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INSIDE FRANCE

Inside France: Political drama, dodgy French accents and salads 

Always a country keen on drama, there has been plenty going on in France this week , as well as some talking points that you might have missed. Here are the highlights in our new weekend newsletter Inside France.

Published: 21 May 2022 10:37 CEST
Inside France: Political drama, dodgy French accents and salads 
It's been a week of political - and other - drama in France. Photo by Bertrand GUAY / 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.

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France has a new government.

This is actually a lot less dramatic than it sounds, it’s what in English we would call a government reshuffle – the newly re-elected Emmanuel Macron has appointed a new Prime Minister (Elisabeth Borne, France’s second ever female PM) she has has announced the new cabinet responsibilities.

READ ALSO Who’s who in France’s new government

We’ve seen quite a few familiar faces – Macron loyalists like Sebastian Lécournu promoted to defence minister and Stanislas Guerini becoming Public functions minister – while the Finance, Europe and Interior ministers kept their jobs.

There were also some new additions, with the big surprise being the appointment of historian and minorities specialist Pap Ndiaye as the Education minister, a big change in direction after the famously ‘anti-woke’ Jean-Michel Blanquer.

The Environment ministry is also an interesting one – instead of having a single Environment minister there are now two ministers, in charge of energy policy and the environmental transformation while PM Elisabeth Borne also has environment added to her title. That puts three women each with a reputation for formidable competence – Borne plus Agnès Pannier-Runacher and Amélie de Montchalin – in charge of France’s environmental policy. Only thing is, none of them have any background in environment . . . 

But definitely the highlight of the whole process has been discovering the existence of the non-profit organisation Clowns without Borders, the former employers of new Culture minister Rima Adbul Malak. The jokes pretty much write themselves . . .

Lesser-known citizenship path

The cause of more than one raised eyebrow – certainly among the British community in France – was the news that the British Brexit PM’s dad Stanley Johnson has become a French citizen.

In the interests of fairness, we should probably point out that Johnson père formerly lived in Brussels, worked at the European Commission and Brexit wasn’t his idea (although he does now support it).

While most people wanting French citizenship need either five years of residency or a French spouse, Stanley has used the lesser-known route of ancestry – his mother was French.

But the French rules state that if your parent has been out of France for more than 50 years before you make your claim you need to be able to demonstrate a “clear link” to France, which is apparently what Stanley has done.

The news left a slightly sour taste among people who live, work and pay tax in France who have not been able to secure citizenship for various reasons, particularly children who grew up in France with British parents but then left to go to university abroad, who by a strict reading of the rules are not eligible for citizenship. 

He’s described as being a fluent French speaker – here’s him being interviewed about his new status on the French TV channel BFM, so you can judge for yourselves. 

Scorched earth

The unusually early heatwave that hit France this week has now broken, but it seems to be a sign of things to come as Europe braces itself for an exceptionally hot summer.

Climate change, long dismissed by many as an academic exercise, is really being felt by many in their daily lives in France, with large areas of the country already on drought alert, much earlier than usual.

It’s something that must be top of the to-do list for the newly expanded Environment ministry, but there are already plenty of policies and advice in place to help people cope with heat and drought on a daily-basis from the legal water restrictions in place to the government advice to shut the shutters and eat regular meals (sadly a nice cooling rosé is not officially recommended).

Several of our readers around France have posted photos this week of dry, parched fields and nearly empty rivers. And it’s only May. 

French carnivores

I have vivid memories of sitting down for dinner in south west France with a local girl who informed me “I’m a vegetarian so I’ll have the chicken”.

It’s a cliché but perhaps not an unfair one that France is a pretty carnivorous society, and although things are changing quite rapidly in the big cities it can still be hard for vegans or vegetarians to get appropriate food in restaurants and cafés in rural or small town France.

Our veggie readers had great fun sharing their horror stories of ordering a ‘vegetarian’ salad that arrived draped in bacon, before sharing their practical tips for vegetarian or vegan dining in France.

