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Posts Tagged ‘France’

Video: When French Resistance fighter Colette Marin-Catherine went to a German death camp

Video: When French Resistance fighter Colette Marin-Catherine went to a Germany death camp

This is worth your time. Colette Marin-Catherine was 90 when she paid a visit to a German concentration camp where her brother, Jean-Pierre Catherine, was murdered. A former fighter with the French resistance, Collette had never wanted to visit Germany. But then a history student named Lucie opens the way…

Posted: 20th, December 2020 | In: TV & Radio | Comment


Hypocrisy! France bemoans US trade tariffs; France wants British trade tariffs

France is upset that the US is thinking about imposing trade tariffs on French cheese, fizz, make-up and handbags. France wants to tax US business. A US ruling into French plans tells us:

The U.S. Trade Representative has completed the first segment of its investigation under section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 and concluded that France’s Digital Services Tax (DST) discriminates against U.S. companies, is inconsistent with prevailing principles of international tax policy, and is unusually burdensome for affected U.S. companies. Specifically, USTR’s investigation found that the French DST discriminates against U.S. digital companies, such as Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon

Messy. And hypocritical of the French, mais no? If France believes tariffs are wrong, it should argue for free trade deal between the EU and the the post-Brexit UK. But it isn’t.

Posted: 4th, December 2019 | In: Money, News, Politicians | Comment


Gilet jaune vs Star Wars

To Paris, where the gilet jaune movement is serenading the local police with a burst of Star Wars:

The armed police, water cannon, tanks, guns, rubber bullet and doesn’t stand a chance against the mighty trumpet.

Posted: 17th, February 2019 | In: Key Posts | Comment


Yellow jacket protest: French prove no one’s taking climate change seriously

yellow jacket france car

 

That the French are revolting we all know, that they’re revolting in the streets against their own government is also an often enough occurrence. But there’s something important underlying these riots at present. Which is the manner in which no one is really taking climate change seriously. An odd thing to say about riots started by higher fuel taxes to beat climate change but true all the same.

France fuel protests: Macron calls urgent security meeting

OK, but what’s the fuel protest about?

The protesters are known as the “gilets jaunes” (yellow vests), because they have taken to the streets wearing the high-visibility clothing that is required to be carried in every vehicle by French law.

Their core complaint is a hike in diesel taxes. President Macron says his motivation for the increase is environmental, but protesters call him out of touch – particularly with non-city dwellers who rely on their cars.

That “environmental” there being about climate change. And that’s the right way to do it too. If you’ve got some pollution being caused by something then raise the price to have less pollution. So, that the French populace are out on the streets protesting about this, demanding that the tax rises be reversed, shows that the French populace doesn’t take climate change seriously.

But what about Macron? He’s imposed the taxes, surely this means he must be taking it seriously? Well, no, because rather larger than cars as a source of pollution is power plants. And one of the types that doesn’t CO2 pollute is nuclear power stations. Thus beating climate change would be to replace gas and coal fired plants with nuclear. But Macron is closing some of the nuclear plants. So, he’s not taking climate change seriously, is he?

As with Merkel in fact. Germany’s spent well over a trillion on trying to beat climate change. At the same time as they closed the nuclear plants and replaced then with highly polluting brown coal ones.

People just aren’t taking climate change seriously or they wouldn’t be doing what they are.

Posted: 2nd, December 2018 | In: Key Posts, News | Comment


Macron honours Jew, gays and gypsy killer Philippe Petain: ‘one out of two ain’t bad’

They say the victors write the history of war. Not always they don’t. French President Emmanuel Macron plans to award one of the losers a big tribute. Marshal Philippe Pétain (24 April 1856 – 23 July 1951), the Nazi collaborator and head of the Vichy government who oversaw the murders of thousand of French Jews sent to death camps, is to get a salute. Why? Because, says Macron, Pétain “was a great soldier in World War One”. World War 2, not so much. But you should have seen him before he facilitated mass murder and the persecution of “undesirables”: Jews, métèques (immigrants from Mediterranean countries), Freemasons, Communists, Gypsies (also known as Romani) and homosexuals. Whataguy!

