François Hollande's Kazakh fur hat and coat photo does wonders for his "plonker" image - yet again

The French president, François Hollande, might have a reputation for being an academic egghead  - an alumnus of the prestigious École nationale d'administration (ENA) and all that.

And he's equally well-known for cracking jokes (not always successfully) and (unfortunately) being chronically late for meetings.

But sadly, France's head of state also has a reputation for unintentionally (well, you would hope so) appearing to make a complete and utter pillock of himself - and that's putting it politely - not only with what he says (he masters the slip-of-the-tongue) but how he looks.

The rain fell on Hollande's parade (quite literally) from the very beginning (and has continued to do so with alarming frequency) in terms of his image when he got a real soaking just after being sworn in as president.

In fact, "Rain man" as Hollande has sometimes been unkindly termed, has become something of a standing joke within the media as bad weather just seems to have followed the French president from one official function to another (with the occasional exception of course).

Then there was the time, just a couple of months after being elected, during a state visit to London in July 2012 when Hollande appeared "dwarfed" by a Coldstream Guard (complete with the traditional bearskin of course) while inspecting the Guard of Honour.

A photo which amused many.

And few will forget the unfortunate snap taken by Agence France Presse during Hollande's visit to a school in Denain in northern France in September 2013 which had all the hallmarks of a "gormless grin" with Hollande seeming to "gurn".

You can see all those (and more) by searching through Twitter posts as every one of them quickly became the object of ridicule on the social network.

Just as Hollande's latest "plonker" PR (disaster) picture has.

This time it had him swaddled in a traditional Kazakh fur hat and coat as he posed with the country's president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, during a meeting in Astana last week.

Aie, aie, aie!

What was Hollande thinking of?

François Hollande and Nursultan Nazarbayev (screenshot - i>Télé report)

Where was his communications team? Apparently absent or at least unable to intervene.

But even without them, did he have to make himself look like a complete buffoon?

Yes, it would seem. Hollande had little or no choice and was just doing as previous leaders (such as Barak Obama) had done before him.

Plus, the photograph was taken by Nazarbayev's official photographer and posted on the Kazakh press service's Instagram account before being withdrawn.

Too late. The anger and embarrassment at the Elysée palace was accompanied by another round of online jokes as once again, Hollande became an international laughing stock.

Great PR for the French president and for the country.

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.

The postcard "lost" for 41 years, vanishes again

Perhaps you're an optimist and believe that nothing ever gets "lost in the post" and instead mail failing to arrive at its destination on time has simply "gone missing"...for a while.

It's there, somewhere in the system. But nobody really has a clue where.

(from Wikipedia)

Well a cynic might say that's what the postal service would want us to believe.

Except occasionally there really is evidence that our sometimes tried and tested patience is not misplaced.

Such is the case of a postcard, according to the regional daily La Dépêche du Midi, sent by a certain Monsieur Le Petit in July.

He was holidaying in the southwestern village of Praz-sur-Arly and wanted to say a simple "hello" to his friends, Madame et Monsieur Bigot, who were renting a gite just over 630 kilometres away in the southwestern village of Saint-Martin-de-Vers.

"The area is very beautiful," wrote M Le Petit.

"See you soon. Enjoy your holiday and have a good rest."

The card plopped through the letter box of Charles Dardenne, the farmer who owns the gite, at the end of August.

But the Bigots weren't there.

And with good cause.

Because the card was postmarked July, 1970.

Yes it had taken a mere 41 years to reach its destination.

Dardenne, when interviewed by the paper for Thursday's edition said he was thinking about tracking down the Bigot family and M Le Petit to find out what had happened to them.

Clearly though, the postcard had other thoughts, because a day later, when contacted by Agence France Presse, the farmer said it had gone missing - again.

"It's a mystery, but I cannot find it," he said.

"Perhaps it'll make a reappearance in another 41 year, but I won't be around to see it," he added.

Aliens?

"Hey honey, where's Junior?" Parents "forget" son at a roadside rest area

"Home alone" might only have been a 1990 film dreamt up by scriptwriters as a comedy in which Macaulay Culkin played the part of an eight-year-old boy mistakenly left behind when his parents fly off to Paris for their Christmas hols.

But let's face it, fact can be - and often is - stranger than fiction as the parents of an eight-year-old French boy can attest to after their weekend "lapse of memory".

They reportedly "forgot" their son on the side of the road, leaving him at a rest area and only realising he was missing half an hour later.

