Friday's French music break - Boulevard des Airs, "Y siguen pasando"

If you like a Spanish flavour to your music, then you'll  probably enjoy this week's Friday's French music break.

It's "Y siguen pasando", a track taken from "Les Appareuses Trompences, the most recent album (released in 2013) by Boulevard des Airs (or BDA for short).

(screenshot from YouTube video)

On their official site, the nine-piece band describe themselves as "an alternative rock group", although with such diverse self-declared influences as Georges Brassens, Jacques Brel, Rage Against the Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers and (inevitably perhaps) Manu Chao, their music is difficult to pigeon hole.

The lyric-driven tradition of the French "Chanson", reggae, ska, pop, rock and latin rhythm all figure in the group's assorted repertoire and they sing in French (of course) Spanish and English.

And the "group of mates", which includes brothers Florent and Jean-Noël Dasque, from the southwest of France aren't hard up for choice when it comes to mixing intrumentals into their music.

Accordion (don't groan) trumpet, trombone, clarinet, saxophone, piano, ukelele, guitar and drums all play their part and make those lives performances - and there have been plenty of them, because this is a group that thrives on the contact with its public - a real treat.

"We've more or less reached our goal, which was to be able to earn a living while making music," group member Sylvain Duthu said in a 2013 interview

"We've also had the chance to play a lot of concerts primarily in France and the reaction we've had from audiences acts as a spur for us to carry on."

The connection with the audience during concerts is probably the real strength of the group which formed in 2004: that and the fact that they all seem to be having a ruddy good time on stage (watch the second video which is a compilation of some of their live performances from 2013).

Little wonder then, that BDA were nominated in the category Group or Artist Stage Révélation of the Year in 2013 at Les Victoires de la Musique (losing out to multi-winners C2C).

BDA are currently in Madrid for a series of concerts but will be back in France, playing at a town near you, from the end of May.

http://bda-boulevarddesairs.com/dates-de-concerts-show-case/

Enough of the "Bla Bla" (incidentally, the title of their most recent single). Here's "Y siguen pasando" followed by that compilation of live performances from 2013.

Have a good weekend.

Local elections in France and the case of Maurice Fritel - a very bad loser

The battles have been fought, the results have been digested and the post-mortem has been done.

The French local elections are over for another six years.

Up and down the country, mayors and their councils are now busy installing themselves comfortably while the losers are returning to life as normal.

Well not quite. At least not in the village of Saint-Germain-d'Aunay (population 174) in the département of Orne in northwestern France.

You see the former mayor, Maurice Fritel, has left those who will succeed him, a less than pleasant welcoming gift - or two.
image

Maurice Fritel (screenshot France 3 television report)

First up, Fritel, who hadn't been planning on for standing for re-election as mayor for health issues but wanted to remain on the council, decided to dig up the only path leading to the salle polyvalente, or village hall, making it impassable for vehicles other than tractors or four-wheel drives.

The 69-year-old was well within his legal rights as although the land on which the village hall stands is public property, the path he ploughed and which leads to the building...well that belongs to him.

(screenshot France 3 television report)

But Fritel, who had been mayor of the village since 1978 didn't stop there.

He also "nicked" all the chairs from the mayor's office: chairs he had himself "donated" to the local council some years back.

"People who supported me asked me to remove him (Fritel) from the list," the newly-elected mayor, Louis Toqué, told France 3 television.

"They were the same people who had stood against him in the last elections and his removal from the list this time around clearly upset him."

You don't say!

Fritel is far from being contrite though.

In fact he seems rather amused and satisfied with himself.

"I didn't hide anything from anyone," he said. "All you have to do is take a look at the property register to see that the land belongs to me."

The cost of building a path (on communal land) allowing vehicles access to the village hall will be around €6,000.

Sounds like a great place to live.

French Green party's "absurd and immature" decision not to take part in Manuel Valls' government

All right, raise your hand if you understand what the French Greens are playing at.

Speculation is...um...rife (yes it's a cliché but what the heck) as to the composition of the government to be announced by France's brand spanking new prime minister Manuel Valls.

But one thing seems certain. It won't contain any members of the Greens - or the Europe Ecologie-Les Verts (EELV) to give the party its proper name.

When the French president, François Hollande, formally announced on Monday evening (wisely missing the April 1 dateline by a few hours) that he had asked Valls to form a new government, former Green ministers Cécile Duflot and Pascal Canfin (who?) quickly responded by saying they wouldn't accept any position offered.

Canfin even went as far as to say that Duflot had turned down the post of number two in the new government and an important portfolio for reasons of "political coherence" (never the Greens' strong point, as will soon become evident).

But there was still hope that others within the party might see sense. After all the Greens were the (very) junior party in former prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault's government and could still have had their say in forming policy.

On Tuesday four of the party's big wigs, Emmanuelle Cosse, Jean-Vincent Placé, Barbara Pompili and François de Rugy toddled off to meet Valls and have a good ol' chinwag about the party's possible participation in his new government.

Or not, as it turned out, because it all came to nowt.

After a natter among themselves in the evening, the party's executive office took a vote, deciding, as they announced on the official website, that despite the propositions made by Manuel Valls, the conditions for their participation in his government hadn't been met.

A decision which was both "absurd and immature," as far as Green parliamentarian François-Michel Lambert was concerned.

While for de Rugy, one of the party's co-presidents in the national assembly, it was "incomprehensible decision and a blow for the ecologists."

Jean-Vincent Placé (screenshot BFM TV

It's easy to understand their frustration especially as on Wednesday morning Placé appeared on Jean-Jacques Bourdin's show on BFM TV to confirm that "no member of the party would be included in the new government, not even in an independent capacity" even though during Tuesday's talks Valls had offered the post of...wait for it...minister of the ecology, environment and energy.

Oh well. That makes perfect sense...to a member of the French Green party.