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INSIDE FRANCE

Inside France: Seine sewage, Impressionist art and croissant wars

From the state of the River Seine to Parisian cyclists, via famous artists and the French pastry craze taking TikTok by storm, our weekly newsletter Inside France looks at what we have been talking about in France this week.

Published: 13 April 2024 08:02 CEST
Inside France: Seine sewage, Impressionist art and croissant wars
A man and a child ride a bike on the flooded docks along the Seine river in Paris, on April 4, 2024. Photo by Emmanuel Dunand / AFP

Inside France is our weekly look at some of the news, talking points and gossip in France that you might not have heard about. It’s published each Saturday and members can receive it directly to their inbox, by going to their newsletter preferences or adding their email to the sign-up box in this article.

River deep, expectation high

The River Seine has been attracting a lot of international attention this week, as a charity released a report saying that the water quality won’t be good enough to hold open water swimming events during the Olympics this summer.

Organisers and Paris officials insist that it will be ready, with the help of a couple of engineering projects designed to prevent overflow of the sewage system into the river. They continue to insist there is ‘no Plan B’ (I don’t believe it for a moment) while Emmanuel Macron says he will swim in the Seine this summer.

I had a nice chat with RTE’s Claire Byrne about this topic and my prediction? The Olympic events will take place in the Seine. I’m prepared to bet up to €1 on that.

History and croissants 

This week’s Talking France podcast started off with two pieces of history that continue to have a lasting impact on France – the signing in 1904 of the Entente Cordiale, declaring France and the UK as friends and allies, and the foundation in 1972 of the Front National far-right party. Today renamed Rassemblement National and run by founder Jean-Marie Le Pen’s daughter it continues to exert a huge influence on French politics. 

We also talk about tax and rail tickets and Genevieve made us taste test this thing. 

Frankly I don’t think I’m paid enough for this kind of high-risk journalism. Listen to Talking France here or on the link below.

Shanks’ pony*

New data from the city of Paris reveals that just 4.3 percent of journeys in the city are done by car, with vehicles now slipping to fourth place in the most popular means of transport behind walking, public transport and cycling.

The full data tells quite a story – more than half (53.5 percent) of journeys are completed on foot, 30 percent on public transport, 11.2 percent by bike and 4.3 percent by vehicle.

Therefore it seems entirely appropriate that city planners prioritise pedestrians and cyclists when designing new infrastructure and the ‘motorists lobby’ needs to be seen for what it is; an extremely minority pursuit.

Revised impression

And if you’re in Paris between now and July I really recommend the Musée d’Orsay’s Inventing Impressionism exhibition – by putting them in their historical context, it really gives new meaning to artists that we all think that we know well. I also enjoyed this contemporary newspaper cartoon, of a pregnant woman being implored not to take the risk of seeing the ‘shocking’ Impressionist paintings by the likes of Claude Monet and Paul Cézanne.

The caption reads ‘Oh Madame! It would not be wise. Go home!’

Newspaper cartoon shown in the Musée d’Orsay’s Inventing Impressionism exhibition. Photo; The Local

Inside France is our weekly look at some of the news, talking points and gossip in France that you might not have heard about. It’s published each Saturday and members can receive it directly to their inbox, by going to their newsletter preferences or adding their email to the sign-up box in this article.

* For non British readers, ‘Shanks’ pony’ means to walk or travel somewhere on foot. Apparently there is a French equivalent too – aller sur la haquenée des cordeliers or sometimes aller sur la mule des cordeliers, it means ‘go by the Cordeliers’ mule’, the Cordeliers being an order of monks famous for making all their journeys on foot.

Spanish has a similar phrase – el caballo de San Francisco or St Francis’ horse, St Francis being another poor monk known for taking journeys on foot.

Yes, I fell down a language geek rabbit hole again . . .

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INSIDE FRANCE

Inside France: The French invasion, Rwanda shame and Macron’s reckoning

From 'squeaky bum time' for the Macron government to second homes, via the 'invasion' of French into the English language, our weekly newsletter Inside France looks at what we have been talking about in France this week.

Published: 27 April 2024 09:49 CEST
Inside France: The French invasion, Rwanda shame and Macron's reckoning

Inside France is our weekly look at some of the news, talking points and gossip in France that you might not have heard about. It’s published each Saturday and members can receive it directly to their inbox, by going to their newsletter preferences or adding their email to the sign-up box in this article.

The reckoning

Emmanuel Macron’s government is facing a series of ‘reckonings’ in the next few weeks, and it doesn’t appear happy or confident about any of them.

The first is that the international ratings agencies will – between now and the end of May – deliver their verdicts on whether to downgrade France’s credit rating. While that sounds dull, credit scores have a big impact on interest payments for debt, which is significant if your country happens to have a national debt of 112 percent of its GDP.

It’s reported that infighting has already begun at Bercy, with Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire looking less and less indéboulonnable (indestructible).

The other big test is the European elections at the start of June, where polls are predicting that Macron’s party will lose badly to Marine Le Pen and could even be forced into third place by a revitalised centre-left.

READ ALSO Can foreigners in France vote in the European elections?

European elections are funny things – technically they don’t matter at all to French domestic politics and it’s always risky to try and extrapolate too much from the European vote; turnout is usually low as a lot of people simply don’t care, the issues being voted on have little to do with French domestic politics and some voters see them as a safe way to give a kicking to an unpopular president without having any direct impact on French life.

But for an already weakened Macron who is now approaching his third year of governing without a parliamentary majority, a humiliation at the polls could have serious domestic consequences – The Local’s columnist John Lichfield even predicts that it could cause the fall of Gabriel Attal’s government and fresh parliamentary (not presidential) elections in the autumn.

It would be ironic if Macron – always one of the strongest advocates for the EU project – was to be so severely weakened by a European vote. 

The French invaders

I’ve just finished reading a very interesting book ‘La langue anglaise n’existe pas, c’est du français mal pronuncé’ (the English language does not exist, it’s just badly pronounced French) and – with humour – it makes some very interesting points about how English and French became so intertwined.

Author Bernard Cerquiglini also has a very interesting take on the frequent French complaints about the ‘invasion’ of English words into everyday French. He points out that many of these English words are in fact French in origin anyway, saying: “This isn’t an invasion, these are French words that have gone for training in England and that are coming back to us.”

Talking France

We dive into this subject in a little more detail in this week’s Talking France podcast, along with discussing the problem of youth violence in France, the new péage system and where in France are hotspots for second homes. Listen here or on the link below.

Shame

And if any Brits are wondering how their country’s recent political developments are seen in France, then look no further than the leftist French daily Libération, which devoted its front page to the passing of the Rwanda bill with the headline ‘aeroplanes of shame’.

Emmanuel Macron, as part of a wide-ranging speech at the Sorbonne university on Thursday, also condemned the scheme, saying: “We are creating a geopolitics of cynicism which betrays our values and will build new dependencies, and which will prove completely ineffective.”

Now France’s own treatment of migrants and asylum-seekers is very far from perfect, ditto the behaviour of the EU’s Frontex border agency, but on the UK’s Rwanda plan I believe that Macron and Libération are entirely correct; it is both shameful and ineffective.

Sometimes it can take a friendly neighbour – and France has demonstrated repeatedly that it is a friend to the UK – to tell you unpalatable truths. 

Inside France is our weekly look at some of the news, talking points and gossip in France that you might not have heard about. It’s published each Saturday and members can receive it directly to their inbox, by going to their newsletter preferences or adding their email to the sign-up box in this article.

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