Lourdes Basilica (Wikipedia, author Milorad Pavlek)

The couple from the suburbs of Paris were on their way to the market town of Lourdes at the foot of the Pyrénées in southwestern France.

It is of course famous as a destination for Catholic pilgrimage and alleged miraculous healings.

They had set off on their holidays early on Saturday morning; mum, dad and three children in a camping car.

The roads were pretty busy with holidaymakers, just as they are every Saturday in August in France.

As Agence France Presse reports, at around nine o'clock in the evening, after having completed just over 700 of their 800 kilometre journey, the couple decided to take a break, and they stopped at a rest area on the nationale 21 in the département of Gers.

A few minutes later, refreshed and ready for the final stretch, they set off again, and it was only when they arrived in Lourdes that they realised one of their children was missing.

They immediately rang the emergency services, to be told that their son was with the police who had been alerted by other motorists who had seen the child alone at the rest area.

About turn - they were reunited with him a couple of hours later.

So, how could parents apparently "forget" one of their children?

It sounds even weirder than the recent case of the man who left his wife at the side of the road in the dead of night without realising she was missing.

That also happened in the southwest of France - is there something in the water perhaps?

Well there's a simple and innocent enough explanation according to the national daily France Soir.

When the family stopped, all three children were apparently asleep in the back of the camping car.

But while the parents stretched their legs, the eight-year-old slipped out without them noticing.

So they didn't really "forget" him. They just didn't realise he wasn't there.

In their infinite wisdom, the police have decided not to pursue the case, putting it all down to fatigue and a momentary lack of attention at the end of a long journey.

Maybe though, as the regional daily Midi Libre comments, the couple will light up a candle or two in thanks at their final destination.

One thing is for certain - it's a holiday neither the boy nor his parents will forget in a hurry.

Farmer fined again for "parking tractor" in Paris

Even though Patrick Pilak has a right to be annoyed and frustrated, he seems to be keeping a remarkably cool head.

He has just received another fine for parking illegally in tenth arrondissement of the French capital.

(from Wikipedia)

Something of a surprise really as spaces are plentiful in August when many Parisians are on holiday and it's not that difficult to find a place to leave your vehicle without picking up a ticket.

But of course this is no ordinary case of "illegal parking".

You see Pilak isn't from Paris and the vehicle in question isn't exactly one that would go unnoticed if you saw it parked in the rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis, where the ticket was issued.

It's a tractor.

Pilak uses it for his job.

He's a farmer in the village of Gouzougnat in the département of Creuse - almost 400 kilometres from Paris.

OK. OK. So it's a simple mistake - right?

Well, not so simple as it's not the first time he has received a fine for apparently parking his tractor in Paris.

Just after Christmas last year he opened his mail to discover the first of what has now amounted to three different tickets for a clearly impossible parking infringements.

Back then he joked about it, sent a letter by registered delivery saying there must have been some mistake and thought no more of it.

He didn't receive any response.

In May a second ticket plopped through his letterbox - the same registration number (his tractor), the same street - rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis in Paris.

This time he wasn't so amused, as he told the regional daily, La Montagne.

"Once again I sent letter by registered delivery and I also filed a complaint," he told the paper.

"The first time it made me smile, but for it to happen a second time means that it's clearly not a computer error."

The response? There wasn't one - well not to his letter.

But there was another parking ticket - a third one - that arrived this week. Same registration number (his tractor of course), same street.

"To me it's obvious that someone is driving around with false number plates," he told RTL radio.

"I've half a mind to drive to Paris just to see if I can actually drive a tractor along rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis and, who knows, perhaps I'll actually find the vehicle that's driving around with the same licence plate."

Should Pilak actually carry out his "threat" he would likely have the backing of the mayor of Gouzougnat, Eric Yoth, who thinks the whole story has now gone beyond a joke.

"It surely can't be that difficult to find the vehicle or the owner as three tickets have now been issued - all in the same street," he told Agence France Presse.

"This ridiculous story has to have an end."

A love story - Jean-Claude and Juliette, the reformed hunter and his wild boar

It might not exactly be along the lines of Shakespeare's tragedy, but the story of Jean-Claude Martin and Juliette could have had a similar ending, had the French justice system not come to its senses at the last moment.

Jean-Claude Martin and Juliette (screenshot from Europe 1 report on Dailymotion)

On Friday a court ruled that the pair could remain together; he a hunter of an age that should perhaps know better, she a three-year-old female boar.