 

Paris 1941

Paris 1941 –

 

“I consider it entirely legitimate that we pay homage to the marshals who led our army to victory,” said Macron. “Marshal Pétain was a great soldier in World War One.” His role in the 1916 defence of Verdun was hymned. He soon replaced General Robert Nivelle as commander-in-chief of the French army. When the Germans invaded France, Pétain opted for self advancement, eugenics, genocide, theft, rape, racism, the betrayal of his country, the death of those brave French fighters who continued to fight German occupation and a nice office in a spa town.

 

Petain

Petain – one out of two ain’t bad

 

 

The head of French Jewish organisation Crif, Francis Kalifat, says “the only thing we remember about Philippe Pétain is that he was, in the name of the French people, held in national disgrace during his trial in July 1945. I am shocked that we can honour a man who, it must be remembered, was himself responsible for the deportation of Jews from France, including the Vel’ d’Hiv raid ”

The Vichy regime rounded up 75,000 Jews, and deported them to the death camp. When the war ended, Pétain was convicted of treason and sentenced to death. But he never go the chop. The French government considered his behaviour in WW1 and commuted the sentence to one of life imprisonment. And now he’s to be honoured.

Never forget. Whatever they tell you. Never forget.

STOP PRESS: Macron’s gone full retreat. How very fitting. French government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux now says: “We had announced that we would honour the marshals of the Great War. Some have deduced that Pétain was one of them; this is not the case. If there was confusion, it was because we were not clear enough on that point.”

Bollocks. Cowardly bollocks.

“I consider it entirely legitimate that we pay homage to the marshals who led our army to victory,” Macron said. “You can be a great soldier during World War I and then go on to make disastrous choices during World War II.”

Pétain would have approved of such craven backsliding. It’s the most fitting tribute to him of all.

Posted: 9th, November 2018 | In: Key Posts, News | Comment


France is ethnically cleansing Jews

In France, Nicolas Sarkozy, the country’s former president, Manuel Valls, the former prime minister, Charles Aznavour, the entertainer, and Gérard Depardieu, the actor, have all added their names to a document calling on the State to tackle murderous anti-Semitism. The document signed by around 300 notables says France has mutated into “the theatre of murderous antisemitism”. Since 2006, 11 Jews having been “assassinated” because of they were Jews.

 

jews nazis

Hideous

 

“French Jews are 25 times more at risk of being attacked than their Muslim counterparts. Ten per cent of the Jewish citizens of the Paris region… have recently been forced to move because they were no longer secure in certain council estates. This is a quiet ethnic cleansing.”

The document says France’s long and repugnant history of far-right French antisemitism is now joined by  “a part of the radical left which has found in anti-Zionism an alibi for transforming the executioners of the Jews into the victims of society”.

Sound familiar, Jeremy Corbyn and his fellow Labour apologists?

It also accuses politicians of having made the “lowly electoral calculation that the Muslim vote is ten times bigger than the Jewish vote” – there are around 500,000 Jews in France, the biggest Jewish population in any Western European country.

It’s serious. Last month, an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor was stabbed to death in her Paris flat. Her crime? Being a Jew.

Posted: 24th, April 2018 | In: News | Comment


The French Election is a huge waste of paper

The French election are riding high on the news cycle. The field has narrowed into a straight fight between Front National’s Marine Le Pen and independent Emmanuel Macron. Round 2 will be defined not what the French are for but what they are against. Do you want a samey rosy-fingered dawn (Marcon) or a honey-soaked past dipped in aspic (Le Pen)?

But this post is about the system. In Round 1, French voters were given 11 pieces of paper – 1 for each candidate. In the booth they choose 1 and put it in envelope. The rest are, presumably, thrown away.  More paper is printed than used. There is no electronic voting and very few voting machines.

 

 

Michæl Saunby tweets: “Avoids the need for pencils, which some (kippers) have a phobia of.”

Indeed, at the EU referendum some voters smelled a rat:

@Rox_Tans tweeted: “When you vote take a pen with you! They just tried making me do mine in pencil yeah ok so you can rub it out? Don’t think so bruv.”

