential presidential hopefuls in
France, according to a poll by Ifop published in Valeurs Actuelles. 28
per cent of respondents would to re-elect Sarkozy in 2012. Socialist
Party (PS) leader Martine Aubry is second with 20 per cent, followed by
François Bayrou of the Democratic Movement (MD) with 14 per cent, and
Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Front with 11 per cent.
The National. Nov. 23, 2009
The world sympathises with the Republic of Ireland, cheated out of a
possible place in the finals, but Henry shrugs his shoulders and blames
the referee for failing to spot his offence. Can this apparent
rejection of authority and trust explain the extraordinary procession
of high-ranking public figures – Villepin, Chirac, Pasqua, Juppé, and
others - who have fallen foul of French criminal law? For critics of
France, the series of high profile trials, and countless other cases
from recent years embroiling central and provincial government figures,
show that the country has a long way to go before its reputation for
shady practices can be shrugged off.
In
a journalistic first, the secretive Michelin guides permit a reporter
to accompany one of their anonymous critics to lunch at trendy
Jean-Georges restaurant in New York. A fascinating look behind the
scenes, part of the stodgy Michelin guides’ new mission to reach out to
a new public in America and Asia.
Most
people in France (81%) do not think their soccer team deserves to be in
the 2010 World Cup and 88 % did not approve of Thierry Henry's handball
that helped secure a finals place, according to an OpinionWay poll
published this week.
how
much Lévi-Strauss owed to New York where he lived from 1941-1947. “When
I lived in New York,” he once told me at his Paris apartment, where we
often met for tea, “I discovered that the whole world could be found
there.”
He would scout New York
antique shops. It was in those shops, not in the field, that he
discovered American Indian artifacts. Later, he would write major books
about the Northwestern American Indians and their totems. New York was
also where Lévi-Strauss joined a circle of Jewish refugees: Franz Boas
and Roman Jakobson. One could argue that Lévi-Strauss became the
Lévi-Strauss we know while living in New York.
Swiss-French
architect Le Corbusier was to architecture what Pol Pot was to social
reform. He turned his gifts to destructive ends, and it is no
coincidence that he willingly served both Stalin and Vichy. The
raw-concrete-clad rectangular towers that obsessed him canceled out
centuries of architecture. Hundreds of cities had their composition
wrecked by architects and planners inspired by his soulless buildings
and ideas.
Chirac’s
ban on the Islamic veil was a panicky reaction to the public
demonstrations of a few fundamentalists among France’s 4 or 5 million
Muslims. In relaity, the law was excessive: few Arab women wear the
veil, and French Arabs consider their identity more cultural than
religious. The veil law said more about French politicians who never
pas up an opportunity to reaffirm the republic’s secular values, its
“laïcité” or secularism.
Former French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing's controversial novel
‘The
Princess and the President’, modelled on himself and Princess Diana,
has been declared a literary flop. After an initial print run of
100,000 books, the tale of a secret and passionate love affair between
President Jacques-Henri Lambertye and Princess Patricia of Cardiff has
attracted a little over 18,000 buyers. Le Passage, Mr Giscard
d''Estaing''s first novel, was also a commercial failure and slated by
the critics as displaying "a total absence of originality.”
The
affair of Thierry Henry's handball in the France-Ireland World Cup
elimination soccer game that France won, but should have lost, has
outraged many in Paris. French pundit Bernard-Henri Lévy declares:
“American friends, France is not a country of cheaters.” On his website
he publishes the opinion of French businessman Marc Ladreit de
Lacharriere, Chairman of Fimalac, head of the Fitch rating agency, and
director of La Revue des deux Mondes. It is entitled: "We Must Replay
the Match."
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