Missing French rambler alive and well - safe and talking

By any stretch of the imagination, it's an incredible story.

A French rambler who went missing on the Spanish side of the Pyrénées has been found safe and sound.

And that after having become separated from the groups she was with, falling into a ravine and then becoming completely disoriented and lost - for 11 days with little or nothing to eat or drink.

Thérèse Bordais was discovered by Spanish rescue services in the Ordesa national park on Monday alive and well, and although the 61-year-old is still in hospital recovering she has already given her first interviews describing her ordeal and her feelings at being found.

An impassioned and experienced rambler, two weeks ago Bordais was back in an area she had visited before, but became separated from the rest of the group she was with.

"There were 14 of us and it was the beginning of the afternoon," she told Le Télégramme as she described what had happened.

"We were looking for a path we had already taken several years ago but we couldn't find it, and that's when we decided to retrace our steps."

But that was also the time when Bordais admitted she made what turned out to be a decisive mistake.

"I left the group and went ahead of the rest," she said.

"In doing so I committed an error I shouldn't have made."

Night began to fall and Bordais realising that it was unlikely she would be found immediately, looked for somewhere to sleep and in doing so slipped and became completely disoriented.

I broke a tooth and I started bleeding," she told French national radio. "I didn't have any more water and I was cold during the night especially when it started to rain."

Even though rescue teams continued searching for her, and she heard helicopters passing overhead, Bordais spent the following 10 days all by herself, gradually all but giving up hope of being found.

And then on Monday - salvation as rescue teams spotted some of the clothes she had laid out on the ground.

"I was lying down, sheltering, and then suddenly there was a helicopter right above me and I quickly assembled my belongings and was ready to go within 30 seconds," she said, recounting the moment when she realised that she had been found.

Relief for Bordais, but also for her husband Marcel, who had spent the first three days after her disappearance helping to look for her, before returning to the couple's home in Brittany in northwestern France.

"It's an incredible story and one difficult to believe," he said.

"To spend 11 days with very little to eat or drink ...and it was horrible to think that we might never have found her again."

And Bordais, who is due to be released from hospital and will be able to fly home at the weekend says that even though the experience hasn't put her off rambling, she has no desire to tackle the mountainous region again.

"I would go rambling once more," she said. "But the mountains - never again."

A new song from Carla Bruni-Sarkozy

Music lovers pin back your ears, the rumours have been confirmed.

France's first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, has been back in the recording studio.

This time around though it has not been as a singer but as a songwriter.

Bruni-Sarkozy has written one of the tracks for the upcoming album of one of this country's first "girls of rock 'n roll" and now a long-established star of the French musical scene, Sylvie Vartan.

A former wife of (French) rock music icon Johnny Hallyday, Vartan's new album, "Toutes peines confondues" is due for release on September 14, and among the tracks composed especially for her is "Je chante le blues" penned by none other than Bruni-Sarkozy.

In what is probably one of this country's worst-kept recent music industry secrets, an extract from the recording was played on national radio on Tuesday morning with the "revelation" that it would be "Vartan's first single to be taken from the upcoming album.

What's more it's Bruni-Sarkozy first "new" song since becoming first lady and taking up residence at the president's Elysée palace. Although she released her own album - her third - "Comme si de rien n'etait" last July, the bulk of those songs were written before she had even met the French president.

Even though Vartan's decision to release the track as her first single might have been something of a scoop for radio listeners on Wednesday morning, the same cannot be said for the news that the two women had been working together.

Back in March, the weekly news magazine, L'Express, told its readers that the Bulgarian-born 64-year-old (Vartan) had asked the Italian-born 41-year-old (Bruni-Sarkozy) to write a song for her and that the deed had been done and the track recorded.

There's even an extract that has been up and playing on YouTube since March, although it has so far only received a little over 10,000 hits.



For Bruni-Sarkozy lovers and/or those of you who enjoyed the breathless, gasping sounds of the French first lady's voice and gentle guitar strumming on "Comme si de rien n'etait" the new single from Vartan will have more than a familiar ring to it.

Except that is for the voice, which as you can hear is most definitely NOT that of the model-turned singer-turned first lady.

All that can be hoped perhaps is that Vartan's album, with other tracks written by well-known and successful French singer-songerwriters such as Marc Lavoine and Didier Barbelivien won't have the same lacklustre record sales as Bruni-Sarkoy's last offering.

Even though it officially achieved domestic sales of over 185,000, that figure took into account albums still on stock in the stores, a common practice for the music industry to massage the real figures (you can read about that here).

Vartan's new single and album are to be released to coincide with a series of concerts she'll be giving in Paris in September.

An iceberg in Paris

Anyone in the French capital on Tuesday might have done something of a double take as they passed along the river Seine.

Because not far away from the city's world-famous landmark, the Eiffel Tower, they would have seen an iceberg.

It was, of course, not a natural phenomenon, but a 16-metre one constructed by the environmental organisation Greenpeace, and was meant to serve as a timely reminder to the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and other world leaders that global warming and climate are issues that need to be tackled.

Timely as well as symbolic, because it came as Sarkozy, along with United States president, Barack Obama, Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, and leaders of Britain, Canada, Germany Italy and Japan along with European Union representatives were preparing to meet in L'Aquilia, Italy for the G8 summit which opens on Wednesday.

At the base of the structure, Greenpeace had also placed placards reading "Sarkozy : climate leadership now!" and "G8 : climate leadership now!", once again a call for leaders to show action to back up their promises as far as the environmental organisation was concerned.

And the director of Greenpeace, France, Pascal Husting, had few words of praise for the "efforts" of the French president, who has made environmental issues a centrepiece of his domestic political agenda.

"Nicolas Sarkozy has made a number of speeches and claims to be the champion in the battle against global warming," he said in a statement.

"But he has so far failed to show the political will to really do anything about it."

Husting also insisted that Europe could "and should" take the lead in the battle against global warming "in light of the current inability of the Barack Obama, to fulfil that role."

Climate change will be one of the issues topping the agenda during the G8 summit, and many environmental experts expect leaders to make their strongest statement yet on global warming with an agreement that global greenhouse gas emissions must be cut by 50 per cent by 2050.

Once again heavy on the symbolism perhaps, the Greenpeace iceberg is due to be taken down on Wednesday, the day the G8 opens.