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INSIDE FRANCE

Inside France: Diet coke, disinheriting kids and the liberation of Paris

From political infighting to disinheriting children, via a very special 'Diet Coke break', our weekly newsletter Inside France looks at what we have been talking about in France this week.

Inside France: Diet coke, disinheriting kids and the liberation of Paris
Picture dated 24 August 1944 showing a Parisian woman kissing French General de Gaulle during a parade on the Champs-Elysees after Paris' liberation. 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.

September blues

Although it’s still another two weeks before the schools go back, France’s ministers are back from holiday and the government is laying out its ideas for the year ahead.

Emmanuel Macron seems as full of plans as ever, judging by his pre-rentrée interview with Le Point. But having ideas is one thing – putting them into practice without an overall parliamentary majority in a country that appears increasingly divided and while your own ministers are jostling for position ahead of the 2027 election is quite another.

READ ALSO: 8 of the biggest problems facing Macron this September

Diet Coke break

Like many other people, I started off laughing at this video of an American influencer who brought an entire suitcase full of Diet Coke with her on holiday because “they don’t sell it in Europe”.

But then I ended up down a research rabbit hole – is it true that Coke tastes different in the US and Europe? Are Diet Coke and Coke Light the same thing? And why do American bloggers confidently proclaim that Diet Coke is “banned by the EU”?

Is Diet Coke really banned in Europe?

The Local’s Genevieve Mansfield also put together this great piece about the most popular American misconceptions about France (yes, you can drink the tap water. Yes, we have ice and clothes dryers too. No, your apartment probably won’t have air-conditioning).

Liberation

Friday marked 79 years since the liberation of Paris – a chaotic and bloody time that began with a strike and ended in pitched battles in the street. It was followed by the brutal period known as the épuration sauvage – or summary justice when people suspected of collaboration with the Germans were beaten up, shot or – in the case of an estimated 20,000 women accused of ‘horizontal collaboration’ – publicly humiliated and had their heads shaved. 

I always recommend that anyone interested is this period checks out the Musée de la Libération in Denfert-Rochereau, which tells the story of the occupation of Paris and its liberation, with a particular emphasis on what life was like for the ordinary residents of the city during this extraordinary time.

Legal LOLs

It’s not often that advice on inheritance provides a laugh, but many people made the same joke about this article in Le Figaro on how to disinherit your children – assuming that the journalist’s family holiday hadn’t gone exactly to plan.

Maybe I should say it’s more about minimising your children’s inheritance, as disinheriting your kids is practically impossible under French law, however much they might have annoyed you over the two-month summer break.

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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