The couple first "met" back in 2008 when Martin from the village of Lachau in the south-eastern département of Drôme found the then 800-gramme Juliette all alone and stuck in a hole in the forest, unable to get out and, as he told Europe 1 radio, "Facing certain death".

He rescued her, took her home, bottle-fed and cared for her until over the years she grew into a fine beast, weighing in at a mighty 100 kilogrammes.

Martin apparently tried to release Juliette back into the wild, but she was having none of it and kept returning for a little more TLC.

So the by-now former hunter put away his gun and gave in to the path of "true love", building a pen for her and Juliette became as much his darling as he did hers.

"She followed me everywhere and played with a ball," Martin said.

"Juliette knew her place in the household, got on with the dogs and in a manner of speaking we lived together."

But while Juliette's fame soon spread throughout the village and she became something of a mascot, officialdom threatened to put an end to their "idyll" and worse still, Juliette's life.

As TF1 news reports, in 2010 Martin received a visit from wardens of l'Office National de la Chasse et de la Faune Sauvage (the government-run organisation for overseeing hunting and wildlife in France, ONCFS) and was told that as he didn't have a licence to keep her, she would either have to be returned to the wild or be put down.

ONCFS even went as far as to take Martin to court for illegally "possessing a wild animal" but on Friday the case was thrown out and Martin acquitted.

Speaking afterwards Patrice Grillon, Martin's lawyer - and presumably Juliette's come to that - told Agence France Presse how relieved his client was about the decision.

"Jean-Claude Martin has a very special bond with his sow and there's no doubt she would have died had he not intervened in the first place," he said.

"Over the years it's clear that Juliette has become a domesticated animal," he added.

And Martin?

Well he's in pig heaven and can continue giving Juliette her daily treats of biscuits and sugar lumps.

Oink!

Grunt!




Jean-Claude et Juliette la laie

par Europe1fr

French couple find coins worth €100,000 in basement

Friday's European lottery EuroMillions promises a first prize of €185 million to anyone lucky enough to have the winning numbers.

Portrait of Louis XIII by Philippe de Champaigne (1602-74) - from Wikipedia

But one young couple from the city of Millau in the southern département of Aveyron have already hit their own personal jackpot - albeit much smaller.

Around two weeks ago, according to the local commercial station, radio Totem, the couple were clearing out part of the basement of their house in the centre of the city when they came across a jar.

It looked innocent enough, buried 50 centimetres beneath the surface of the basement floor and covered with a tile.

But inside the jar were quite literally, as the regional newspaper Midi Libre describes, "34 pieces of gold"

The couple didn't know it at the time but their find was worth an estimated €100,000 and included coins dating from 1595 until the French Revolution.

They took them along to Marc Aigouy, a local numismatist (the fancy word for a coin collector) who gave his expert opinion and estimated their worth to be €1,000 for the least valuable to €6,500 for a coin dating to 1640 during the reign of Louis XIII.

He excitedly told Agence France Presse how amazing the discovery had been.

"Most of the pieces were already pretty rare at the time they must have been buried," he said.

"I offered to buy the coins myself or to help the couple offer them up for auction, because we can easily expect them to fetch perhaps more than €100,000 especially if American or Japanese collectors are interested in them," he added.

"I'm waiting for the couple to get back to me to tell me what they want to do."

According to Aigouy the couple, who wish to remain anonymous, will pocket the whole auction price as the coins were found on their property.

If they had been found on public land then they would have had to share the value 50:50 with the state.

Time to start digging around in the cellar - or failing that perhaps choosing a few numbers for Friday's EuroMillions draw.

French motorist "forgets" wife in the middle of the night

You've certainly heard of people abandoning animals on the side of the road - but rarely (surely) about a driver forgetting his partner.

It's apparently a true story worthy of the silly summer season and one which the national radio station RTL says is that of "an airhead at the wheel of a car".



A man somehow "left" his wife on the side of the road without realising she was missing.

It happened, according to Agence France Presse, in the wee (how appropriate - as will become clear in a moment) hours of Wednesday morning.

The couple were driving along a B road in the southwestern département of Tarn et Garonne and stopped just short of the village of Saint-Loup.

It's a pretty part of the country at this time of year with rolling hills and fields of sunflowers in full bloom and dotted with vineyards - not that the couple would have been able to see much as it was three o'clock.

Both apparently needed to pee and while the wife walked a little distance away from the car to do what was necessary, the husband was able to...well, let's just say it was easier for him.

Not surprisingly he was the first back and this is where the tale takes on those ridiculous proportions.