Echoing this sentiment, @Kez_777 wrote: “Please make sure you take a BLACK PEN with you to vote as pencil votes can be tampered with (I wouldnt put anything past Cameron) #VoteLeave”

So is the French system better?

 

Posted: 24th, April 2017 | In: Politicians, Reviews, Technology | Comment


Police accidentally raped a man when his trousers fells down and a truncheon went up

To France, where ‘Theo’, a 22-year-old black man, claims he was raped when police inserted a truncheon in his anus. An internal police inquiry found nothing untoward. But Theo was showing severe anal injuries.

Police now says the wounding was an accident. In a video of the incident, police see a copper  ‘applying a truncheon blow horizontally across the buttocks’. Theo’s trousers ‘slipped down on their own’. As such ‘there are insufficient elements to show that this was a rape’.

But an investigating magistrate disagrees. They’ve charged one of the police officers with rape.

French President Francois Hollande has taken the time to visit Theo in hospital and Prime Minister Bernard Cazenueve says their is an official state of ‘solidarity’ with the alleged victim.

 

Posted: 10th, February 2017 | In: Reviews, Strange But True | Comment


Britain builds a wall in France to keep them out

CNN reports that the UK is to build a ‘big new wall’ in Calais to stop migrants.

The four-meter (13 foot) high wall is part of a £17 million ($23 million) deal struck between Britain and France earlier this year to try to block migrants from crossing the English Channel.

Donald Trump is wrong: you need to build the wall inside Mexico.

“We’ve done the fence. Now we’re doing a wall,” British Immigration Minister Robert Goodwill announced at a government hearing on Tuesday.

It’s all about ambition. But we’d like to see a traditional dry-stone wall. British walls for British wallers!

PS: With any leftover bricks, we can shore up the Chunnel.

PPS: If the would-be Britishers can jump it in a photogenic fashion, they’re in. There’s a TV show in this. Call me Channel 4, I have ideas:

 

Posted: 7th, September 2016 | In: Reviews | Comment


Burkini ban: France has a moral police force – like Saudi Arabia

When did we become such prudes that a woman wearing too many clothes on the beach was a crime? The Telegraph:

French police made a woman remove her burkini on a Nice beach while another was fined in the resort of Cannes for wearing leggings, a tunic and a headscarf…

At which point the French rose up as one and cried aloud for liberty? No.

Along the coast in Cannes, a mother of two told AFP on Tuesday she had been fined on the beach for wearing leggings, a tunic and a headscarf. Her ticket read that she was not wearing “an outfit respecting good morals and secularism”.

France, place of enlightenment, now has a moral police police.

The BBC meets the woman who designed the cover-all:

Aheda Zanetti, who claims the trademark on the name burkini and burqini, said online sales were up by 200%… “I’m an Aussie chick, I’ve been here all my life,” she said. “I know what hijab means. I know what veil means. I know what Islam means. And I know who I am. I wanted my girls to grow up to have that freedom of choice. I don’t care if they want to have a bikini. It’s their choice. No man in this entire world can tell us what to wear or what not to wear.”

She gets it.

Posted: 24th, August 2016 | In: Reviews | Comment


Father Jacques Hamel: the front pages and a Daesh murder mystery

How do you report the murder of Father Jacques Hamel in a Normandy church?

The International Catholic News Weekly reports: “The nun – who did not want to be named – told Le Figaro newspaper: ‘They entered brusquely and took over. They spoke in Arabic.'”

Any ideas what the men wanted?

The Telegraph is clueless: “The men shouted ‘Daesh’ and cut the priest’s throat before being ‘neutralised,’ police said. Le Figaro newspaper reported that the priest died after his throat was cut. The men’s motives are still unknown.”

What did they want? Any clues?

As the Press muse on what two self-declared Islamists murdering a priest in France could possibly mean, let’s look at the front pages?

The Metro nails it.

Father Jacques Hamel

 

The Star is also good. “Scum” is the language we can all understand.

