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INSIDE FRANCE

Inside France: A new political era, pharmacy tunes and Macron’s suntan

From apocalyptic pronouncements to suntan jokes, via private jet rules and pharmacy tunes, our weekly newsletter Inside France looks at what we have been talking about in France this week

Inside France: A new political era, pharmacy tunes and Macron's suntan
Photo by Patrick VALASSERIS / 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.

Apocalypse maintenant

As France returns from its summer break, president Emmanuel Macron got la rentrée off to a cheery start by appearing to predict the apocalypse.

In his opening remarks to the first cabinet meeting – which, unusually, were televised – Macron predicted “the end of abundance, the end of insouciance, the end of assumptions – it’s ultimately a tipping point that we are going through”.

And in case anyone was nurturing the delusion that this was merely a tough winter that we face due to energy shortages after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Macron added that this was a long-term trend which is also linked to climate change.

OPINION: Macron’s Churchillian rhetoric provides a vital clue to events in France

It was left to his government spokesman Olivier Véran to attempt to reassure the French that Macron was merely laying out the challenges facing the country in a transparent fashion and that we won’t be living through a live-action version of Mad Max in the months to come (to slightly paraphrase his press conference). 

Here Véran also slips in a revival of the Covid-era slogan tenir ensemble (pull together).

Climate crisis

The Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne is due next week to set out the government’s long-awaited “energy transition”, and she has quite the challenge on her hands – coming up with a plan that will drastically cut France’s energy usage and finally take real action on climate change, while also maintaining the standard of living for the majority of the population.

She may be helped, however, by recent polls that show that climate change is now the number 2 concern of French voters, fractionally behind inflation but way ahead of immigration, crime or terrorism.

It seems that for many people the summer of sweltering temperatures, huge wildfires, storms and the worst drought in 60 years has really brought home the reality of the climate crisis on a visceral level.  

Bronzage 

There was one other aspect of Macron’s speech that caught many people’s eye – his distinctly bronzed appearance.

Even allowing for the fact that he’s been down on the French Riviera for the last few weeks, the president appeared to be unusually deeply tanned.

Private jets and swimming pools

One French proposal that really hit the international headlines this week was a proposal to ban or at least regulate private jets, in response to the climate crisis.

Digging closer into this, and it seems it was really nothing more than some remarks from the Transport minister Clément Beaune.

We’re nowhere near a government policy on this, and Beaune later added that he wanted to work on it on an EU level, so it seems that any action would be years away.

Interestingly, though, the idea seems to have been very popular in France, the country with the highest rate of private jet activity in Europe (according to 2019 figures).

A suggestion by a Green party MP that private swimming pools should be banned because of droughts, however, has been instantly shot down. Perhaps because France also has the highest level of private pool ownership in Europe.

End of summer

Although the government is back (with a bang), schools don’t return until next week, so this is the weekend that many French people will be reluctantly dragging themselves off the beach, packing away flip-flops and contemplating the return to work.

La rentrée really is a national mood in France, even for those who remained at work in August.

Pharmacy fever

And if you’re suffering from post-holiday blues, I can highly recommend heading over to Tik Tok to watch some of these lovely videos of French pharmacy signs set to music.

You may have noticed that the graphics on the distinctive green crosses outside pharmacies are getting more and more sophisticated – from just a simple time and temperature, some of them have become little pieces of entertainment in their own right.

I hope these raise a smile. 

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.

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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