Friday's French Music break - Michael Jackson, "Je ne veux pas la fin de nous"

Yep, you read correctly. Michael Jackson singing in French - a version of his 1987 duet with Siedah Garrett of "I just can't stop loving you".

Michael Jackson (screenshot "I just can't stop loving you" Live Bucharest Dangerous Tour 1992 YouTube video)

All right, it might not exactly be the very best of Jackson, but the original was the first of five consecutive tracks taken from the album "Bad" to make it to the top of the Billboard 100 - at a time when that sort of thing still mattered.

Can it really be (gulp) 25 years since the release of the album "Bad" from which the duet was taken?

Indeed it is, because it has been repackaged and re-released as "Bad 25" to celebrate the 25th anniversary of first hitting the shelves

"Je ne veux pas la fin de nous" is featured as one of the bonus tracks in the triple-CD and DVD set which was released here in France on September 17.

And for those who really, really like the song and speak Spanish, there's also a version in that language, "Todo mi amor eres tu".

Of course the whole "Bad 25" album is probably just another means by which Sony Music can capitalise on Jackson's legacy and the Los Angeles Times pop music critic Randall Roberts provides a pretty frank review of just what fans will get for their money.

For the truly diehard fan - and there are certainly plenty of them - there's also a documentary directed by Spike Lee on the making of the original album.

It screened outside of competition at the Venice film festival at the beginning of September, received its North American premiere at the Toronto international film festival a fortnight later and will hit the small screen - in the States - on November 22.

No word yet for French fans as to when it might air here.

OK. Enough. You can click on the links provided for source material and to find out more about the album - original and re-release - and the film.

For now, here's a rather "iffy" YouTube footage compilation to accompany the recording of "Je ne veux pas la fin de nous".

French finance minister says "not personally moved" by Michael Jackson's death

It was of course the major story leading the news here in France on Friday; the death of US pop singer, Michael Jackson.

And journalists took every opportunity to pose the inevitable question (in slightly differing formats) to all their pre-invited guests, no matter what their background.

"How do you feel about the death of Michael Jackson?" Or the variant "Has the news of his death touched you in any way?"

It was the latter of the two that was put to this country's finance minister, Christine Lagarde, as the opening question to her interview when she appeared, as scheduled, on the early morning show of the French all-news channel, LCI.

And Lagarde didn't mess around with her answer, replying quite simply, "No." Followed by the briefest of pauses and then, "He was a great artist, who has received a lot of media attention worldwide for practically 40 years," she continued.

"Of course I'm sorry for his fans and for the music, but (his death) hasn't touched me personally."

A well-practised political grin into the camera, followed by the next question from the journalist that, after all, got to the nub of the matter and the real reason she had been invited in the first place; increasing unemployment in France, and when the country was likely to come out of the economic crisis.

So there you have it. The straightforward non-spun reaction from one of France's top ministers to "the question of the day".

Maybe though Lagarde could have thought a little before giving such a response, which seems more than a little heartless.

After all the 53-year-old former synchronised swimming champion (no it doesn't have anything to do with her current job, but it's a useful bit of trivia to throw in at the dinner table perhaps) speaks fluent English and spent several years living and working in the States.

It's perhaps hard to imagine that she did a great deal of moonwalking in her younger days, but she surely couldn't have been totally oblivious to the impact Jackson had on popular culture the other side of the Atlantic as well as elsewhere.

To that extent, maybe she could have given an answer that didn't appear to illustrate that she really was quite unconcerned by the news.

Just a thought.