 

Father Jacques Hamel

 

The Express is conniving. The murder of an elderly unarmed man in a church is juxtaposed alongside a story of migrants.

 

Father Jacques Hamel

 

The relays the words of the French President. Daesh has declared war on France.

 

Father Jacques Hamel

 

As the tabloids get it, the broadsheets miss. The Guardian’s story is poor. It talks of the “killing” of Father Jacques Hamel. No, he was murdered. This killing “shocks France”. It appalls every sane one of us. It shocks the West. But Christians under persecution in places like Egypt, Iraq, Yemen and Pakistan will be less shocked.

Coptic Priest Father Rafael Moussa was killed instantly when a man shot him in the head in North Sinai capital El-Arish in June. This month, Coptic pharmacist Maged Attia was stabbed and beheaded in Tanta. Five Coptic Christian homes have been torched in Abu Yacoub, Minya, after rumours spread that a church was being constructed in the area. The Archangel Mikhail Coptic Church was burned to the ground in village of Naj al-Nassara in Madamoud. And a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man stabbed to death in the village of Tahna al-Gabal, Minya, where the local priest’s family was also attacked…

His Grace Bishop Angaelos, General Bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the United Kingdom, has issued the following statement:

What must be considered very clearly and with great concern however is that an attack on any individual member of a society is an attack on that same society and what it stands for, so our prayers are not only with those who have suffered these unspeakable and horrid violations, but for the society that is undermined and made more vulnerable with each and every one of these incidents. The system of law and order in Egypt is not one for Christians, Muslims or any other individual group of people, but it is for all Egyptians, and so when violated this violation is against all.

 

Father Jacques Hamel

 

The Times leads with news of a “religious war” and “fears” over one. France is not at war with Islam. the President did not say that. France is at war with Islamic State and the nihilists who adhere to it doctrines.

 

Father Jacques Hamel

 

 

Posted: 27th, July 2016 | In: Reviews | Comment


Europe is shafted: France outlaws buying sex

france sex

 

So there it is. France has banned anyone from buying sex. Get caught hiring a prostitute and receive a €1,500 (£1,210). The good news is that the prostitute has been decriminalised, and their actions empowered: should he or she ever want to exact a little revenge on a tight-fisted punter, they need only call in the wooden tops.

Repeat offenders will see their fine lifted to €3,750 (£3,000) and face being forced to learn about the skin trade at sex education school.

Sex sells. But buying it costs.

Posted: 7th, April 2016 | In: Reviews | Comment


England v France: British tabloids sing La Marseillaise in a bikini

It helps, of course, that La Marseillaise is the world’s most sing-alongable national anthem. England football fans can sing it when the Three Lions play Les Blues at Wembley.

The Daily Mirror is here to help everyone who doesn’t have access to the internet learn the lines to the stirring tune:

 

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Other newspapers support the French:

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But the winning newspaper is the Daily Star with its bikinis (traditions French attire) and balls.

 

tumblr_nxxkmwpBlF1u5f06vo1_1280

Posted: 17th, November 2015 | In: Reviews, Sports, Tabloids | Comment


Vive La France!

france attack

 

Paris mourns. And so should we all.

 

Posted: 14th, November 2015 | In: Reviews | Comment


French farmers kidnap Alps park boss as wolves attack

wolves french farmers

‘We strike at noon’

Wolves v French farmers.

French farmers kidnap Alps park chiefs, demanding protection from wolf attacks. “French farmers have kidnapped the head of a national park in the Alps, demanding stronger measures against wolves that are attacking their flocks. France’s rising wolf population is causing concern for many sheep farmers, mainly from Provence to the Hautes Alpes area. The number of wolf attacks nationwide has doubled in the past five years and the population – now at around 300 – has tripled since 2005.”

Which side are the Brtish holidaymakers on?

Posted: 4th, September 2015 | In: Reviews | Comment


These racist cakes have caused a row in France

Patisserie racist cake 2

 

To Grasse, France, where the local magistate is eyeing cakes which are an “attack on human dignity”.  Baker Tannick Tavolaro’s “Gods” and “Goddesses” cakes are in the forms of two obese people fashioned from gingerbread and chocolate mouse enrobed in dark chocolate. The tips of their primary sexual characteristics are in a pink fondant.

