Charb's poignantly prophetic last cartoon for Charlie Hebdo

After the events of Wednesday, when armed gunmen shot and killed 12 people at the offices in Paris of the French satirical weekly "Charlie Hebdo", there's little that hasn't been said, written or reported, both within France and abroad.

As a tribute to those who died here are two images.

The first is a screenshot taken for the weekly news magazine "L'Obs". It's the very last cartoon drawn by "Charlie Hebdo's" editor, Stéphane Charbonnier or "Charb", who was one of those killed in the attack.

It's tragically predictive with the headline reading, "Toujours pas d'attentats en France?" "Still no attacks in France?" and an armed Islamist militant saying, "Attendez" or "Wait".
"On a jusqu'à la fin janvier pour présenter ses vœux "We have until the end of January to present our New Year's wishes" - a satire on the French (political and social) tradition of wishing others a happy New Year throughout the whole of the month.

Charb's last cartoon (screenshot from "L'Obs")

And the second powerful image is that of the front cover of Thursday's edition of the national daily Libération.

No translation needed.

Libération front cover tribute to "Charlie Hebdo"

Valerie Trierweiler's tell-all memoir to be made into a film

We've already had the best-selling book - although we didn't really need (or want) it.

So it's perhaps not so much of a surprise that it's about to be followed up by a film...a tee-shirt, a mug and a song.

No. Those last three elements aren't true (yet) but the first part is.

The best-selling tell-all tale "Merci pour ce moment" ("Thank you for this moment") from France's former first lady Valérie Trierweiler is apparently going to hit the big screen after the actress-producer Saïda Jawad revealed that she had secured the films rights.

Valérie Trierweiler (screenshot interview with BBC's "Newsnight" - November 2014)

In an interview with the weekly glossy magazine "Gala", Jawad spoke about her plans to turn the book of her "close friend of three years" into a movie, saying that her production company was, in agreement with Trierweiler, was working on developing the film adaptation.

"In the book, Valérie embodied the struggle of a woman trying to tell the truth," Jawad said.

"The film will be a fictionalised biopic in which I envisage the main character telling her story to a close friend and allowing us to understand better the political world," she continued..

"And I can guarantee you that there'll be a lot of new things to discover."

Wonderful. Bet you can't wait.

As a book, Treirweiler's "tale" served as a (very) lame excuse for a women scorned and determined to give her side of the story after being dumped  by her former partner, the French president François Hollande - or as Hadley Freeman in "The Guardian" wrote when "Thank you for this moment" was released in English, it proved to be "a triumph of self-obsessed raving"

But of course "Merci pour ce moment" (which has sold over 730,000 copies in France and has been translated into 11 languages) is not a book of "revenge" - - even though that's pretty much how it has been interpreted -  but an attempt by Trierweiler to reveal the misogyny that exists in French politics and "to rebuild her life after the painful split."

So the film is surely a logical step in ensuring she'll be able to add an infinity swimming pool, top of the range sauna and other luxury accoutrements should she need additional resources in her rebuilding enterprise.

François Hollande delivers a Spice Girls' "positivity" New Year speech

It seems that François Hollande has taken a lesson in politics from the former British pop group the Spice Girls.

Well, that would appear to be the case after listening to the French president's message to the nation at the turn of the year.

François Hollande, New Year's speech 2015
(screenshot France 2)

And that "2015 charm offensive", as it has been called by the French media, continued with a two-hour radio interview and the traditional endless round of presidential New Year greetings.

During his nine-minute televised New Year message to the nation, Hollande recognised the problems France had encountered in 2014 and will likely have to face in 2015, all the time revealing himself to be upbeat - without saying anything that had any real substance to it.

He stressed the need to put an end to the "denigration and discouragement" that seemed to characterise the image of France at home and abroad, stressing the size of the country, its economic status, its international responsibilities, diplomacy et yadda, yadda, yadda...you can watch and listen to the whole nine minutes here.




The essence of Hollande's message?

Well, France and the French - had every reason to be proud and have confidence - even though 2015 was likely to be a(nother) difficult year and "France isn't about nostalgia, it's about hope."

"To move forward will require audacity and a rejection of the status quo," he said.

You see. Echoes of that 1997 hit "Spice up your life" n'est-ce pas?

"Smilin' and dancin', Everything is free All you need is positivity."

Take it away, Geri, Emma, Victoria, Melanie B, Melanie C and François...