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INSIDE FRANCE

Inside France: Reshuffle, political potboilers and France’s biggest scandal magnets

From the latest ins and outs of government to the biggest scandal magnets in French politics, via the weather and tributes to Jane Birkin, our weekly newsletter Inside France looks at what we have been talking about in France this week.

Inside France: Reshuffle, political potboilers and France's biggest scandal magnets
British singer Jane Birkin and French composer and musician Serge Gainsbourg, pictured in 1985. Photo by Pascal PAVANI / 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.

Shuffle bored

This week in France the news has been dominated by fevered speculation about a government reshuffle – which in the end turned out to be a very minor affair with almost all the big-name ministers remaining in place.

There was a definite shift towards more Macronist loyalists and fewer outside experts in ministries, but other than that the reshuffle was mainly notable for its timidity.

READ ALSO Who’s who in the new French government

One of the new appointments has an interesting backstory however – Sabrina Agresti-Roubache, the new minister for urban affairs, was a TV producer before entering politics and worked on Marseille, Netflix’s fabulously trashy political drama set around a fictional mayor of the Mediterranean port city.

The series is packed with sex, corruption, political scheming and back-stabbing – I wonder if she will be bringing this vibe to Emmanuel Macron’s frankly rather dull government?

Raise the roof

The heatwave that has been frying much of southern Europe has thankfully not extended to most of France, although the Riviera has seen some scorching days.

But I notice that international attention has picked up on the capital’s ‘Paris at 50C’ plan, based on the fascinating work of engineer Frank Lirzin, who has written a book on how city architecture can be adapted for ever-rising temperatures.

In Paris this is going to require big changes to some of the most iconic things about the city – particularly the grey zinc roofs and those wide, exposed Haussmann boulevards.

This is doubtless going to upset a lot of traditionalists – but what’s the point of having a beautiful city if its unlivable for half the year?

Making history fun

If you fancy a French political history lesson with a fun twist, the satirical magazine Le Canard Enchaîné is running a summer series on its ‘best customers’ – ie the people it has done the most exposés on – over the years.

The reels are released on Instagram and Twitter each Monday. So far we have had far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, and ex president Jacques Chirac, who always seems to me to get an easy ride from history despite being really very corrupt indeed.

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Le Canard enchaîné (@lecanardenchaine)

(The ‘roi des casseroles‘ title doesn’t mean that Chirac was a great cook, it’s a reference to the phrase avoir des casseroles, which is roughly equivalent to someone having ‘skeletons in the closet’ or being tainted by scandal). 

Foreign accents

The British-born singer and actress Jane Birkin received a great send off after her death was announced last weekend, with blanket coverage in the French media and an outpouring of affection.

If you’re ever seen her films or interviews, you will know that although her French was fluent, her British accent remained very strong even after more than 50 years here – and in fact it was affectionately mentioned by many French commentators after her death.

A reminder that we are probably more embarrassed than we need to be about our own accents and pronunciation fails.

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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