Universal Music's boss pays unsuitable "tribute" to Georges Moustaki

French singer-songwriter Georges Moustaki died on Thursday at the age of 79.

As you would probably expect from an artist of his stature, there were many moving tributes.

The national daily Le Figaro called Moustaki "un artiste extraordinaire"

On her official page, the minister of culture, Aurélie Filippetti, paid homage to "the man who had composed for some of France's musical giants before revealing himself as a great interpreter of his own songs."

Given Moustaki's roots (both his parents came from Corfu) TF1 took perhaps the more "popular", but nonetheless fitting approach.

Alongside running a segment on Moustaki's career, the channel's prime time news sought the reactions of a couple other famous Greeks (in France).

A tearful Nana Mouskouri sang him a short "message of love" and TV presenter Nikos Aliagas remembered the "sincerity in his eyes".

Outside of France, international news organisations such as the BBC and Deutsche Welle ran pieces on their sites.

And the Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova sent her condolences to Moustaki's family and friends in a statement on her official page.

Inevitably their were also tributes from the famous and the less well known on Twitter, expressing their sense of loss and admiration for the man, or simply linking to videos and performances of their favourite songs.

Everyone, it seemed, wanted to their pay respects to the man and his life - and quite rightly.

Except for one particular person. Pascal Nègre, the head of Universal Music, France - the label for which Moustaki recorded.

 Alongside calling Moustaki one of "the last legends, an artist and a poet" Nègre couldn't, it seems, resist reminding his 35,000 or so followers that Moustaki's works were available on Universal - ending his tasteful Tweet with RIP.

While many might view Nègre's Tweet as inappropriate (and indeed were soon poking fun at it in reply), he couldn't see anything wrong with what he had done.

"Why should I regret it?" he said.  "I paid tribute to an artist we were fortunate enough to produce and I simply gave information that we hold a lot of his musical catalogue."

Well, as you obviously need telling M. Nègre, it's called opportunism. And it's in pretty poor taste.





Georges Moustaki - Le facteur par kyssiane

Toulouse shootings - seen from an expat bubble perspective

The deaths of three children and a teacher at a Jewish school in the southwestern city of Toulouse on Monday after an unknown gunman opened fire on them has become not only a major local and national story, but an international one too.

Shootings in Toulouse and Montauban (screenshot from France 2 news)

All major news organisations, local, regional and international, have been carrying reports on the shooting, the reactions and the link that has been established to the separate shootings and deaths of three soldiers in the same city and the nearby town of Montauban last week.

The candidates in next month's first round of the presidential elections all suspended their campaigns for one day.

The current president, Nicolas Sarkozy, as well as his main opponent, the Socialist party candidate François Hollande, have both visited Toulouse since the shootings, as have several other candidates and current government ministers.

A minute's silence was held in schools throughout the country on Tuesday.

Turn on the radio or the television or pick up a newspaper and you'll more than likely catch an update on who has said what, speculation about the gunman's motives, the police investigation that has been launched, the concerns of parents over the safety of their children, the fears of another attack...in fact you cannot miss hearing, seeing or reading about what happened.

Not even if you're unable to speak French because BBC, CNN, Sky and others have all been covering developments.

The region of Midi-Pyrénées, in which both Toulouse and Montauban are situated, has been put on "scarlet alert", the highest terror alert in France.

So it's hard to live here and not at least have an inkling as to what happened - right?

Wrong.

This was posted on a thread about the "scarlet terror" alert in the Midi-Pyrénées on one of the many sites for mainly native English-speakers to help them get to grips with living in France.

"Please explain what you're talking about," wrote (link withheld) the contributor

"I live in L'isle-en-Dodon, Haute Garrone...! (sic)"

Just for those of you who don't know, and at the risk of being repetitive, Haute Garonne is one of the eight départements in the region of Midi-Pyrénées, and its main city is Toulouse.

L'Isle-en-Dodon is a small town (two thousand inhabitants) 70 kilometres or just over one hour's drive away from where the school shootings took place.

No comment.

Whitney Houston and THAT French TV appearance

Sunday's headlines, even here in France, were dominated by the news of the death of US singer Whitney Houston at the age of just 48.

