François Hollande's approval ratings fall again

The French love their polls.

Er...perhaps that should read the French media loves commissioning polls for readers and viewers.

There are certainly enough published week after week.

And if you believe them - because they're always right, aren't they - the French president, François Hollande isn't exactly what you would call popular at the moment.

Back in February, Hollande's approval ratings fell to just 30 percent, making him "the least popular president for 30 years".

Although those commissioning that particular poll (Le Figaro magazine) and interpreting the figures (Britain's Daily Telegraph) can hardly be said to be among the most pro-Hollande newspapers, the trend is one that has been repeated month after month since he came to power in May 2012.

And the latest poll, this time commissioned by Le Nouvel Observateur - the left-leaning weekly news magazine sometimes described as "the French intellectuals' parish magazine"-  puts those approval ratings even lower - 26 percent.

Not even a recent "charm offensive" as Hollande attempted to "meet and greet" and "press the flesh" in a mini-series of tours around the country, seem to have convinced the French that he really is the man they can trust to see them through the economic difficulties.

And his cause will not have been helped by the most recent front covers of three different weekly magazines to hit the news stands.

Each of them - in their own way - perhaps more cruel than the next and surely illustrating a real disaffection within much of the French media as to Hollande's leadership abilities.

L'Express went with a capitalised "Monsieur Faible". Le Point used Hollande's apparent nickname among Elysée staff to ask whether "'Pépère' est-il à l'hauteur?" while the slightly more "glossy" VSD chose "Hollande l'homme qui n'en savait jamais rien".



It cannot get any worse.

Or can it?

Libération takes aim at Bernard Arnault with Sarkozy-type insults

There has been something of a furore in France this week - or as the media is so fond of saying "polemic" - surrounding a couple of headlines that have appeared in the national daily Libération.

The Left-leaning newspaper has been having fun with the news that France's richest man, Bernard Arnault, has applied for Belgian citizenship.

And it has been harking back to some of the most infamous phrases uttered by former president Nicolas Sarkozy to express its disgust at what it sees as a possible attempt by Arnault to avoid this country's inheritance tax laws.

Libération, Monday 10 September,  2012 (screenshot)

The reasons for Arnault's decision aren't exactly clear.

He has always paid taxes in France and says he'll continue to do so, claiming the application which was confirmed last weekend, was not a reaction to the proposed tax hike in France aimed at the super rich - of which he is the super-est.

You know the proposal: the one François Hollande conjured up from absolutely nowhere during his presidential campaign and is now grimly sticking to. Um. that interpretation probably deserves a Daily Telegraph link. Here you go.

There have also been suggestions that there are business reasons behind Arnault's application as well as a change in Belgium's laws next year which will apparently make it harder for anyone applying to be granted citizenship.

And then there's the inheritance tax issue of course - Arnault thinking about how to ensure that each of his five children gets as much of his money as possible when he pops his clogs.

Whatever the reasons, the media - national and international - has been largely leading with headlines that seem to suggest Arnault is running scared and there's about to be a mass exodus of the wealthy from France.

Libération though has been taking a different approach, and in the process incurring the wrath of the man himself who now says he'll sue the newspaper for insulting him publicly.

Oh dear. the poor man.

Er...hang on. Perhaps that needs to be put into some perspective.

How poor?

Well, according to Forbes magazine, the 63-year-old is not only France's richest person but also the wealthiest in Europe and the fourth in the world.

And as chairman (among other things) of the luxury goods company LVMH (Louis Vuitton-Moët Hennessy) and the fashion house Christian Dior, the appropriately described "business magnate" (merci Wikipedia) is worth a cool...hang on, get your calculators out...€31 billion or $41 billion  - a not insubstantial sum whichever way you look at it and an awful lot of zeros.

All hail champagne bubbles and high fashion heh?

So perhaps it's a little hard to have sympathy for someone who has made something of a PR blunder.

All right, Monday's edition of Libération which ran with a Sarkozy-type tribute of "Casse-toi riche con!" (thanks to The Guardian for providing a translation of "Get lost, rich jerk") might have been more than a little vulgar for those on the Right and many on the Left.

And perhaps Jean-Paul Sartre, one of the founders of the newspaper might have a few words to say about the rather "cheap" headline which harked back to Sarkozy's 2008 visit to the annual agricultural show in Paris and his reaction to a visitor who refused to shake his hand.

Libération, Tuesday 11 September, 2012 (screenshot)

Thankfully though Libération didn't take Arnault's threat of a legal suit lying down and went a step further for Tuesday's edition with another front page headline "Bernard, si tu reviens, j'annule tout".

That of course was a reference to the alleged text message Sarkozy (never) sent his then-wife Cécilia back in 2007 when she hot-footed it across the Atlantic to be with her now-husband (boy, this is some soap opera-type sentence huh?) Richard Attias.

Of course Libération could have a lot more fun with phrases borrowed from the not-so-distant presidential past. How about Sarkozy's sort-of 2007 campaign mantra - oops, slogan  - "Travailler plus pour gagner plus" or the "Ensemble tout devient possible"? They could surely work with a little imagination.

Or coming bang up-to-date and bringing Hollande into the equation, "Le changement, c'est maintenant"...hold the press "in two years time".

Suggestions on a Post-it please.

France's 10-metre tall Christmas tree - made from chocolate

You have to hand it to France's chocolatiers. They really know how to grab the headlines with a feel-good story.

After the recent launch of a boat built entirely of chocolate, comes the seasonal tale of a 10-metre Christmas tree completely made from what else but chocolate.

A choco-holics delight!

Patrick Roger's 10-metre high chocolate Christmas tree (screenshot from YouTube video)

The difference this time around though is that it's not only an architectural masterpiece, it's also designed to be savoured as it'll be used in France's annual Téléthon on public television and radio next weekend which raises money for the muscular dystrophy charity, L’Association française contre les myopathies.

The creator of the tree is Patrick Roger who describes himself on his website as a "Chocolate artist, a sculptor of flavours" who treats chocolate like a raw material which he transforms into giant 80-kilogramme creations or wrapped sweets in metre-long boxes."

This time around though he has gone several tonnes better than his usual creations - four tonnes to be precise or around 800,000 bars of standard-sized chocolate as the national British newspaper, The Daily Telegraph helpfully puts it, for the 10-metre tree which took a month to build.

And unlike Georges Larnicol's boat which was made from "recycled decorative chocolate" past its sell-by date and consequently inedible, Roger's tree is definitely to be enjoyed...and devoured.

"In making the tree I also wanted it to serve a purpose," he said.

"People can make a donation - for example €50 - and they'll get an equivalent portion of chocolate," he explained.

"We'll gradually dismantle the tree according to the donations made and at the end of the 30 hours (of the Telethon) the goal is that nothing will be left over."

For those of you interested in getting their choppers around some of the delicious chocolate and contributing to a good cause to boot, you'll have to make your way along to Roger's factory in Sceaux in the southern suburbs of the French capital at some point during the Téléthon (from 6.00pm December 3 until midnight December 4).

Alternatively if you're looking for a mouthwatering Christmas present for your loved ones, you could always check out his website.

In the meantime here are a couple of videos the first from the Daily Telegraph reporting on the creation of the tree and the second, funkier version (in French) featuring a longer interview with Roger himself.




Patrick Roger crée un sapin de 10 mètres en chocolat pour le téléthon sur doctissimo.fr