He "hit the road", driving off, seemingly not realising that he had left his wife behind!

For her part, she found herself barefoot and in the middle of nowhere without a mobile 'phone.

After walking some distance she knocked on the door of the first house she came upon, reports AFP, and only then was she able to call her errant husband, who returned to collect her - two-and-a-half hours later.

What's the betting he got something of an earful?

More details of the name, age and background of the "happy couple" when they become available, but it's somehow difficult to imagine the husband wanting any further information being made public.

The far right pottiness of Marine Le Pen - it's all in the name

Heaven's above. The leader of France's far right Front National, Marine La Pen, really knows how to milk the media.

Marine Le Pen (Wikipedia, author Marie-Lan Nguyen)

Her latest declaration is that children born in France or those born outside of the country but who have obtained French nationality should carry a "proper" French name.

It has worked in the past and it would help those of foreign origin to integrate better according to Le Pen.

She was talking to future journalists from one of the country's top journalism schools the Centre de formation des journalistes (CFJ) in Paris on YouTube's Election 2012 channel.

It's an initiative launched jointly by the CFJ, Agence France Presse and Twitter to allow candidates in next year's French presidential election to give their vision of the world and answer questions on a range of subjects.

Ah yes, La Pen and the rest of her dangerously loony friends on the far right of French politics have well and truly been given credibility by all elements of the mass media and the French are going to have to learn to live with it during campaigning for next year's elections.

Anyway, La Pen's vision of the world à la française quite unsurprisingly includes all children in this country having proper French names and none of those nonsense foreign ones.



Admittedly the question, supplied from Hélène from Paris (thank you Hélène) and which elicited Le Pen's typical "France for the French" response, was a bit of a leading one.

But there again Le Pen doesn't really need much encouragement (if any) to take the bait.

"Are you in favour of parents choosing 'French' names for their children born in France from among those appearing on the calendar (the so-called nameday custom in which every day of the year is associated with a given name)." she was asked.

"Yes, I'm in favour," she replied.

"It was one of the elements that worked extremely well throughout the history of France and allowed foreign communities to assimilate very quickly. It was the case for the Italians, the Portuguese, the Spanish and the Polish," she said.



"It's a very effective way of assimilating which isn't the case today whereby children are given foreign-sounding names under the pretext of trying to maintain a link with the country or culture of origin," she continued.

"It think it makes life more complicated for them and it doesn't help them fit in."

Oh well, that's that said. So it must be true.

Expect more of the same and worse over the next 10 months.

Frenchman fails in bid to become Las Vegas mayor

It was so nearly the sort or stuff that the American Dream is made of; a Frenchman bidding to become mayor of a major US city.

But in spite of spending millions of his own personal fortune, 69-year-old Victor Chaltiel failed to make it past Tuesday's primary to find a successor to the incumbent mayor, Oscar Goodman, finishing fourth with 14 per cent of the vote.

Victor Chaltiel (screenshot from TV spot)

Voters chose Goodman's wife, Carolyn and a Clark County Commissioner, Chris Giunchigliani, will to head-to-head in June's run-off.

He's not an Englishman in New York but a Frenchman in Las Vegas, and Victor Chaltiel wanted to be mayor of Las Vegas.

The self-made businessman arrived in the States almost 40 years ago, but from the way he speaks you wouldn't know it.

His accent is - to say the very least - almost the caricature of a Frenchman speaking English.

Indeed even Chaltiel had doubts about how he would come across when he first considered standing. But he brushed them aside on the advice of a friend.

"At first I thought my accent would be an obstacle," he told Agence France Presse.

"But an American friend reassured me. He said, 'Victor, let me ask you a question. In all your 38 years in the United States, has your accent ever prevented you from succeeding and making your fortune?' Never. I responded. 'There you go,' he replied. 'You have your response'."

As the French national radio station Europe 1 reported, Chaltiel was virtually unknown when he entered the race and financed his campaign using the personal fortune he has accumulated over the years - to the tune of $1.4 million.

Television spots stressed his experience as a "businessman rather than a politician" and that unlike "professional" politicians, unwilling or unable to give up all the trappings that go with elected office, Chaltiel was willing and able to finance his own campaign himself and to be governed by a businessman would change everything for Las Vegas residents.

"I speak differently, I think differently, I work differently," he said in one spot, emphasising that over the years he had helped build businesses and create jobs.

"We are all different, but we all have one thing in common. We all want to see our city shine again."

Voters though didn't quite see thing that same way as Chaltiel, and in the end plumped for what they knew best in the shape of Goodman and Giunchigliani.

