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INSIDE FRANCE

Inside France: Lawyers, avocados and Macron’s fish face

Our weekly newsletter Inside France looks at what we have been talking about in France this week.

Published: 14 October 2023 09:40 CEST
Inside France: Lawyers, avocados and Macron's fish face
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz with French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte in Hamburg. Photo by FABIAN BIMMER / POOL / 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.

Naturally, Friday’s terror attack has been the main topic of conversation in France – find the latest here – but here’s a look at some of the other talking points from the week. 

Sunshine and TV

Autumn has now finally arrived in Paris with cooler temperatures and grey, rainy skies – and honestly it feels like a bit of a relief after the freakish late-summer heatwave that meant we were still wearing T-shirts and having BBQs well into October. 

The unusually warm autumn temperatures are also apparently responsible for making TV signals go haywire in about half of France – although I must confess that I still don’t actually follow the TV company’s explanation of exactly how that happened . . .

Bedbugs go dark

In good news, some of the international bedbug hysteria now seems to have calmed down, but not before the story took a few fairly dark turns, as we explore in this week’s Talking France podcast (along with Corsican terrorism, tips for picking wine and France’s doomed effort to colonise Florida). Listen here or on the link below.

Face-pulling of the week 

This week I have been enjoying the memes created from the unimpressed looks of Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron when they visited Hamburg and were given the local speciality Fischbrötchen.

According to my German colleagues, it’s similar to a fish-finger sandwich, and really who doesn’t love a fish-finger sandwich? Best hangover cure ever.

AI translation?

And something tells me this photo search website is using an internet based translation tool . . . Search ‘lawyer’ and get a load of pictures of avocados (avocat being the word in French for both lawyer and avocado. You can only make a tasty salad out of one of them, though).

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: Political farce, far-right fears and sharks under Paris

This week in France has been heavily focused on politics due to the surprise election, from the soap opera and the memes of the right-wing parties to grumpy faces among the Macronists, plus some light relief in the form of the weird stuff underneath Paris.

Published: 15 June 2024 11:41 CEST
Inside France: Political farce, far-right fears and sharks under Paris

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.

Ciotti chuckles

Anyone who says that the French have no sense of humour has clearly not spent any time on French social media this week as the jokes and memes came thick and fast in response to the ridiculous election shenanigans of the once-mighty right-wing Les Républicains party.

You can find the full details here but to cut a long story short, party leader Eric Ciotti announced an election alliance with the far-right, his fellow party bigwigs were horrified and attempted to expel him, Ciotti locked himself inside the party HQ and refused to allow anyone in, leaders held their meeting elsewhere and voted to expel him from the party, Ciotti refused to accept their verdict and posted a video of him showing up at work as normal the following day, insisting he was still in charge.

The whole thing was a gift for anyone with a Twitter account and a sense of humour. 

Sense of humour

The whole idea that ‘the French aren’t funny’ is an oddly enduring trope. I think it’s to do with the fact that French humour is often highly referential, making it hard for foreigners to get if they don’t understand the references.

READ ALSO 5 tips for understanding French humour and jokes

Far right

Funny as the whole Ciotti episode was, it didn’t quite distract from the widespread horror in France at the prospect of a far-right government, and bafflement over Emmanuel Macron’s high-stakes election gamble.

His announcement on Sunday night of a snap election took the country and the media entirely by surprise and seemed to catch plenty of his own party members off guard too.

The election is a gamble – un pari – Macron is banking on the country to reject the far-right at the polls and hand his party back an absolute majority in parliament. This could happen, or Marine Le Pen’s party could win and Macron would then go down in history as the man who handed the keys of government to the far-right. Or – and most analysts think this is the most likely scenario – no party could win an absolute majority and the parliament could be plunged into an even more messy deadlock.

READ ALSO What do the snap elections mean for France?

One of the most outspoken critics has been Gabriel Attal, the 35-year-old prime minister often described as a Macron protege. This photo of him with a face like thunder has become another meme, embodying all those who think that this election is a very bad idea. 

Talking France

We of course talk about the elections in a special episode of the Talking France podcast – listen here. During the election period we will be releasing the podcast on Mondays, and we will also be doing a bi-weekly election breakdown for anyone who wants to stay in touch with the latest – sign up here.

Sharknado

And if you want something to help you switch off from all the politics, I highly recommend the new Netflix film Sous la Seine (Under Paris). Not because it’s good – it’s not, in fact it’s terrible but it’s so bad that it’s actually hilarious. 

One thing that you might write off as dramatic licence is the idea of an enormous underground lake beneath Paris – but this is actually true. In fact, there’s a lot weird shit under Paris . . .

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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