Friday's French music break - Dalida, "Depuis Qu'Elle Est Partie"

Friday's French music break this week a whole album. Oh let's be really greedy then and make it a double!

It's "Depuis qu’elle est partie" which is a tribute to one of France's most famous singers - the late Yolanda Gigliotti.

You and many others might know her better under the name with which she achieved fame, not just in France but worldwide: Dalida, the Egyptian-born singer-actress whose extraordinary career included phenomenal success combined with a tragic personal life.

It's well chronicled elsewhere on the Net (try her biography on Radio France Internationale for starters) so there's no need to go into great detail here.

But the impact Dalida had over a 30-year period and the way she lived, loved and ended her life, led to the "iconic image of her as a tragic diva" which persists to this day.

If you've lived in France, for no matter how short a time, the chances are you'll have heard and perhaps recognise one her many, many hits.

And some of them have been collected on this double album produced by her brother Orlando and released on May 3 to mark the 25th anniversary of her death.

Disc one is pure Dalida - 20 tracks which include some of her best known songs such as "Bambino", "Il venait d'avoir 18 ans", "Laissez-moi danser" and of course (with Alain Delon) "Paroles paroles".

And then there's that second disc - proof, if it were really needed, of her legacy.

It also contains 21 tracks - sometimes of the same songs - performed by a whole host of (mostly French) artists such as Christophe Willem, Hélène Ségara, Patrick Fiori, Dany Brillant and Christophe.

Some of them aren't half bad, such as the interpretation the fabulous Amel Bent gives of "A ma manière" others are...well a bit iffy to say the least.

But the real class of course is from the diva herself - hard to improve on even though many have tried over the years in cover versions.

So here, for fans and the plain curious alike, a video clip available on YouTube of Dalida performing the completely over-the-top but nonetheless tremendous (well it's all a matter of personal taste, isn't it?) 1974 hit "Gigi l'amoroso".

Listen to those rrrrrrrrrrrolling "rs"

MAM voyage - a spoof on French foreign minister's "free" travels

Amid all the recent controversy surrounding the travel arrangements of the French foreign minister, Michèle Alliot-Marie, a spoof agency has gone online offering trips to dream destinations at truly unbelievable prices: in fact no price at all.

MAM-voyage.com apparently has some unreal bargains on its books.



Tabarka in Tunisia is knocked down from €1,299 to €0. And a similar great offer for Abou Simbel in Egypt sees prices slashed from €1,899 to €0.

Further bargains include Iran, Côte d'Ivoire and Burma - all at the ridiculously giveaway prices of...well you probably get the idea.

There's a testimonial from (among others) Michèle M. who says, "We had a fabulous time and thank you once again for the free upgrade during our stopover in Tunis."

And François F. (a nod to the French prime minister François Fillion who admitted having "accepted the hospitality" of former Eyptian president Hosni Mubarak while on holiday on the Nile at the New Year) writes, "Luxor, the Valley of the Kings, the magnificence of the Nile ... with MAM it's more than a trip. It's a state of mind"

The whole spoof is topped off with contact details which will put you in touch with the French foreign ministry.

The name MAM-voyage is, of course, a parody of the site of the French tour operator FRAM and at the same time a reference to Alliot-Marie, who is more commonly known in France as MAM.

And it perhaps comes as a welcome, light-hearted relief after the recent controversy surrounding one of France's most experienced and longest-serving government ministers.

MAM (the foreign minister that is) has faced opposition calls to resign ever since it was revealed that she used a private jet while on holiday with her partner Patrick Ollier, who is also a government minister, in Tunisia last December at the beginning of the country's uprising.

The 'plane the couple used was owned by a businessman, Aziz Miled who, it was alleged, had been close to the former Tunisian president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.

Although she has since admitted that she "regretted her decision to accept the free flight", MAM has also defended Miled saying he had been a longtime friend and a "victim rather than an ally of Ben Ali."

Calls for her resignation have been renewed this week ever since the satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaîné revealed that MAM and Ollier weren't alone in Tunisia.

They were joined by Alliot-Marie's elderly parents who reportedly signed a property deal with Miled.

It was a deal which 92-year-old Bernard Marie, the foreign minister's father, told France 24 he had been advised to do because it "would be an investment in 2012."

Facing parliamentarians on Wednesday in the National Assembly, MAM hit back at those calling for her resignation and criticised the latest turn of events.

"You keep repeating lies in the hope that they'll turn into the truth," she said, stressing that the after trying to find something with which to tarnish her reputation, opponents had now decided to focus their attention on her parents.

"Have they done anything illegal? No. This campaign is shameful," she said.

"I just want to say quite simply how objectionable it is that you try to use my parents to attack me politically."