So Frenchie !!!

Diplomacy in motion

Bernard Kouchner, the foreign minister of France, has urged his country’s ambassadors to engage in ‘diplomacy in motion’ Kouchner, who established the organization Médecins Sans Frontières 37 years ago.

He has had four or five careers since then. He has often polled as the most popular politician in France; has written a dozen or so books and once contemplated running for president of France, is himself the chief practitioner of this aerobic statecraft...

More infos >>> in The New York Times Magazine

Chinese company buys Bordeaux chateau

 

On January 24, a Chinese group has bought a 60-hectare Bordeaux château (160,000 bottles a year), the first ever French wine estate purchase by Chinese buyers. The sale of a little known Bordeaux chateau, Latour-Laguens, to the Longhai International Trading Company Ltd, has put the Chinese in pole position, ahead of both the Russians and the Indians, in terms of Bordeaux chateau ownership, AFP reports.

The chateau, 30 hectares of which is planted with mainly red wine vines, is in the town of Saint-Martin-du-Puy about 50 kilometres south east of Bordeaux. It is not the prestige of the area which attracted the Chinese investors, claimed local paper, Sud Ouest, Tuesday, but rather the fact of gaining a foothold in one of the best known wine growing areas in the world.

Citroen regrets Mao ad 'insult'

Mea culpa. French carmaker Citroen has withdrawn an ad featuring a doctored portrait of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong, after complaints it was an insult, BBC reports. In the ad, carried in Spanish newspaper El Pais, Mao scowls at a hatchback. "It's true, we are leaders, but at Citroen the revolution never stops," reads the text below the portrait. Citroen apologised for the "inappropriate" ad, after Chinese chatroom users complained it "hurt" their "national pride".

Nearly 32 years after his death, Chairman Mao remains revered by some Chinese, despite his promotion of policies such as "Great Leap Forward" which ended in the deaths of millions, and the profound social and economic changes China has since seen. In a statement, Citroen said it regretted any "displeasure" caused, and said it had ordered the advert to be pulled immediately. "We repeat our good feelings towards the Chinese people, and confirm that we respect the representatives and symbols of the country," said the statement in Chinese.

On (hunger) strike

The militant French sheep farmer José Bové began a hunger strike Thursday aimed at raising pressure on the French government to impose a long-term ban on growing genetically modified crops. Bové captured worldwide attention for helping to organize the ransacking of a McDonald's restaurant nine years ago to protest the influence of multinational corporations. Since then he has served time in a French prison for damaging gene-altered crops. While his campaigns have struck a sympathetic chord in many parts of France and Europe where gene-altered foods are widely mistrusted - and where Bové is something of a folk hero - the latest protest against altered crops comes as divisions over the potential benefits of the technology appear to be deepening across the region, The International Herald Tribune reports.

In October, the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, disappointed supporters of a long-term ban by announcing a temporary freeze on genetically modified seeds pending the outcome of a review of the technology that is expected early this year. Bové has said he is undertaking his hunger strike to push the French government into making a much longer-term commitment to end seed cultivation. Only one genetically modified crop is currently grown in Europe, a form of corn produced by Monsanto and nine other companies called Mon 810 that is the main target of Bové's protest. Austria, Hungary and Poland are among countries that already have banned the Monsanto corn.

France warns against mobile phone use

The French Health Ministry on Wednesday issued a warning against excessive mobile phone use, especially by children, though it recognized science had not proved cellular technology was dangerous, Reuters reports. The appearance on the market of mobile phones designed for children has raised concern since youngsters would be particularly vulnerable to any possible health effects, the Ministry of Health, Youth and Sports said in a statement. It recommended using mobile phones in moderation, especially among children, and gave advice on how users could reduce their exposure to any possible risk. Health Minister Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin said on TV that mobile phones given to children could be useful safety items, but parents should be cautious about frequent use.

A November 2006 report from the World Health Organization (WHO) said available evidence suggests long-term exposure to radio-frequency and microwave radiation from mobile phones had no adverse health effects. However, the WHO said other studies pointed to an increased risk of tumors in people who have used an analogue mobile phone for more than 10 years. As of September 30, there were more than 53 million mobile users in France, about 84 percent of the population, according to the French telecoms regulator Arcep.

Lascaux in jeopardy

The French government is taking emergency action to rescue the world's most celebrated prehistoric cave paintings from a second fungal invasion in seven years. Each day until 8 January, experts are treating the caverns at Lascaux in the Dordogne – nicknamed the Sistine Chapel of pre-history – with a fungicide to try to check a gradual spread of spots of grey and black mould, The Independent reports. An air conditioning system, installed just before a similar fungal attack seven years ago, is to be replaced. Some scientists believe the introduction of the machinery was misconceived and may be partially responsible for the fungal invasions. Other experts blame global warming for increasing the temperature in the caves. Others point to an increased level of human activity in the caverns as part of an ambitious attempt to create an exact computerised record in three dimensions of the 17,000-year-old paintings of bison, wild cattle, deer and other animals.

