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INSIDE FRANCE

Inside France: Pigs, politicians, wine rules and the patriarchy

From French health reforms to wine consumption, via pig-spotting and complaints about the Paris 2024 Olympics, our weekly newsletter Inside France looks at what we have been talking about in France this week.

Inside France: Pigs, politicians, wine rules and the patriarchy
A wine-tasting in Condom, France, in 1945. These days, women are allowed to pour their own wine. Photo by 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.

Health check

The French government is preparing a major reform of the health service to try and deal with the increasing problems that it faces. This is always an interesting topic for me, since my own perspective (and the perspective of many other foreigners in France) is that French healthcare is fantastic – but the French themselves will often tell you that the service is a disgrace and on the brink of collapse. 

One thing is clear though, that services are increasingly a postcode lottery, with those who live in ‘medical deserts’ with GP shortages struggling to find care, while those in areas with plenty of doctors generally receive an excellent service.

ANALYSIS How sick is the French health system?

But to be honest my main takeaway from a meeting with the French health minister this week was that I don’t know how the man gets any work done when he has such a spectacular view from his office window.

Bottoms up 

This week on the Talking France podcast we are talking wine and why French people are drinking less of it – listen here.

While I’m a big fan of France’s viticulture, I’m less enthusiastic about some of the frankly quite pompous ‘rules’ that seem to accompany it. While some French wine rules have a good practical basis, I’m happy to ignore those that dictate when or how you should drink a certain wine. I think that you should drink the wines that you like, when you like (and I know plenty of French people who think the same).

And as for the patriarchal bullshit about ‘women should wait for a man to pour their wine’ – to that I say je m’en bats les couilles.

Ticket chatter

Here in Paris talk is increasingly turning to Olympics tickets as the draw opens – every social interaction now seems to start with a discussion of who has been picked for the draw, what events they managed to get and how much the tickets were.

There have, of course, been plenty of complaints from people who weren’t able to get the events they wanted or could only find the expensive tickets – but there are still two more opportunities in the Olympics draw, while tickets for the Paralympics (the best events, in my opinion) don’t go on sale until autumn. Nil desperandum!

Events of the week

And if you’re in the vicinity of Paris this week (until March 5th) I highly recommend the Paris Salon de l’agriculture – it’s a great farm show and a very fun day out with lots of opportunities to spot cows and taste French regional produce.

It’s also acquired a political importance over the years – basically anyone who has ambitions of becoming president one day must demonstrate that they are a ‘man/woman of the people’ by going to the farm show, chatting to farmers and petting cows. So you might spot the next head of state lurking next to the prize-winning pigs.

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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