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.

Member comments

  1. “long dismissed by many as an ‘academic exercise’??? By who? Who does this help? Pretty sure scientsits have been sounding the alarm since the 1960s at least.

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INSIDE FRANCE

Inside France: French political discourse, tax loopholes and sharks in the Seine

From political sharks to sharks in the Seine, via tax loopholes (which really aren't loopholes) and European elections, our weekly newsletter Inside France looks at what we have been talking about in France this week.

Published: 1 June 2024 08:17 CEST
Inside France: French political discourse, tax loopholes and sharks in the Seine

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.

Dumbing down?

I started a new French course this week (my battle with the subjunctive continues) and in the section on honing your debating skills I was amused to note that the textbook described debate as the “veritable sport national en France“.

It’s certainly true that political debates in France are of a higher calibre than in many other countries – in the run-up to elections it’s not uncommon for primetime TV to show a two-hour debate between candidates, and during these debates the politicians are really expected to be across the details of a wide variety of policy areas and to display impressive debating skills.

But do these actually make any difference to voters? Last week’s debate between prime minister Gabriel Attal and far-right party candidate Jordan Bardella was widely agreed by independent observers to have been ‘won’ by Attal who succeeded in exposing some of the gaping holes and contradictions in Bardella’s party policy.

However several viewer polls reported that Bardella made a better impression and came over as more sympathetic to voters despite – or perhaps because – of his stumbles, mistakes and evasions. Attal may have won the debate, but does that matter if voters think he is an unsympathetic clever-dick Parisian (I’m paraphrasing, but only slightly)?

I hope this doesn’t herald the dumbing down of politics in the ways seen in the UK and the US where people with genuine expertise are dismissed in favour of those with ‘good vibes’. One of the things that has always impressed me about French politicians of all stripes is that they are intelligent people usually having real discussions about real issues.

It would be a shame if the French became – in the perhaps slightly inflammatory words of Attal himself – like “the British, who cried after Brexit”.

Talking France

We’re talking more about the European elections in this week’s Talking France podcast, plus the changes to addresses in rural France, new wildfire regulations for property owners and the mysterious ‘Paris Syndrome’ that afflicts some visitors and new arrivals to the city. Listen here or on the link below.

In-Seine ideas

I couldn’t agree more with British actor and writer Simon Pegg’s comment on the tremendous missed opportunity for a film named ‘Shark de Triomphe’.

The Netflix flick (Sous la Seine in French) is due out this summer – and I note from the trailer that it features swimming competitions in the Seine.

So at least the filmmakers are optimistic about the City of Paris’ plans to make the Seine clean enough for swimming (currently on track for the Olympics) – even if they then suggest that swimmers will have bigger creatures to worry about than e-Coli bacteria.

To clarify – there are no sharks in the Seine. Although there is a rumour that a crocodile lives in the Canal Ourcq in northern Paris. 

Tax troubles

We’re fully into the swing of tax season now and as usual The Local is getting lots of queries from readers who are struggling with the rather complicated forms – you can find our Tax Guides here.

READ ALSO The bumper 2024 French tax guide

One thing I have noticed is that among the people who are truly having major problems with the system, almost all of them have set up complicated arrangements (often on the advice of accountants) to try and minimise their tax bill – for example setting up a limited company to own a holiday home or paying themselves as CEO of a nominal company.

While these things are not illegal they almost always create extra complications with your tax affairs – especially if you declare yourself as a business as that takes you out of the system for individuals (designed so that you can do your own tax declaration) and into the considerably more complicated world of business taxation and reporting.

There really are very few genuine loopholes in the French tax system and while some workarounds may save you some cash on your tax bill, setting up a complicated system virtually guarantees that you will need to pay an accountant to do your taxes every year (which might even negate the savings on your tax bill).

Reeling

And if you like your news in a more visual format, check out the reels that my colleague Genevieve has been making for The Local France’s Instagram account – and have your say of her latest poll of overrated French tourist attractions.

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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