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INSIDE FRANCE

Inside France: Beer, George Clooney and France on the barricades

This week in France conversation has been dominated by the highly controversial decision of president Emmanuel Macron regarding pension reform, and the reaction that followed, but we've also found time for beer, street art and celebrities in our weekly newsletter Inside France.

Inside France: Beer, George Clooney and France on the barricades
Mural La fille des remparts (the daughter of the ramparts) in Angouleme. Photo by JOEL SAGET / 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.

To the barricades

A tumultuous week in France – a last-minute decision from Emmanuel Macron to ram through his highly controversial pension reform without giving MPs a vote, followed by predictable outrage and street protests.

Macron’s view is that he won re-election in 2022 on a platform that includes pension reform, which gives him a mandate to do this. The view of almost everyone else in France is that putting through a measure as controversial as this without allowing parliament to vote on it is deeply undemocratic.

It will definitely have an effect that reaches far beyond this bill, and even beyond the inevitable strikes and protests in the days to come, affecting the whole of Macron’s second term as president. One thing we can always say about France is that it’s rarely dull . . .

OPINION Macron, the government and France itself all lose from the pensions debacle

Street art

Also this week, I’ve been in the south west, visiting the town of Angoulême. Picture-postcard pretty (it’s used as the backdrop for the Wes Anderson film The French Dispatch) it’s also a cool town, hosting major festivals of film and comic books (bande dessinée) and boasting some seriously impressive street art.

It also has some good bars, including several serving beers from the Nantes brewery Little Atlantique. Although north-east France remains the beer heartland, the west coast and Paris both have a rapidly growing number of microbreweries providing some lovely brews for beer fans to taste. 

I’m a fan of the beers from Brasserie Melusine near Cholet and Gallia, Paname and La Parisienne – all based in the northern Paris suburb of Pantin. 

Celeb tie-in of the week

Hollywood star George Clooney and his wife Amal are reportedly funding an organic fruit and vegetable farm in the southern département of Var, which will be used to provide ingredients for local school lunches.

The Clooneys own property in Var and, according to the local mayor, are “very involved” in the community. If you want to subscribe to The Local’s newsletter for second-home owners George, just drop me a line . . .

Podcast 

This week’s Talking France of course discusses the latest political turmoil, as well as free chickens, swimming in the Seine, hijab rules and France’s ‘backwards language’ of verlan. Listen here or on the link below.

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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