Whatever the explanation, the French government has decided to take no risks and to accept the advice of a committee of experts which met at Lascaux, in south-western France, just before Christmas. The fungicide will be sprayed on the stricken areas of the cave walls. The three-dimensional survey will be halted. No public visits to Lascaux have been allowed since 1963 but almost all visits by scientists and historians will be banned for at least three months. The Lascaux paintings were discovered in September 1940. The 600 images of bison, horses, wild cattle and ibexes, some at rest, some running or jumping, are regarded as among the finest cave paintings in the world. It is thought that they were painted between 15,000 and 17,000 years ago by hunter-gathering people who crushed minerals to create drawings in red, ochre, brown and black.

French America turns 400

Celebrations marking the 400th anniversary of the founding of French America -- when explorer Samuel de Champlain established Quebec City -- get under way Monday amid winter's fabled freeze. At the foot of the fortified Old City, participants were readying festivities to launch a full year of celebratory events, starting just before midnight, AFP reports. From rockers to indigenous artists, around 200 dancers were due to set the party pace for tens of thousands of revellers ringing in the new year under snow that has been particularly heavy this year. Quebec's founding July 3, 1608 set up the first continuous French presence in what was then a New World. Four centuries after Champlain's arrival, Canada has seven million French speakers, six million of them in Quebec province. Among the celebrations will be an August 22 concert by Quebec's own pop diva Celine Dion.

All is quiet on New Year's Day, or is it?

Vandals burned down 372 cars in France, or about the same number as last year, French news radio France Info said on Tuesday citing police sources. Vandalism ahead of and during big holidays has become a bad tradition in France in the past few years.

However, police said last night was relatively quiet, with 259 people arrested for hooliganism and 4 policemen receiving light injuries. A total of about 25,000 policemen, including 4,500 in Paris, were on duty on the New Year night across the country to ensure law and order.

If...

French cinema, 18th-century style

In 18th-century France the aristocrats went already to the movies, Kathryn Shattuck writes for The New York Times. In a new book, “Carmontelle’s Landscape Transparencies: Cinema of the Enlightenment,” the historian Laurence Chatel de Brancion steps back into prerevolutionary France to explore the pastimes created by Louis Carrogis, known as Carmontelle, in his role as resident entertainer at the court of the duke of Orléans. At the heart of the volume are Carmontelle’s experiments with light and moving images: rouleaux transparents, or “rolled-up transparent drawings,” a precursor to modern cinema. The luminous scenes of verdant parks and splendidly attired people — between 12 and 19 inches deep and up to 138 feet long — were backlighted with natural daylight, wound between spindles and viewed in a boxlike precursor to the television, often accompanied by music or narrated by Carmontelle himself. “Carmontelle’s Landscape Transparencies” will be published next month by the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and Ms. Chatel de Brancion will visit Manhattan in April to discuss her book at the National Arts Club.

The prison which would be a luxury hotel

Interested in opening a luxury hotel in the heart of Provence? Check out this real estate offering by the French government: "Exceptional location at the foot of the Palace of the Popes, view of the Rhone River, 10,280 square meters. Ancient St. Anne Prison." The property includes "detention cells, two gyms, a library, a cinema, infirmary rooms, a kitchen and stores," according to the advertisement on the French government's Web site. Avignon, the ancient walled Provencal city famous for a bridge immortalized in a nursery rhyme and a palace built for medieval popes fleeing the chaos of Rome, is searching for a buyer willing to transform its 1865 prison into a luxury hotel, The Washington Post reports. The French government launched an aggressive property sales campaign in 2005. The sales have since jumped from $230 million a year to just over $1 billion last year. The prison is one of dozens of properties across the country that the French government is trying to unload. Whether it's a rural chateau or an urban high-rise, the goal is to boost state finances by selling off buildings that have become too costly or outdated to maintain.

Michel Moreno, local head of France Domaine, the government agency charged with disposing of unused property, said architects estimate it will cost about $40 million to renovate the building. That job would require breaking through 18-inch cell walls, installing heating and air conditioning and generally transforming a sterile edifice into a 110-room hotel that would command top dollar from tourists and nearly double the number of four-star hotel rooms in the city. Because renovation costs will be so high, city officials said the actual sale price of the buildings could be as low as $2 million. The "best cells," like No. 224, where artificial flowers sprout from a chipped vase on a dusty table, could become a presidential suite. But the artwork might have to go. Glancing at curling magazine pages taped to the walls, Moreno noted, "No Picasso or Matisse here, only Playboy and Penthouse."