In spite of that, one thing's for sure though, Chaltiel's hand-kissing, heavily accented presence brought more than a smile to many on both sides of the Pond - and who knows, perhaps he'll try again.

Carla Bruni-Sarkozy's musical homage to Charles Trenet - in Italian

Perhaps you remember France's first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, confirming last December that she would be going back into the recording studio this year to prepare her fourth album.

Well she's reportedly doing just that and everyone has been rather tight-lipped about which songs could be included on the album and who, among France's songwriters, might lend a hand or better still a song, for Bruni-Sarkozy to interpret.

Now though word has trickled out that one of the tracks that could figure on the album is a remake of Charles Trenet's 1943 song "Douce France" but sung in Italian to become of course "Dolce Francia".

Screenshot from LCI news report

It's no done deal though that it'll make the final cut.

"The album will feature songs in French and others in Italian but at this stage we don't know whether this particular one will be included," Bruni-Sarkozy's agent told Agence France Presse.

"I've heard an unreleased preliminary version and it's a good interpretation."

The regional daily Midi Libre has an extract on its site for everyone to judge for themselves how well (or not) they think France's first lady has covered the original.

And the timing of the sneak preview couldn't be better as February 19 marks the tenth anniversary of Trenet's death.

Trenet was a French singer-songwriter whose most famous hits date from the 1930s to the mid-1950s but who continued recording until he died in 2001 and, although he might be considered to be from another era, remains something of a national treasure as far as the French are concerned.

He was described shortly before his death by Radio France Internationale as "one of the last of the legendary French chanson stars" and one who would "inevitably go down in history as the man who wrote the unforgettable 'Le Mer'" a song whose lyrics he claimed to have written in a matter of minutes while on a train and one which was has apparently been covered by more than 400 artists in many languages to become "one of the most famous French songs of all time."



As if to underline Trenet's enduring popularity a poll conducted on behalf of the regional daily Midi Libre reveals that even a decade after his death 60 per cent of those questioned say they liked his songs with the most popular one being "Douce France".

A simple search will pull up any number of English translations of the lyrics, but maybe you should just sit back and enjoy the original in French from the man himself - crackles and hisses included.

French lorry driver wins lottery, saves company and employs his former boss

What would you do if you won the lottery? Buy a house? A new car? A boat?

Splash out on a dream holiday perhaps? Or squirrel the money away and continue life as usual?

Or would you have a good, long think about things and after you had finished "shopping", buy the company you worked for?

That's what one former lorry driver in his fifties from northwestern France did after he hit the jackpot.

Screenshot from La Française des Jeux commercial

"Alexandre", the man who prefers to "guard his anonymity" as the national daily Aujourd'hui en France - Le Parisien puts it, won €10 million in the French Loto last September.

When the road haulage company for which he worked was threatened with liquidation, he stepped in and bought it, becoming the new CEO and therefore the boss of his former boss.

Into the bargain he also saved the jobs of more than a dozen employees.

"I had the means to invest and save jobs, and it's a world I know well. In fact it has been my life," he said

"That's not something you can give up from one day to another."

His decision was not a rash one based on sentimentality.

He only took over the assets of the company as well as a portfolio of clients and a dozen lorries, and not the liabilities or debts.

"If I see we're losing too much money, then I'll quit," he warns.

But for now he wants to "develop business and create more jobs."

As well as an apparent "nose for business" he also threw in a little retail therapy for good measure, buying a couple of houses and a 4X4.

That was the extent of his spending spree though, as he has also taken on an investment advisor and continues to play the Loto "just in case".

La Française des Jeux, the operator of the Loto, told Agence France Presse that as far as it knew this was the first time a winner had bought the company for which he or she had previously worked.

Alexandre was one of two men from the same part of France who had separate wins in two different lotteries last September.

The other man, also in his fifties and a lorry driver, picked up €15 million in the pan-European lottery EuroMillions.

Once a lorry driver, always a lorry driver - albeit a wealthy one.

Fined for parking a tractor...in Paris

We've surely all at one time or another had a brush with bureaucracy that has left us perhaps exasperated at the "jobsworth" attitude of some people and frustrated but shoulder-shrugging at the "them's the rules" of others.

Occasionally though mistakes are made that surely cannot fail to bring a smile to the face, especially when they are so self-evidently ridiculous.

Such is the case of Patrick Pilak who, just before Christmas, opened up his mail to discover a fine for a "parking infringement" issued in Paris.

