Eric Cantona for president?

It's unlikely that he'll manage to get the support of the 500 mayors necessary to stand in the French presidential elections, but former international footballer Eric Cantona is apparently seriously thinking about it.

Image (screenshot from BFM TV report)

According to the national daily Libération, the 45-year-old has sent out a letter to all of the country's nearly 37,000 mayors seeking their backing and outlining how much of an "engaged citizen" he is.

In the letter he wrote that he wants to collect at least 500 signatures to "send out a clear and powerful message; a message of of truth and respect at a time when the country faces difficult choices which will be decisive about its future."

Image (screenshot from BFM TV report)

Cantona is already a sponsor of one of the country's most well-known charities helping the homeless, Fondation Abbé Pierre.

And he has the full backing off the Fondation which launched a petition in September 2011 to make homelessness and the lack of affordable housing a major issue in the presidential campaigns.

"We need a stimulus such as Cantona to restore (the issue of) housing to the place it deserves in the campaign," the Fondation's managing director Patrick Doutreligne told Agence France Presse.

So Cantona for president?

Well it'll be an uphill struggle. Even if he manages to collect those 500 signatures needed to stand, there's the additional problem of financing a credible campaign.

And few will forget his last foray into the political arena in December 2010 when he called for a run on the country's banks by encouraging savers to withdraw all their money in protest at the role of the banks in the global financial crisis.

That day of protest came and went with few heeding the call.

French farmer fined for illegally parking tractor - an ocean away from home

Anyone familiar with France will know that it's a large country - a very large country.

First up of course there's the mainland that most (well there are exceptions) people will be able to point to on a map of Europe.

(from Wikipedia)

You know; capital - Paris, borders with Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Spain and a stretch of water separating it from its oldest friendly enemy, the United Kingdom.

But there's more to it. Much more.

And it comes in the shape of its overseas départements, collectivities and territories.

They all have representatives elected to both the National Assembly and Senate and while the collectivities and territories are autonomous, the five départements are to all intents and purposes part of France.

In other words France isn't just the hexagon-shaped metropolitan area in Europe.

It's also the Indian Ocean islands of Réunion and Mayotte, Guyane française (French Guiana) in South America and the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe.

And that's worth bearing in mind, because it might go some way to explaining how bureaucratic mistakes can happen, such as the one Didier Labouygues is currently experiencing.

He's a part-time farmer in the village of Gagnac-sur-Cère in southwestern France, hiring himself and his tractor out when there's work to be done.

Last November he received a fine for having parked his tractor illegally and, as the regional daily La Dépêche du Midi reports, at first sight, all seemed to be in order.

But Labouygues read the letter a little more carefully and discovered that the "apparent offence" had taken place in Fort de France - the capital of Martinique, an ocean and several thousand kilometres away!

"I couldn't believe it," he told the newspaper.

"I took the letter along to the police station and was told that it must be some sort of clerical error (note from France Today - No kidding) and I wrote to Le Centre Automatisé de Constatation des Infractions (CACIR) in Rennes. I'm still waiting for a reply."

Of course Labouygues' case is not an isolated one - far from it.

CACIR has proven itself to be well capable in administrative cock-ups - on a frequent basis.

Just ask Patrick Pilak, a farmer in the village of Gouzougnat in the département of Creuse. From December 2010 until August 2011, he received three separate fines for illegally parking his tractor in Paris...admittedly only 400 kilometres away from where he lived and worked.

Another farmer in the département of l'Oise, just north of Paris, received a similar fine in October for apparently having overrun the meter - close to the château de Versailles. Another improbable location for a tractor.

And then there was the case of Gilles Rocher, also in October 2011, a motorist from Capbreton in southwestern France, fined 143 times for the same offence - each letter being delivered separately.

Back to the latest case though, and the last word perhaps should belong to the mayor of Gagnac-sur-Cère, mayor of the village, Danièle Vallin.

She told La Dépêche du Midi that, "CACIR should do its work properly and check on the credibility of a fine before sending out a letter.

And somehow, you can't help thinking that she might have a valid point.

German skit of Merkozy "Rescue summit or Euros for No One"

Now it definitely helps if you speak German for a video that has become something of a hit on YouTube ever since it was first posted on December 28.

Merkozy (screenshot from YouTube clip)

It's a parody of a comedy skit broadcast twice every New Year's Eve on German television.

The original is "Dinner for One", a 1963 sketch featuring British comedian Freddie Frinton as James the butler and May Warren as Miss Sophie, who has sadly outlived all her friends but insists on celebrating her 90th birthday party in style...with places set for each of her guests.

Frinton serves each absent guest a drink with every course and raises a toast to the birthday girl on behalf of those invited.

The result is predictable. Frinton becomes ever tipsier until the final scene in which he is about to escort Warren upstairs with the "hilarious" lines,

"Same procedure as last year Miss Sophie?" asks Frinton.

"The same procedure as every year James," replies Warren.

"Well, I'll do my very best," responds Frinton with a saucy wink and a "Good night."

Perhaps it's a German thing, but it has most definitely become an annual institution.

Some bright spark at ARD, one of Germany's two national public broadcasters, though decided to update the whole thing and make it more...well relevant to a modern-day audience.

Satirist Udo Eling of the channel's Morgenmagazin decided to superimpose the heads of French president Nicolas Sarkozy on James the Butler and...well you've probably guessed the other "character" - Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel as Miss Sophie.

The dialogue is different of course focussing on the relationship of the two who're often collectively called "Merkozy" in the media.

And "absent friends" include the former prime ministers Greece and Spain, Giorgios Papandreou and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero as well as UK prime minister David Cameron. Italy's Silvio Berlusconi wasn't invited.

The last line of the parody which has Sarkozy fawning to Merkel, described earlier in the sketch as the "only real statesman Europe has to offer" has the French president asking as they mount the staircase, "Madame Merkel, this time without Eurobonds?"

"Yes of course," she replies.

"As always without Eurobonds."

To which Sarkozy responds, "I'll give you my Triple A Madame Merkel."

Well, maybe it sounds funnier in German.

Enjoy?



And the original "Dinner for One" just in case you're up for it.