“It’s pure and simple racism,” says Louis-George Tin from France’s Representative Council of Black Associations (CRAN), a twist on the “obscene slave trade caricatures that tap into the tradition of colonial racism… We are in a country where the word equality is part of the constitution, which means it doesn’t allow for racism. Does he think these treats adhere to the values of the French Republic? We must fight this kind of racism. I cannot imagine what would be said (rightly) if an African baker decided to represent Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary in a similar way.”

 

Patisserie racist cake 2

 

Tannick Tavolaro is defiant. “At first I thought it was a joke. It’s absurd and hurtful. These pastries have absolutely no racial connotation at all,” he says.

 

Patisserie racist cake 2

 

“They are made of chocolate mousse, which is why they’re black. The characters are little human beings, a man and woman but not a black man and a woman. These people who attack me don’t know my story or my career or who I am. It’s just intellectual terrorism. I am not racist. I do not belong to any political party. I just argue for freedom of speech.”

We’ve been here before:

Posted: 28th, March 2015 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)


Anti-semitism is thriving: Jews of France keep a bag packed under the bed for the coming Exodus

 

DREYfus 2

 

France’s Prime Minister Manuel Valls is the Socialist son of Spnish immigrants. He sees the anti-Semitism:

“If 100,000 French people of Spanish origin were to leave, I would never say that France is not France anymore. But if 100,000 Jews leave, France will no longer be France. The French Republic will be judged a failure.”

Stephen Pollard , editor of the Jewish Chronicle tweets:

“Every single French Jew I know has either left or is actively working out how to leave. So, it’s a fluke that the latest target is a kosher grocer, is it? What’s going on in France – outrages that have been getting worse for years – put our antisemitism problems in perspective. It is the largest emigration of Jews anywhere since the war. That’s a simple fact.”

 

DREyfes

 

 

Is it bad?

Jews were the target of 40 per cent of all racist crimes in France in 2013 – even though they comprise less than 1 per cent of the population. Attacks on Jews have risen sevenfold since the 1990s.

The history:

Andrew Hussey, an author and expert on French Muslim affairs, says: “anti-Semitism is a fundamental part of French history and culture in a very damaging way. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the petite bourgeoisie felt under threat from the Catholic Church and socialist movements. They turned to the Jews to blame them for every fault in French society, which culminated in the Dreyfus Affair.”

 

DREY

 

Valls adds:

“There is a new anti-Semitism in France… We have the old anti-Semitism, and I’m obviously not downplaying it, that comes from the extreme right, but this new anti-Semitism comes from the difficult neighborhoods, from immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa, who have turned anger about Gaza into something very dangerous. Israel and Palestine are just a pretext. There is something far more profound taking place now.”

Patrick Worrall looks at the facts:

In 2014, some 6,658 French Jews left for Israel, more than double the 2013 total of 3,263 people. And this was already considerably more than the 1,923 Jews who left France for Israel in 2012…

The official Israeli Aliyah figures only show how many French Jews are moving to Israel. There are plenty of anecdotal reports of people leaving France for London and New York, although we can’t confirm or deny this with statistics.

FactCheck knows of one synagogue in north London that is renting space to a community group for French-speaking Jews, but we don’t know how big a trend this is.

So it is possible that the Jewish “exodus” from France is even bigger. On the other hand, the official figures don’t tell us how much traffic is coming in the opposite direction.

Not many.

DREYfus 4

 

 

Nearly 75 percent of thousands of French Jews who participated in a recent survey said they are considering emigrating.

The survey, whose results were released Monday by the Paris-based Siona organization of Sephardic French Jews, encompassed 3,833 respondents from the Jewish community of France, Siona said.

Of the 74.2 percent of respondents who said they are considering leaving, 29.9 percent cited anti-Semitism. Another 24.4 cited their desire to “preserve their Judaism,” while 12.4 percent said they were attracted by other countries. “Economic considerations” was cited by 7.5 percent of the respondents.