(Screenshot from France 3 news)

Not so strange, you might be thinking. After all, if you're at all familiar with Paris you'll know just how difficult it can be to find a parking space at the best of times and the pre-Christmas shopping period was one that certainly encouraged the capital's motorists to be more "creative" than ever.

Except Pilak isn't from Paris. In fact he's from nowhere near the city.

He's a farmer in the village of Gouzougnat in the département of Creuse slap, bang in the heart of rural France in the département of Creuse and almost 400 kilometres from the French capital.

And that fine? Well it wasn't just for your run-of-the-mill hatchback, a family saloon or even a hulking four-wheel drive some might insist piloting around Paris.

Nope (worse perhaps) it was for a tractor, owned by Pilak, which had apparently been illegally parked on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis at a point at which the street could most be definitely described as "colourful" or "a quarter best known for its ladies of easy virtue" as France 3 television described it.

It didn't take the 49-year-old bio farmer long to work out that there must have been some sort of mistake.

The registration number of the vehicle that had committed the infraction tallied with that of his tractor, but it was also described as a "Ford" whereas Pilak drove a "Renault"...around his fields.

Apart from that of course, he couldn't possibly have been in Paris at the time in question as he had been working.

"I replied by registered mail explaining that the vehicle that had apparently been parked illegally was in fact a tractor - my tractor," he told France 3 news.

"And I added that I couldn't possibly have been where the alleged offence took place at the time indicated because I was working almost 400 kilometres away."

Pilak doesn't intend to pay the €11 fine and of course realises that that there has been some sort of mix-up, but just to drive (sorry) home the point he calculated for Agence France Presse how long the (one-way) journey time would be from Gouzougnat to Paris.

"If I wanted to go to Paris it certainly wouldn't be by tractor,' he said.

"At 15 kilometres per hour maximum speed it would take more than 24 hours to make the trip."

Court allows couple to wed in spite of parents "Napoleonic law" bid to stop marriage

Here's a warning wealth word reading if you're a foreigner wanting to marry a French national.

Make sure you have the approval of your future in-laws because if they're not happy with the upcoming nuptials they might seek recourse in an archaic law preventing the marriage from going ahead.

"Not possible," you might be thinking, especially if both the prospective bride and groom are beyond the age of consent.

Wrong.

Image from Wikipedia, author - Musaromana

It can, and indeed did happen in November when the parents of the groom-to-be, Stéphane Sage, stepped in to prevent him from tying the knot with his future intended Man Sin Ma (known as Mandy) from Hong Kong.

The couple are both in their mid-20s but Page's parents objected to his choice of bride and resorted to a law dating from 1803 to stop the marriage from going ahead.

They succeeded and the ceremony was postponed while the couple went to court to have the legal objection overruled.

The problems for the couple came to a head in November just hours before they were due to be married in the town of Meylan in the southeastern French département of Isère.

The banns required by law had been removed from the town hall as Sage's parents, disapproving of the marriage as they reportedly thought Mandy was "only interested in gaining French nationality to be able to stay in the country" had successfully sought to have them withdrawn just as was their right under article 173 of the civil code.

It states that "The father and the mother, or by default the grandparents, may oppose the marriage of their children or descendants even if they've reached the age of majority."

Archaic and anachronistic perhaps, belonging as it does to Napoleonic times, but the parents were fully within their legal rights as it has never been repealed.

This week though the couple succeeded in having the decision overturned and a court ruled that they were free to marry as "There was no objective reason to justify the (parents') decision."

Sage's mother and father now have one month in which to appeal the ruling and, if what the 25-year-old told Agence France Presse is true, then both he and his fiancée are surely on tenterhooks waiting for their next move.

"At first they said Mandy only wanted to marry me to get papers," he told AFP.

"Now they're accusing her of being a spy for the Chinese government."

That's what happens when your prospective "in-laws from Hell" come from a country which has far too many laws on its books.

You have been warned.

Hervé Ghesquière and Stéphane Taponier - a year in captivity

It's a year since French journalists Hervé Ghesquière and Stéphane Taponier were kidnapped in Afghanistan and events are being organised throughout France to mark the anniversary.

Screenshot from YouTube video paying hommage to the two journalists and their colleagues

On Tuesday the families of the two men were invited to the Élysée palace to watch a video sent by the captors to the French authorities and reportedly filmed in November.

It apparently showed the two men alive and "calm but emaciated".

