FRENCH NEWS - in English of course. Politics, sports, reviews, travel, a slice of life in France and stories you might not necessarily be able to find elsewhere on the Net.
It hasn't been a particularly good week for the French president François Hollande.
Well certainly not as far as potential presidential pets are concerned.
First up of course there was the bellowing camel offered to him by grateful Malians, and then reports that it had been stolen and wouldn't after all be making its way to France.
Now comes the tale of a cow that has - in a manner of speaking - been refused entry to the lawns of the French president's official residence, the Elysée palace.
It's seems representatives from the Association des éleveurs bovins or Cattle breeding association (somehow the French seems more...er...poetic) wanted to show their...um...appreciation of the French president ahead of this year's Salon d'Agriculture which opens in Paris on February 23.
What better way, they must have thought, than to offer him his own cow?
After all, there aren't any other pets at the presidential pad right now.
François Hollande at Salon d'Agriculture, 2012 (screenshot France Télévisions report)
Well, while Hollande was in Brussels cutting a budget deal with the other leaders of the European Union, it was left up to officials at the Elysée palace to break the bad news to the association, that no, they wouldn't be allowed to hand over the beast in person.
Instead, they'll just have to hope that Hollande pops in to pay them a visit during the agricultural fair.
All a bit of a shame really because, as you can see from the video, Hollande was up close and personal with cows during his marathon 12-hour visit to the annual fair last year.
François is sitting at the table, dressed in his best Marks and Spencer dressing gown he bought in London while there recently for the Paralympics, humming to himself while leafing his way through Peter Antonioni and Sean Masaki Flynn's gripping 2007 paperback "Economics for dummies".
Enter Valérie, designer hairnet (???) holding curlers in place and sparks metaphorically flying from her eyes as she slams the door and stomps across the floor.
"Croissant darling?" asks François, putting the book down as he puckers up his lips in anticipation of delivering a morning smacker.
There's a grunt as Valérie ignores the proffered kiss.
"Coffee maybe?" he continues.
Another grunt as Valérie pulls out a chair and plonks herself down opposite him, glowering.
"Sugar?" he asks, adding four teaspoons to help sweeten the temperament of the (second) love of his life.
Silence
"Er...is there something wrong dear?"
The quiet is broken only by the sound of a spoon being stirred; the pace increasing, with François realising that at any moment now the volcano is about to erupt.
There's a sharp intake of breath followed by a shriek...
"HOW COULD YOU?"
François rolls his eyes, feigning innocence and hoping against hopes that his beloved is not referring to what he most fears.
He says nothing.
"YOU'VE INVITED THAT WOMAN TO LUNCH," roars the country's first journalist.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU PLAYING AT COSYING UP TO THAT B....."
"Valérie. Language please. Jean-Marc might hear," interrupts François. "You know he's in the next room waiting to be briefed."
"Oh I don't give a rat's arse about Jean-Marc," replies the woman who has a gift not only with the written, but also the spoken word.
"He's just as much of a wimp as you are. In fact that whole bloody government of dimwits you've cobbled together is band of wusses. The only one who's got any balls worth speaking about is Martine, and you, YOU, were too frightened to include her."
The minister of jealousy was on her habitual early morning roll and François knew better than to try to interject.
"Cowards, spineless weaklings, chickens - that's what your government is," says the woman who had clearly been at the thesaurus again."
"I mean just look at the way the whole lot of you virtually pooped your pants when I sent the Tweet in support of that fool Farlorni," she continues.
"And here you go again sucking up to HER as though she has any sort of role to play in politics. And why? I'll tell you why...."
François sighs.
Just a few months in office has taught him this is the best way to deal with the daily diatribe he has to endure before getting on with the real business of trying to pretend to run the country.
He knows she can't help herself. She's a woman of character after all; one who has perfected the art of the poisoned pen 21st-century style, whose talents as a writer go largely ignored even though she has flair and style in huge measure. He muses in wonderment at her most recent œuvre, 'François Hollande President; 400 jours dans les coulisses d'une victoire'.
"Yes those photos were all right. But the accompanying text, written by Valérie's fair hand...well it was simply magnificent," he thinks to himself.
He can't for the life of him work out why it's not selling well and he understands her frustration.
"Ah yes," he thinks. "That's the problem with strong women. They constantly need challenges and are so easily riled when things don't go quite how they expect. If only she wouldn't take things so seriously or personally. Maybe she should stop trying to put on a false front of pursuing a profession and get on with some real first lady like charity work," he ponders.
"Oh, oh. I had better not even think those thoughts - very politically incorrect. I would be in for a real dressing down if she knew what was going through my mind..."