In total, 95.2 percent of all respondents to the online survey conducted by Siona from April 17 to May 16 said they viewed anti-Semitism as “very worrisome” or “worrisome.”

Slightly more than half, or 57.5 percent, of respondents, said “Jews have no future in France,” while 30.6 percent said there is a future for Jews there.

Asked whether they had personally experienced anti-Semitic incidents in the past two years, 14.5 percent replied in the affirmative but of those, only 21.2 filed a complaint with police. Of the complainants, 27.6 percent indicated that their deposition had led to concrete results.

Melanie Phillips:

The decades-long targeting of French Jews has barely been reported in the British or western media, which subscribe instead to the mantra that the main evil is “Islamophobia”. They ignore the fact that, rooted in Islamic doctrine and appropriating obscene Nazi motifs, demonic Jew-hatred pours daily out of the Muslim world.

Such are the facts…

Pictures: Léon Lipschutz collection of Dreyfusiana and French Judaica

Posted: 12th, January 2015 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (2)


French Opera Fascists Refuse To Sing For Woman In Niqab

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TO Paris, where a woman on holiday form The Gulf has been ordered to remove her niqab or else be ejected from the Bastille opera house.

During the second act of La Traviata, members of the cast spotted the “Muslim veil” and stopped singin. They would begin again when the woman removed it.

The Times:

The spectator, from the Gulf, was in one of the most expensive seats in the front row of the stalls, just behind the conductor, with her head and face fully shrouded by a niqab.

“They alerted me in the second act,” Jean-Philippe Thiellay, the deputy director of the opera, said. “Some chorus members indicated that they did not want to sing.”

Mr Thiellay said that the unidentified woman was told that she was breaking French law, which since 2010 has prohibited the covering of the face in public spaces. Offenders are liable to a fine of up to €150 (£119).

“It is never very pleasant to ask someone to leave the theatre, which is governed in principle by openness and understanding,” he said. “But in this case there was ignorance of the law and either that lady obeyed it or she had to leave.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted: 21st, October 2014 | In: Reviews | Comments (2)


Thomas The Tanked-Up Engine: French Railway Workers Strike For Right To Booze On The Job

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FRENCH railtway workers are striking for the right to booze on the job.

Eight workers with state railyway network SNCF are in trouble for supping a rum, lemon and pepper punch while operating signals and points on a line north of Paris.

(The pepper masks the small of alcohol on the breath.)

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Posted: 25th, September 2014 | In: Reviews | Comment


FrancaisOK: The brilliant and popular music of France

WHAT is France famous for?

Well, the French are well known for amazing food and booze, not to mention being some of the finest smokers on the planet. They’re great at art house cinema, having sexy accents and as the Tour De France has shown (see? Topical), some of the most incredible countryside on the planet.

However, often derided is French music. France, we’re told, is rubbish when it comes to making tunes. Ha ha! Says the world. The FRENCH? Pop music? SHUTTUP!

France has been making some of the best, funnest music on the planet for years! Novelty records and holiday camp europop isn’t solely what France is about, so with that, let us look at some of the greatest French music ever produced over the years.

C’est une musique à nos oreilles!

Daft Punk

So, you know all about the robots and that, when they show up, we have a good summer. They control dancefloors just like they control the weather. Here is one of their earlier efforts.

Camille

Ace singer-songwriter Camille is definitely someone you need in your life. She makes music out of her own body parts and it sounds like brilliant pop and not at all like Bobby McFerrin.

Stereolab

Cult favourites, Stereolab, create a special kind of hush around people of a certain age. They mixed together space-age cocktail jazz, French library electronics (more on that later) and arch 60s pop to make for one of the most wonderful bands who ever lived.

Serge Gainsbourg

Listen. Serge is more that That Song With The Orgasm In It. SG is a proper genius and madman and France rightly honoured his death with a national day of mourning. Here’s a cut from his utterly sublime ‘Melody Nelson’ LP, which saw Serge teaming up with another French powerhouse, Jean Claude Vannier.