Ghesquière and Taponier, staff journalists for the French public television station France 3, were taken captive, along with three Afghan colleagues - Mohammed Reza, Ghulam and Satar - as they were travelling in Afghanistan’s Kapisa province around 120 kilometres northeast of the capital Kabul.

While the French government has at various times issued statements insisting that negotiations for the release of the two men are progressing, they remain captive and their families have spoken to the media for the first time about their frustrations.

"When the foreign minister) Michele Alliot-Marie speaks of a 'short time', we say to ourselves it's imminent," Taponier's father Gérard told Agence France Presse,

"And then Christmas is already gone... We are still hoping for good news, but it gets you down."

It was a sentiment echoed by Taponier's brother, Thierry, who told Europe 1 radio that they had constantly been promised that things were moving but little seemed to happen.

"We're in a kind of limbo," he said.

"In spite of what government ministers and politicians have said, we have absolutely no idea what's happening there (in Afghanistan) and why things aren't advancing."


Thierry Taponier : "on est dans le flou"
envoyé par Europe1fr. - L'actualité du moment en vidéo.

To mark the anniversary of the two men being taken hostage, a rally will be held outside the Hôtel de Ville (Town hall) in Paris with a portrait of Ghesquière and Taponier being hung from the facade of the building and a candlelight vigil later in the day.

Similar rallies will take place in towns and cities across the country and in Montpellier, the home city of Taponier, a charity concert is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.

Over the past year the campaign to secure their release has been supported by colleagues, with a constant reminder of their captivity at the end of news bulletins, sports stars who appeared in a video clip appealing for their release, and some of the top names from the French music industry who participated in a free concert in Paris at the end of October.

There's a Comité de soutien (support committee) with a website keeping daily track of activities and reminding us all as to how long the two men have been held.

And you can sign an online petition (it's in French) should you wish to show your support.

Carla Bruni-Sarkozy becomes comic book heroine

France's first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, is the heroine of a new comic book.

Screenshot of Bluewater publisher's Female Force - Carla Bruni-Sarkozy

Published by Bluewater productions, the 40-page book is described as "an unauthorized political biography with a difference" and is part of the publisher's "Female Force" series aimed at "female empowerment".

It was perhaps only a matter of time before Bruni-Sarkozy, the missus of "Hollywood's senior representative in France" as the online news website p2pnet rather tongue-in-cheek describes her husband, Nicolas Sarkozy, trod another path in her rich and varied life.

The former model - sorry Supermodel - turned singer, some time actress and now first lady has long been considered one of the world’s most beautiful women – the kind who would make wearing a tea cosy not only fashionable but probably also sexy.

The daughter of a wealthy Italian industrialist and composer, Alberto Bruni Tedeschi, and the Italian concert pianist, Marisa Borini, Bruni-Sarkozy was born in Turin, moved to France with her family when she was just five and was “discovered” by the world of catwalks at 19.

Over the years she has acquired the reputation as something of a “man eater”, not an image she has been eager to play down, even apparently going as far as to say once that, “I am monogamous from time to time, but I prefer polygamy and polyandry.”

In her 20s she had a much publicised on-off affair with Rolling Stone, Mick Jagger – and in her time has also dated a long and eclectic list of A-listers including US billionaire Donald Trump, British rock star Eric Clapton, Hollywood actor Kevin Costner and even former French Socialist prime minister, Laurent Fabius.

And how’s this for a one-woman double act so to speak. Seven years ago, while living with the French journalist and critic, Jean-Paul Enthoven, she met and fell in love with his philosopher son, Raphael, with whom she had a child, Aurélien, in 2001.

Phew.

No wonder the blurb for the new book describes her as being "driven by determination and by the music in her blood to become successful in many walks of life."

But a comic book? And one with only 40 pages?

"When girls read this they're going to see they can do anything, and be what they want to be," Bluewater's Darren Davis told Agence France Presse.

"It is unbiased, so we do talk about things in there... but the struggles that she had make her a stronger person."

Bruni-Sarkozy now joins the ranks of other women such as her counterpart from across the Pond Michelle Obama, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, former US vice presidential candidate Sarah Pain, Harry Potter author J K Rowling, Australian singer Olivia Newton John, and a host of others whose lives have been told in the pages of the Female Force comic book format.

Written by David McIntee and Heath Foley "Female Force, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy" is published by Bluewater productions and undoubtedly presents a role model any parent would wish for their daughter.

Sadly it has yet to find a publisher in France.