"...And then to top it all, the children turned around and said they didn't want to see me. You know who turned them against me, don't you?" Valérie takes a sip of her coffee.
"Well, don't you?" she pauses
FRANçOIS!" roars the minster of jealousy.
"Yes dear?"
"You haven't been listening to a word I've been saying. That's just so typical. Well sod it. And sod HER."
And with that the country's first journalist stands up, flings her napkin on the table and storms out of the room, shouting as she goes, "And if you think I'm going to stick around for lunch with HER and the rest of them...think again."
BANG, as the door slams shut behind her.
"Er - darling....do you mind if I finish your croissant?" mumbles François into thin air.
Yes, Wednesday saw the first meet and greet session at the Elysée palace between François Hollande and the presidents of all 26 regional councils, including of course the president of Poitou-Charente - a certain Ségolène Royal.
It was her first political appearance since being humiliated in the national assembly elections back in June and journalists were on hand of course to mark the occasion as a smiling Seggers wearing a "flashy orange jacket in a sea of grey" (as she was described) found herself again the centre of attention.
And Valérie Trierweiler? Well, she had excused herself from the proceedings.
Speculation is rife on the Net that France's first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, is pregnant.
The source of course is an irreproachable one; the French weekly celebrity gossip magazine Closer, which asserts in its latest edition that "someone very close to the couple," had provided the information.
It's a story which really doesn't matter whether it's true. The very fact that it's out there in the public domain - albeit it Twitterdom and the less serious elements of the mainstream media - means that it has somewhat taken on a life of its own.
The presidential office - the Elysée palace - has reacted of sorts when questioned by the national weekly newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche with "It's a matter which touches on the private life of the president" - another way of saying "No comment' in a country which has very strict laws which are largely accepted when it comes to public figures.
Perhaps that explains why the so-called story has not really made on the sites or pages of France's main newspapers and magazines, let alone the airwaves and screens of radio and television.
As Bruno Roger-Petit points out on the French website Le Post, there has been almost complete indifference from the mainstream media (other than the usual suspects) to the speculation so far.
Perhaps that's not so surprising as this is the third time in as many years that rumours have surfaced about an impending patter of tiny feet at the Elysée palace.
Just run a Google search and you'll be able to pull up umpteen articles maintaining Bruni-Sarkozy has at one point or another been expecting.
Be that as it may, Closer is sticking to its guns this time around.
The editor of the magazine, Laurence Pieau, confirmed the "scoop" to the national daily Le Parisien, saying that she was certain the information was more than reliable.
"We would not have divulged the news without being completely sure," she said.
"It has been corroborated by several different sources and we are convinced that Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is in the earliest weeks of her pregnancy."
The next few days and weeks will tell whether the rumour is true, but in the meantime, Closer has created a buzz, ensured its sales for the following week, and taken everyone's mind away from political affairs that might actually be of some importance over the coming year as campaigning hots up for the presidential elections in May 2012.
It's time for music fans to pin back their lugholes once again.
France's multi-gifted first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, has confirmed that she's working on a new album - her fourth - and if reports are to be believed is ready to return to the recording studio early next year.
The news came last week as she and her husband, the French president Nicolas Sarkozy, hosted the annual Christmas tree ceremony at the official presidential residence, the Elysée palace.
According to the French media, Bruni-Sarkozy has written and composed most, if not all, the songs herself - reports vary.
Although no fixed date has been given either for her return to the studio or the subsequent release of an album, one or other could coincide with a timely announcement from her husband that he's seeking a second mandate.
Rumours have been rife for some time now that Bruni-Sarkozy was preparing to treat her fans to another delightful and delicious dose of her gasping, rasping and breathlessly sensuous ("Get down Shep") voice.
And there were suggestions that advisors to the French president had asked delay her planned musical comeback (Bruni-Sarkozy's last album, "Comme si de rien n'était" was released in July 2008).
That didn't stop her from making a return to the studio earlier this year, albeit as a composer, when she penned "Je chante le blues" on the latest album from one of this country's first "girls of rock 'n roll" and now a long-established star of the French musical scene, Sylvie Vartan.
Bruni-Sarkozy's most recent venture into the studio though was to record a cover version of David Bowie's 1986 hit "Absolute beginners".
She was one of many artists to record Bowie tracks for a double album paying tribute to one of rock and pop's undisputed greats.
Unfortunately for France's first lady her rendition was panned by many (including that arbiter of great taste, Britain's Daily Mail) as "Absolutely awful".
Here's wishing the soon-to-be 43-year-old (whose birthday is on December 23) more favourable (musical) reviews in the New Year.