Benjamin Franklin enlightens Paris

The Musee Carnavalet in Paris commemorates the nine years (1776-1785) that Benjamin Franklin spent in France as the U.S. envoy, secretly negotiating an alliance with the French government, conducting scientific experiments, and womanizing.  The show which runs through March 9 presents 340 paintings, sculptures, archive documents and memorabilia.The exhibition begins by presenting Franklin the scientist, inventor of the lightning rod. Another of Franklin's inventions was the glass harmonica, which captured the imagination of Mozart, Beethoven and other composers. An early example of that curious instrument features in the show. The main focus of the show is, of course, Franklin the diplomat, Bloomberg reports. After it became clear that the British would not crush the American rebellion easily, the French government agreed in February 1778 to sign the military agreement that Franklin had fought so hard for. All of the corresponding documents are on exhibit, including a detailed list of the ammunition, and the considerable loans which Congress asked for. The last part of the exhibition examines Franklin's posthumous reputation. It peaked under the 19th-century monarch Louis Philippe, an era in which unfettered capitalism was the ideology du jour...

The US could soon overtake France in wine consumption

For the 15th consecutive year, wine consumption in the United States is projected to rise in 2007, after a 4% gain in 2006, the Washington Post reports. Citing estimates from the 2007 wine market report by Impact Databank, the Post says consumption will reach a record 304 million cases this year. That will, for the first time, place the United States ahead of Italy in per-capita consumption, trailing only France...At the current rate of growth, Americans will overtake the French by 2015. Wine consumption in the US is forecast to reach 860 million gallons in 2011 based on growth of 3.7% per year. Per capita wine consumption in the US is expected to reach 3.8 gallons in 2011 based on annual increases averaging 2.6% from 3.4 gallons in 2006. According to some analysts South American and Australian wines will continue to be attractive to US consumers, but European wines, with the drop in the value of the dollar, will lose some appeal. They will rise in price by 10% to as much as 30% in the coming year.

France says goodbye to cafe culture

Eleven months after smoking was outlawed in workplaces, schools, hospitals and shops, the ban is extending to bars and bistrots, with some owners predicting the demise of France's lively cafe culture. While the ban kicks in on January 1, police say they are in no hurry to hand out fines to smokers hours after they ring in the New Year, suggesting that the ban will be gradually enforced. Supporters of the anti-tobacco drive point to France's smooth transition to smoke-free workplaces in February as a sign that the country has become more health-conscious. But some business groups representing cafe and restaurant owners are up in arms, demanding that restrictions be eased, especially in the countryside where banning smoking at the local "bar-tabac" is tantamount to an attack on the French lifestyle, AP reports. Under the French ban, smokers who light up in a public place can be fined up to 450 euros (645 dollars) while business owners may face penalties of up to 750 euros. Tobacco is the leading cause of avoidable death in France, with more than 5,000 deaths per year from second-hand smoke and an additional 66,000 from smoking directly, according to the health ministry, which wouldn’t mention the alcohol effects. France has a current population of 13.5 million smokers (and counting...).

(Source: Associated Press)

Julien Gracq and the opposite shore

He was known for Surrealism and solitude and for having turned down France’s top literary prize, Julien Gracq (the pen name of the French writer Louis Poirier who was known as one of the last links to the pre-World War II Surrealist movement) died on Saturday in Angers, France. He was 97. His literary debut came in 1938 with “Au Château d’Argol” (“The Castle of Argol”), a novel known for a Surrealist tinge, which garnered praise from André Breton. Infuriated by criticism of some of his early works and tightly defensive of his privacy, Mr. Gracq turned against French literary circles and rejected the Goncourt Prize, for which he had been chosen in 1951 for “Le Rivage des Syrtes” (“The Opposite Shore”), his best-known novel. For many years, Mr. Gracq taught high-school history and geography. All told, he published 20 works — including novels, essays and plays.

Miro painting sells for record price at Paris auction

A painting by Spanish artist Joan Miro sold for a record 11.6 million euros (16.7 million dollars) in Paris Friday -- the highest price ever for one of his works, the auctioneers Drouot said. The 1927 painting "Blue Star" had been estimated at between five to seven million euros, and was considered by Miro himself as the key work of his output. The sale was part of an auction of ten works, including pieces by Picasso, Juan Gris, Leger, and Laurens which sold for a total of 21.8 million euros. "Bird", another work by Miro, went for 6.2 million euros.