Angry Ryanair passengers stage a sit-in

Ryanair Boeing 737-800 (Wikipedia, photographer Adrian Pingstone)

Lowcost airline Ryanair might well be the cheapest way for many Europeans to fly from point A to point B, but it surely needs a lesson or two on how to treat its passengers.

During the night of Tuesday to Wednesday more than 100 of them refused to leave one of its 'planes after it arrived in the Belgian city of Liège after being diverted from its original destination Beauvais in northern France - 342 kilometres away.

Beauvais of course is the town Ryanair refers to as "Paris" on its list of destinations, even though it is in fact almost 80 kilometres from the French capital.

Most of those on board were reportedly French, returning from holidays in Morocco, and their night of misery began when the flight left - three hours late - from the Moroccan city of Fez.

Unable to land in Beauvais because it was too late and the airport was closed, the 'plane was diverted to Liège, not a destination to which the airline normally flies, and landed late in the evening at 11.30pm.

But the passengers hadn't been alerted ahead of time according to one of them, Mylene Netange.

"The plane didn't land in Beauvais but in Liege without warning us," she told Agence France Presse.

"Consequently, we refused to leave the plane."

The passengers reportedly refused to be budged for four hours, demanding that an alternative means of getting home be provided.

Remember they were over 300 kilometres away from where they should have been.

But their protests seem to have fallen on deaf ears as far as Ryanair was concerned.

Instead they were left sitting in the dark after the pilot and cabin crew had disembarked and it was airport officials who took over the task of trying to negotiate with them and arrange alternative transportation.

Great PR for Ryanair who, as the French daily Libération points out, only a few days ago announced a net half-year of €424 million.

There must be a moral somewhere in this tale.

French département provides sixth graders with iPads

If you've been lusting after an iPad since its launch in April this year, then you might wish you were back at school.

Well at least if you live in the French département of Corrèze.

That's because its conseil général (or general council) has taken the decision to provide the département's 2,500 sixth grade schoolchildren (11 to 12-year-olds) and their 800 teachers with the very latest Apple technology - the iPad.

Snapshot from Apple iPad video

Now if you're having trouble locating the Corrèze, don't worry. It's described as being in "south central France" and it's one of the smaller départements, in terms of population.

The largest, and best-known city is Brive-la-Gaillarde, although the capital (if you will) is the smaller town of Tulle.

For the Brits amongst you, Corrèze is bordered to the southwest by the département of Dordogne.

Anyway, back to those 3,300 iPads. They'll be equipped with educational software and, said the spokesman for the council, Jacques Spindler, the total cost of the operation which will take until the end of December, will be €1.5 million.

"According to Apple, it's a first both in France and Europe," he told Agence France Presse.

Corrèze is no stranger to investing in technology for its schoolchildren.

In 2008 it issued fifth graders (12 to 13-year-olds) and their teachers with laptops with the aim that at the end of three-years they would become the owners.

"At the end of this academic year we'll assess whether to this experiment (with the iPad) has been successful and whether it'll be extended," said Spindler.

A "holy game" of football

The club football season might be over in Europe and supporters of the so-called "beautiful game" preparing to follow the World Cup which kicks off in a couple of weeks time, but one important match remained to be played last weekend - the Clericus Cup final

As Agence France Presse (AFP) news agency reports, the match was in a sense the Catholic Church's very own version of the event to be hosted next month in South Africa and one in which "both teams could claim to have God on their side."

Players in prayer at the end of the match, Agence France Presse TV screen shot

The Clericus Cup is a tournament which has been contested annually since 2007 and is made up of teams whose players are all priests or seminarists from around the world attending the Vatican City's Papal colleges.

Saturday's final (there are no tournament games on a Sunday) was a repeat of last year's with holders Redemptoris Mater taking on rivals Pontifical North American College; the Italians once again running out the winners with the only goal of the game.

While the president of the Cup, Monsignor Claudio Paganini admitted that there had been several on-the pitch incidents and that perhaps not all the players had always "behaved entirely correctly" the competition had shown another side of the Catholic Church - away from the scandals that have dominated recent news stories.

http://www.france24.com/fr/20100530-football-avant-le-mondial-leglise-catholique-a-deja-son-champion

"At a time when the Church is being attacked over issues of paedophilia we're showing here how games and the body are values and not limitations," he told AFPTV.

"The human body should be used to give glory to God, not for acts of deviance."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlDslMckFCg

Redemptoris Mater have appeared in each of the four finals that have taken place since the Cup began in 2007.

The only time they have failed to lift the trophy was in 2008 when they lost out to Mater Ecclesiae.