The tributes have of course been pouring in - quite rightly too - as she had buckets of (wasted) talent and one heck of a voice.

Houston was a true diva with a string of hits few will forget, even if they weren't fans.

And for the French she also provided, albeit unwittingly, one of those rare moments of live TV that remain classics of the "I cannot believe my eyes" genre.

Whitney Houston and Serge Gainsbourg Champs Elysées on Antenne 2 (screenshot from Ina.fr video)

Actually it wasn't so much down to her of course but the late great multi-talented Serge Gainsbourg.

It came back in April 1986 when Houston was appearing in a popular Saturday night variety show Champs Elysées on Antenne 2 (now France 2).

The programme, presented by Michel Drucker, was a huge hit and lasted for most of the 1980s with stars - both French and international - passing through to sing their latest hit, or promote their next album, film, book or whatever.

After a hiatus of almost two decades, the show hit the screen again in 2010 and there have been a couple of "specials" since.

Anyway back to that night on April 5, 1986 - one Drucker and most viewers watching, will probably never forget.

Houston had just finished her number when Drucker thanked her and walked her over to be seated next to Gainsbourg.

And that of course is where the fun began as a slightly (to put it mildly) inebriated Gainsbourg became more than a little frisky - verbally at least.

Houston didn't really know how to react (who would under the circumstances?) although she remained professional and Drucker lost control while trying to retranslate clearly obvious sexual come-ons into polite and acceptable prime-time language.

He failed.

Babu - just an ordinary hero

When it was first reported, the story of a man dying on the Paris métro system didn't make much of an impact on headline writers in France.

Photo of Rajinder Singh - "Babu" (snapshot from TF1 news report)

He had apparently been pushed on to the track and been electrocuted.

It's the kind of story you hear about from time to time - one of those news items that probably tends to wash over you as "oh just another story".

Except behind the headline of course was much more, as the daily Le Parisien revealed in a tribute it paid to Rajinder Singh, the man known by his nearest and dearest (and the rest of us now) as "Babu".

The 33-year-old Indian immigrant was reportedly travelling on the métro when he saw a pickpocket try to steal a mobile 'phone from a fellow passenger.

Babu intervened, coming to the woman's assistance , apparently asking the man to "leave her alone."

But a struggle then followed and continued as the train pulled into the next stop.

The two men got off and the pickpocket began punching Babu, finally pushing him off the platform and running away.

Babu was electrocuted.

And there the story might have ended, except for the reaction to a profile of Babu which Le Parisien ran the day after the incident.

It was a simple tribute to a man born in the Punjab region of India who had come to France seven years ago to "be able to work to send money home to his family and give them a better life," as one of his cousins told the newspaper.

Apparently a gentle man, opposed to violence of any sort, Babu was described by one of his friends as "goodness personified".

Babu's family wanted his body returned to India, but couldn't afford it.

Internet messages of support (snapshot from TF1 news report)

Babu's death - one which Le Parisien said left no one indifferent - provoked what TF1 news called "an astounding show of solidarity," with messages on the Internet and his brother-in-law Jean-Louis Lecomte, receiving 'phone calls of support and letters of donation.

On Wednesday a minute's silence was held at the station where Babu had died with the minister of transport, Thierry Mariani, and the minister of culture, Frédéric Mitterrand among those paying homage.

RATP, the public transport operator for the Paris region, has agreed to meet the costs of repatriating Babu's body.

Police have arrested a man they suspect of being the pickpocket who pushed Babu to his death.

Hommage poignant à "Babu", héros du métro

Roger Rolland's battle with French bureaucracy to prove he's alive.

Ah bureaucracy.

Don't you just love it?

Of course it's everywhere, but perhaps the French are masters of it.

Or should that be the most adept at making a mess of it?

Just ask Roger Rolland.

Roger Rolland (screenshot TF1 news)

He's very much alive - something to which his family, friends and now television viewers in France can attest.

But French bureaucracy, it seems, has had a hard time believing it and has certainly needed some convincing.

At the end of May the 67-year-old received a call from his local chemist telling him that the social security office had been in touch informing him they were refusing to reimburse the cost of supplying a prescribed medicine a week earlier because...get this...Rolland was dead.

