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INSIDE FRANCE

Inside France: Dried-up rivers, primped-up Paris and why we love the French tax office

From extraordinary pictures of France's rivers to voting rights for foreigners and a TV show that we will all love to hate, our weekly newsletter Inside France looks at what we have been talking about in France this week.

Published: 13 August 2022 09:09 CEST
Inside France: Dried-up rivers, primped-up Paris and why we love the French tax office
A picture shows the dry bed of the Loire River in Saumur, western France. Photo by GUILLAUME SOUVANT / 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.

There really is one picture that has summed up France this week.

The mighty river Loire – famous around the world for wines, chateaux and its beautiful valley – has in places dried up to little more than a trickle.

It’s just one example of rivers, lakes and marshland drying up as France’s worst drought on record continues, and more and more of the country is placed under water restrictions.

IN PICTURES: French drought intensifies as River Loire dries up

We spoke to hydrologist and climate expert Emma Haziza about why the drought is so bad and what we can expect by the rest of the summer.

And if you’re wondering why French people are urging ex president François Hollance to visit their region, it’s because they think he might bring the rain – a reference to this photo from 2014 of a drenched Hollande continuing regardless with a World War II commemoration event in Brittany.  

Say what you like about Hollande, but he was a trooper . . . 

Voting rights

With parliament in recess and most Ministers on the beach, there’s not been a lot of political news this week, but one MP has trailed a new bill – to give foreigners in France the right to vote.

At present EU citizens living in France can vote in local and European elections (but not presidential elections), but non-EU citizens cannot vote at all, neither can they become local councillors (which meant that many Brits had to give up roles in their local communities after Brexit).

Now Macronist MP Sacha Houlié wants to give non-EU citizens who are living in France the right to vote in municipal elections, and to become local councillors.

However before we get too excited, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin is apparently “strongly opposed” to the idea.

Happy tax

This might sound unusual, but this week I have been sharing the love for the French tax office.

Yes, residents in France pay a lot of tax, but if you ever need to deal with the tax office, their staff are surprisingly lovely and helpful – a stark contrast to my experiences of dealing with HMRC back in the UK.

When I tweeted about a recent visit, many people replied sharing their positive experiences and French tax offices – which by the way exist even in quite small towns and you can walk in without appointment and find someone to help you.

Vive les taxes! 

City streets

And for readers in Paris or planning a visit, I can highly recommend this free exhibition of street art, hosted in the Tunnel des Tuileries, beside the Seine.

The tunnel used to be a road, but is now a walkway and cyclepath and this summer has this wonderful display of European street art – just one of the examples of the rapidly changing face of Paris. 

And speaking of Paris, if you loved to hate Emily in Paris, then September is going to be a good month for you!

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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INSIDE FRANCE

Inside France: French lose the plot, sports stars speak out and Paris prices fall

From the latest on the increasingly crazy French elections to the powers of a president, the influence of sports stars and the lustre of the Olympics, our weekly newsletter Inside France looks at what we have been talking about in France this week.

Published: 22 June 2024 10:54 CEST
Inside France: French lose the plot, sports stars speak out and Paris prices fall

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.

Losing the plot?

Welcome to another crazy week in French politics – I’m not saying that this election is getting to me, but the other night I dreamed I was having an argument with far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon. I think I need a holiday.

France might need a holiday too – the political discourse is getting increasingly wild, leading to our columnist John Lichfield to declare that the country has “taken leave of its senses”. 

Latest polling suggests that Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National party would take the biggest vote share at 33 percent, followed by the increasingly fragile leftist coalition Nouveau Front Populaire with 29 percent and then Emmanuel Macron’s centrist group with 22 percent. Those figures would give none of the blocks an overall majority, instead leading to a total parliamentary deadlock.

French election breakdown: All the latest from the campaign trail

Earlier this week ‘Article 16 of the constitution’ was trending on French Twitter; this is the one that lays out the powers afforded to the president versus the prime minister, as people tried to work out what – if any – decisions Macron would be able to take in the final three years of his mandate.

READ ALSO: What does a French prime minister actually do

The satirical magazine Le Canard Enchâiné perhaps sums it up best in its cartoon, showing a man about to shoot himself in the head with a gun labelled ‘Rassemblement National’ and saying “We never tried this before”.

The Canard Enchainé’s cartoon as posted on Instagram

Sports stars engaged

On a more positive note, it’s been nice to see France’s biggest sports stars use their platforms to encourage people to vote, and speaking out against hatred and intolerance and in favour of diversity and inclusion.

I could not disagree more with the Spain goalkeeper Unai Simon, who criticised Kylian Mbappé’s call for people to vote against the far right, saying that footballers should “leave politics to other people”.

The whole point of living in a democracy is that politics belongs to everybody. As Mbappé said: “The Euros are very important in our careers, but first and foremost we are citizens and I don’t think we can be disconnected from the world around us.”

And I admit I’m biased about this – I’ve been a fan ever since I saw him make his professional debut at the age of 18 in my then-hometown of Castres – but I was also pleased to see French rugby legend Antoine Dupont taking a stand on another social issue, appearing on the front cover of LGBTQ magazine Têtu to decry homophobia (although the cover photo did rather make him look like he had forgotten his shades and was squinting into bright sunlight).

Talking France

We of course discuss all the election latest with John Lichfield in the latest episode of the Talking France podcast – and in what was perhaps linked to my need for a holiday we’re also discussing places to visit in France this summer.

Amid warnings of over-tourism we’re taking a look at the places predicted to be most crowded this summer – and suggesting some alternatives. Listen here or on the link below.

Fun and Games

It was thought that people might avoid Paris this summer – but the combination of good deals on the Olympic ticket resale site plus travel and accommodation costs dropping back to seasonal norms has seen a flurry of people booking a last-minute trip to the Games.

Personally I always thought the ‘everyone fleeing the capital’ narrative was a little over-played, but it’s been interesting to see that attempted price-gouging has also largely failed – at the start of the year there were Airbnb listings for frankly insane prices (I saw one that was €7,000 for two weeks), while now costs are largely at the summer average.

Paris travel deals to take advantage of as prices fall ahead of Olympics

Wrestling 

If you’re a Games fan I highly recommend the temporary exhibition at Paris’ Musée de l’histoire de l’immigration (a strong contender for the capital’s best museum, in my opinion) on the history of Olympics and their politics.

It also includes this statue which we’re told depicts ‘wrestling’ at the Olympics in antiquity. If you say so . . .

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.

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