Phoenix

Without anyone noticing, Phoenix became one of the biggest bands in the whole world, headlining festivals and generally conquering the world. Former bandmates of Daft Punk (they were in a band together called ‘Darlin”), they’ve applied their wry take on the world to some of the most gorgeous pop-rock music ever recorded.

Jacques Dutronc

Dutronc was one of France’s first pop heroes, cutting a suave, cheeky figure in the 60s. He was a bigwig at Vogues Disques (arguably France’s greatest record label), wrote songs for others, was a mean actor and Francoise Hardy liked him enough to marry him. Jacques Dutronc may not be a household name outside of French speaking countries, but that’s the fault of the rest of the world.

Les Plastiscines

A new wave of garage punk/ye ye groups exploded around Paris which were known as ‘les bébés rockers’. Les Plastiscines were one of a number of bands that appeared on the excellent ‘Paris Calling’ compilation. Soon, they’d release their debut ‘LP1’ and they never looked back.

Michel Polnareff

Another one of France’s first pop-stars, Polnareff tried his hands at loads of different styles, but his most classy joint is the incredible instro ‘Voyages’.

The Hellboys 

Another of the les bébés rockers, The Hellboys were greasy, leopard print garage punk straight out of the dirty daydreams of The Cramps and Link Wray. Sadly, the lead singer Nikola Acin (a very interesting man worth looking up) died aged just 34 years old.

Cecil Leuter

Britain has the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. France had people like Cecil Leuter to test the limits of early electronics and synthesizers. Some of his music is eerie and spacey… others, like the one below, is unhinged bubbling synth funk. The best bit? His real name was Roger Roger. Leuter, along with other French Library music makers helped to shape pop the world over by showing what was possible with electronic music.

Air

Air took over the world with ‘Moon Safari’ with their retro-futuristic take on pop music. They continued slightly under the radar, by including prog and doing film soundtracks… but they’re still brilliant.

Klub Des Loosers

French hip hop usually means people lazily linking to MC Solaar. Of course, MC Solaar is great, but seeing as he’s guested on Missy Elliot records, he doesn’t need further promotion. So here we are, with Klub Des Loosers, who really should give you the bug to find more French rap.

Mr Oizo

You may remember Oizo as being that guy who gave the world Flat Eric with the Levi’s ad which included ‘Flat Beat’. However, Oizo is one of the most innovative, ferocious music producers on the planet. Check out the incredible, jarring, cut and paste jackhammer that is ‘halfanedit’.

Missed out your favourite French song or band? You know where the comments are.

Posted: 22nd, July 2014 | In: Music | Comment


Bitter Coffee: French Cafe Charges Less For Being Polite

french cafe

NICE’S Petite Syrah café is offering customers the chance to get a discount on their coffee.  Asking for a “a coffee” will set you back €7. But “a coffee please” is €4.25.  “Hello, a coffee please” is a bargain €1.40.

Of course, this being France, anyone speaking in an English accent will be ignored. But why does the Petite Syrah stop there? Why not extend the offers to all manner of manners?

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Posted: 12th, December 2013 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True, The Consumer | Comment


French Football Cancels Matches To Protest Against Tax

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GETTING footballers to show any sort of excitement, opinion or passion for anything is nigh on impossible. All over the world, they talk in monotone voices, all the life trained out of them and blurbling on and on, vaguely about results and teamwork.

Unless, of course, it involves money.

French professional football clubs have scrubbed all matches over one weekend in November to protest against President François Hollande’s 75% “super tax” on high salaries.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted: 24th, October 2013 | In: Money, Sports | Comment


What Is It With The French Ruling Classes And Bad Economics?

ONE of the things that grates, now that we have to share this EU system of government with them, is the way in which the French ruling classes seem not to have the first clue about economics:

In a rare alliance, France’s ruling Socialist Party and the opposition UMP Party approved a new bill banning the company and other online retailers from shipping discounted books for free. It comes in the form of an amendment to a 32-year-old law that sets the value of new books at fixed prices.

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Posted: 22nd, October 2013 | In: Money | Comment