"It certainly gave me something to think about and I had to keep asking my wife to reassure me I was still alive," he told TF1 news with something approaching a smile on his face.

But as he was to discover, proving to French bureaucracy that he was still alive was far from being a laughing matter and would be harder than he thought.

First of all he made his way down to the local health insurance office where he repeated what his chemist had told him.

After plenty of hunting around, an employee discovered that somehow the death certificate of another person had made its way into his file and there had obviously been an administrative error.

As the daily newspaper France Soir reports, the error was rectified immediately and Rolland was able to return home safe in the knowledge that French bureaucracy knew he was alive.

Wrong!

A couple of weeks later the pensions office sent a letter to his home, addressed to his heirs.

Rolland was on the blower immediately to explain that there had been a mix up and...well let's allow him to take up the story as to what happened next.

"The person the other end of the line told me that I would have to provide a certificate proving I was still alive," he said.

"So I went to the town hall to see if one could be supplied...only to be told that no such certificate existed."

While Rolland was busy trying to acquire some sort of non-existent official document to prove he was alive, his wife, Josette, took matters into her own hands.

She rang the pensions office, managed to get hold of the person who had sent the letter to her husband's heirs and was told to, "Have him sign a sworn statement (une attestation sur l’honneur) that he's still alive."

"It was surrealist," Josette told France Soir.

Quite.

End of story?

Not exactly.

The pensions office now had their records straight, but Rolland thought it perhaps wise to contact the office handling the supplementary pension fund to which he was also entitled - just in case.

And that was definitely a smart move, because according to their records, he had been dead since February!

While her husband remains somewhat phlegmatic about the whole mix-up Josette is less understanding.

'It's still amazing that the social security office which made the error in the first place, didn't bother to inform the other departments," she told France Soir.

"If something similar happened to someone more fragile and less able to understand bureaucratic red tape, it could well end up with their being dead - officially and for real."

Déclaré mort par erreur

Virginie Razzano's tribute to Stéphane Vidal, her late fiancé

It might not have been the match of the tournament and it lasted just over an hour, but Tuesday's first round tie at Roland Garros between France's Virginie Razzano and Australia's Jarmila Gajdosova and and the subsequent press conference were both rich in emotion.

Virginie Razzano (screenshot from BFMTV report)

Gajdosova ran out the winner in straight sets, 6-3, 6-1, but the day really belonged to her 28-year-old opponent who was keeping a promise she had made to her fiancé and coach, Stéphane Vidal, who died on May 16 of a brain tumour.

It was at the press conference after the game that Razzano showed her strength and dignity as she prepared to answer the questions, that Europe 1's sports journalist Christophe Lamarre said on his blog, nobody dared to answer.

"I was very moved because I was playing for Stéphane," said Razzano, understandably battling to hold back the tears.

"It was so hard walking on to the Philip Chatrier court; there was a lot of emotion and pain," she continued.

"I tried to pay homage to Stéphane today and even though it was virtually impossible, I tried my best."

"I feel alone even if I have a lot of support from family and friends, But I've still got the strength in me to keep going, little by little.

"I'm in mourning and it's difficult when you lose someone who - excuse me - will always be the man of my life, who I love and will always love."

Razzano then went on to pay tribute to the man who had been both her coach and partner for the past nine years; the bravery Vidal had shown in fighting his illness, the strength and courage both of them had discovered in one another.

Lamarre described how moved those present at the press conference were.

"Her distress overwhelmed us," he wrote.

Some journalists had tears in their eyes, others bowed their heads in respect, he continued."

"I don't know Virginie Razzano personally but I'm not about to forget this lesson of life, courage and dignity."

You can hear a recording of Razzano's speech here (click on "audios").

Tears for the death of Annie Girardot

We're used to scenes of television presenters fluffing their lines or unable to hold back a fit of the giggles for one reason or another.

But it's surely unusual to see one so visibly moved that they're close to tears.

That's exactly what happened during Tuesday morning's edition of the Canal + breakfast programme "La Matinale".

The show's presenter, Maïtena Biraben, had difficulty controlling her emotions, as did fellow journalist Léon Mercadet.