Mystery surrounds the meeting between the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and international striker Thierry Henry on Thursday with nobody certain as to who requested the talks let alone what the two men discussed.
Sarkozy's office insists it was the French striker who asked to speak to the president, and a report in the national daily le Monde even quotes a spokesman for Sarkozy as saying that indeed "Thierry Henry had rung from South Africa requesting a meeting when he returned to France."
But national radio RTL reports the story the other way round insisting that it was Sarkozy who rang Henry to set up the meeting.
One thing's for certain though, when France's most capped player (122 appearances) and leading international scorer (51 goals) arrived back from South Africa on Thursday with the rest of the team, a car was waiting to whisk him away to president's official residence, the Elysée palace.
Thierry Henry (source Wikipedia, photo Shay)
Although journalists were waiting at the main entrance to pose their questions before and after the meeting, Henry discreetly entered and left through a side gate and without saying a thing, and there have been no leaks as to what the two men discussed.
They certainly had plenty to talk about after the French team's disastrous performance in South Africa, and Henry, a former captain of Les Bleus and a member of the 1998 World Cup winning team and the side that went on to lift the European Football championship in 2000 is a man with a glittering football pedigree.
But the meeting between the two men received short shrift from Jean-Louis Vielajus, the president of Coordination Sud.
He and other environmental non-governmental organisations had been scheduled to see Sarkozy ahead of the G20 summit in Toronto, but as he said on the federation's website, as far as the French president was concerned, football took priority.
"For Nicolas Sarkozy, holding a meeting with a footballer is more important than the situation of three billion poor people in developing countries," Vielajus said.
"It sends out a bad signal as far as the political co-operation of France is concerned."
If reports in the French media are confirmed, then the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, looks likely to cancel the annual garden party held at his official residence, the Elysée palace, to celebrate Bastille Day on July 14.
It's a move which is being interpreted by many here as the government wanting to be seen to be setting an example by tightening its own belt at a time when it's also likely to ask the French to face tax rises and spending cuts.
The news that the garden party is to be cancelled first appeared in the national daily Le Parisien-Aujourd'hui en France.
It hasn't yet been officially confirmed by Sarkozy's office, that's expected next week, but after the weekly cabinet meeting on Wednesday, the government spokesman, Luc Chatel, gave every sign that newspaper reports weren't that far off the mark.
Chatel stressed the need for government ministers and their departments to be "exemplary" in times of fiscal austerity, according to the left-of-centre daily Libération.
"A lot has already been done and changes made in the way departments operate under this current administration," said Chatel
"It was Nicolas Sarkozy who called for the Elysée palace to have a fixed budget just like all the other state institutions, and to have its spending audited," he added.
The first garden party held in the grounds of the Elysée palace, took place in 1978 under the then-president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.
Since then it has grown and last year's rather lavish affair saw Sarkozy and his wife play host to 7,500 invitees among them government ministers, ambassadors from other countries, foreign dignitaries and prominent French celebrities.
The total cost for staging the event was revealed to have been €732,826 or around €100 per person.
Bastille Day is a national holiday in France marking the storming of the Parisian prison of the same name in 1789 which sparked the French revolution.
Is the decision by the press office of the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, to use the word "armistice" in its description of the ceremony marking the end of World War II hostilities in Europe a question of ignorance of history or political correctness?
That's the question that has been posed by some sectors of the media here this week after the services of the Elysée palace, the French president's office, sent out what it called "a message" to journalists informing them of "The 65th Anniversary of the Armistice of 1945" to be held in the eastern French town of Colmar next weekend.
May 8 is Victory in Europe Day (VE Day) marking the date when the Allies formally accepted Germany's unconditional surrender at the end of World War II.
It's a national holiday in many parts of Europe and in France there'll be ceremonies up and down the country including the one at which Nicolas Sarkozy will be present.
But for the second year in a row the office of the Elysée palace has decided to use the term "armistice" rather than "capitulation" or "surrender" in describing the ceremony.
And that's a mistake, as far as the French weekly news magazine Le Point is concerned.
A point also taken up by the left-of-centre news weekly Marianne, which digs deeper into history, consults definitions of "capitulation", "surrender" and "armistice" and comes to the conclusion that either the whole affair illustrates a lack of knowledge of history on the part of the Elysée or it's an attempt to rewrite the history books.
"Such a confusion of the terms is understandable, if inaccurate, among Internet users, but not by those working closely with the French president," it says.
Perhaps not the most convincing explanation of the intent behind the use of the word "armistice", but the one with which it looks as though the the French media will have to be content.
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