And the reason was quite simple; their reaction to a short montage paying tribute to one of France's most enduring and acclaimed actresses, Annie Girardot, who died on Monday at the age of 79.

Annie Giradot - acceptance speech during Césars in 1996 (screenshot from YouTube video)

Annie Girardot may not be a name with which many people outside of France are that familiar - especially if you're not a lover of this country's cinema.

But she was a giant of the French film industry during the 1960s and 70s, and had a career that began as an accomplished theatre actress, spanned five decades and included more than 120 films for the big screen and over 50 for television.

Girardot starred in six films directed by Claude Lelouch who compared her to Edith Piaf, saying she was the stage "equivalent" of the French singing legend.

Her long career saw her win three Césars - the French equivalent of the Oscars.

In 1977 she picked up the best actress award for the title role in Jean-Louis Bertucelli's "Docteur Françoise Gailland".

And Girardot twice won best supporting actress; in 1996 for the part of Madame Thénardier in Claude Lelouch's "Les Misérables" and again in 2002 when she played Isabelle Huppert's mother in Michael Haneke's "La Pianiste" (Die Klavierspielerin).

Her acceptance speech at the 1996 awards was a "declaration of love" for the French film industry from which she had been sidelined for several years, and it was one that couldn't fail to touch the hearts of those in the audience and viewers at home.

"I don't know if the French cinema missed me," she said.

"But I missed the French cinema...so much."



In 2006 Girardot went public with the news that she was suffering from Alzheimer's and became something of a symbol of the illness here in France especially after the screening in 2008 of Nicolas Baulieu's "Ainsi va la vie".

It was a documentary which managed to bring home the full force of Alzheimer's while remaining a mostly dignified, tender, loving homage to the star.

Baulieu followed the actress and her family until filming stopped in February 2007 when he said that Girardot was no longer aware of the presence of the cameras.

Among the many, many tributes that have been paid to Girardot since the news of her death was announced is that of France's minister of culture, Frédéric Mitterrand.

"She lit the stage as she lit life: with a humanity and a dramatic depth that touched everyone," he wrote.

"Her death is a painful moment for French cinema, which has lost one of its biggest stars, but also for the public, with whom she had a long and affectionate relationship."

Little wonder perhaps then, that both Biraben and Mercadet had trouble holding back their tears on Tuesday morning - and they probably weren't alone.

French singer-songwriter Gérard Berliner dies

The French singer-songwriter and actor Gérard Berliner is dead.

Gérard Berliner singing "Louise" during TV performance (screenshot from video clip)

Best known in France for his million-selling 1982 hit "Louise", Berliner died this earlier week at the age of 54 following a heart attack.

Berliner's name might be unfamiliar to many outside of this country, and indeed his work is probably not that well known to younger French generations.

But one song in particular, "Louise", stands out.

It sold 1.5 million copies when it was released in 1982 and was, according TF1, a song he was regularly invited to sing on television shows throughout the years.

More than a one-hit wonder, Berliner wrote and recorded several albums and appeared on television and stage as an actor.

His performance in the 2006 Molières-nominated show "Mon alter Hugo", inspired by the life of Victor Hugo, won him critical acclaim.

Back to the THAT song though, and listening to and watching his performance, perhaps two things stand out.

First of all no matter how long you live in a country which isn't your homeland or how well-versed (forgive the pun) you might have thought yourself with many of the music standards that have marked previous generations there's still inevitably something to discover - even when it's sadly too late.

And secondly, as the cliché goes, great songs, like (some) wine, only improve with age.


Gerard BERLINER "louise"
envoyé par GERARDSERGE. - Regardez plus de clips, en HD !

Laurent Fignon - the death of a sporting legend

France mourns the death of a sporting hero, Laurent Fignon.

Laurent Fignon, Tour de France, 1993 (from Wikipedia, author Eric Houdas)

Take a look at any of the French newspapers this morning and there's one story that stands out; the death on Tuesday of a cycling legend in France, Laurent Fignon.

The two-time winner of the Tour de France died at the age of 50 after a battle with cancer.

Tributes quickly poured in from cyclists, past and present, the world of sport, politics and television on the news of his death.

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, described Fignon as "an extraordinary and exceptional champion who had left an indelible mark on the history of the Tour de France."

The director of the Tour de France, Christian Prudhomme, described him as one of the "great figures of French cycling", a man who had been for the past 30 years "outspoken" and "chivalrous".

To gain a measure of just how important Fignon was to the sport and the esteem in which he was held in France, you have to wind the clock back a couple of decades when he twice won the Tour de France in 1983 and 1984.

Five years later he lost out by the smallest of margins finishing second behind American Greg LeMond after the two men put had put on what has been described as "arguably one of the most thrilling battles in the history of the Tour".

The gap between the two men at the end of a gruelling three weeks was just eight seconds - the closest finish there has ever been to the Tour.

"Fignon was one the greater champions who was recognised more for his loss in the (1989) race than his first two victories," LeMond told France 24.

"When he lost the Tour de France in 1989 it was one of the few where I felt we both won."

He retired from competitive riding in 1993 and in his autobiography published last year admitted that he had taken drugs during his career, but not the performance-enhancing EPOs of the 1990s which allowed mediocre cyclists to compete at a level well above their natural talent.

Among Fignon's 76 career victories were two Milan-San Remo races and the Giro d'Italia in 1989.

Last year Fignon announced that he had been diagnosed with advanced cancer of the digestive system and was undergoing treatment.

But he continued as a consultant for both national public television, France 2, and the commercial radio station, Europe 1, for this year's race even though at times his voice appeared to be failing him.

Laurent Fignon, August 12, 1960 - August 31, 2010.

A French crematorium's last minute bill for an overweight coffin

Imagine how you would feel if, just before the cremation of your nearest and dearest, you were asked by the company carrying out the ceremony to pay an additional fee because the total weight of the casket and the deceased was heavier than you had initially told them.

That's exactly what happened last week in France to the family of Michel Fontalirand.

Image Wikipedia Creative Commons
Onderwijsgek ({{Afbeelding Onderwijsgek| |omschrijving=Urnenmuur op Begraafplaats Rijnhof te Woerden. |datum=01-07-2007 |auteur=Onderwijsgek }} {{cc-by-sa-2.5-nl}})

Moments before he was due to be cremated at the Montussan crematorium five kilometres from the southwestern city of Bordeaux, Fontalirand's family was asked to stump up a surcharge because the weight of the coffin and body combined was more than had been originally registered with the undertakers.

"When I arrived at the crematorium, I was told there was a slight problem," explained Chantal Correia who had been the family member charged with the responsibility of organising her brother-in-law's funeral arrangements.

"I was informed that Michel actually weighed 25 kgs more than the 120 kgs I had registered when he died, and that the crematorium would have to charge €830 rather than the €565 originally quoted for the cremation," she added.

The news certainly came as a surprise to Correia, who had wrongly assumed that her brother-in-law had lost weight during the final weeks of his life when he was in a coma.

Instead the former amateur rugby player and self-acclaimed bon vivant who, while alive, had ordinarily weighed in at a portly 125 kgs (275 lbs) for 1.70 metres (five feet six inches) had put on an extra 25 kgs.

A fact the undertakers should have picked up on, according to Georges Virgo, the director of the company that runs the Montussan crematorium.

"We specialise in cremating 'corpulent' people and it's the responsibility of the undertakers to ensure that they do their job properly and explain everything to the family," he said.

"Getting the weight right is an important cost factor in our business," he said.

"And last year our furnaces broke down twice because of mistakes made (in registering the weight)," he continued.

"Each time it happened it cost us €150,000," he added.

Crématorium de Montussan -Crématoriums Montussan 33450 Gironde - kewego


Now you might be thinking that his rather hard-nosed business response was hardly the most delicate way of dealing with the extra weight problem on the day, and while it might have been upsetting to Fontalirand's family, they didn't feel in a position to react in any other way than to pay the surcharge.

But as Correia admitted, her brother-in-law would probably have seen the funnier side of events at his cremation.

"He enjoyed his food and loved a joke or two," she said.

"He didn't want flowers or wreaths or any fuss made when he died, just a coffin, to be cremated and basta," she added.

"If he had imagined that we would end up paying a surcharge for his 'extra weight' he would probably have smiled and said, 'I should have gone on a diet before dying'."