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INSIDE FRANCE

Inside France: Riots, visas and tea-drinking Brits

From the French government plan to prevent riots to the ingrained problems of police violence and racism, via visas for second-home owners and what the French really think of the British, our weekly newsletter Inside France looks at what we have been talking about in France this week.

Inside France: Riots, visas and tea-drinking Brits
Photo by JEFF PACHOUD / 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.

Anti-riot measures

Four months after the rioting that convulsed much of urban France in June, the prime minister has unveiled a plan intended to prevent future urban violence – the result, apparently, of months of careful consideration.

The measures include joint police-social work teams in tense areas, fines and parenting courses for the parents of juveniles who cause trouble, extra civics classes in schools and some (vague) plans for ‘military schools’ for delinquent youths.

The reason that so much of it focuses on parents and schools is the striking youth of the rioters in June – three quarters of these arrested were under 25 and a fifth were still at school. 

While these plans might help cut anti-social behaviour, I can’t imagine that the type of wild anger and orgy of destruction that we saw in June would be halted by the thought of your parents possibly having to go on a course. 

The summer riots were sparked by the actions of one police officer – who shot a 17-year-old boy and then lied about it – but the roots of the trouble were simply that this type of thing happens too often and a wider sense among many young people of colour that they will never be accepted as truly French.

Their feelings were confirmed in the aftermath of the riots but the politicians who blamed ‘foreigners’ or ‘immigrants’ for the violence and who – when it was pointed out that the majority of the rioters were born in France – said: “OK, they’re French, but these are French people in their official identity, and unfortunately for the second and third generations (of immigrants), there is a sort of regression towards their ethnic roots.” That quote comes from the Senate leader of Les Républicains party.

France is far from the only country to struggle with ingrained racism and police violence, of course, but it seems particularly hard for the country to have an honest conversation about its problems. 

Talking France 

In this week’s Talking France we’re looking at the latest travel situation after bomb alerts at French airports, plus how easy it is to retire to France and whether the second-home visa is likely to become a reality (quite frankly, I’m telling my second-home owner friends not to get too excited about this). Plus museum and Halloween recommendations and ‘buttergate’. Listen here or on the link below.

Les rosbifs

And yes, I know that Google autocorrect is not hard science, but I still had some fun looking at the most commonly Googled questions onpourquoi les anglais/britanniques . . .’  Along with the expected questions about loving tea and Dordogne, one of the queries was ‘why don’t the English have shutters?’.

And honestly, that’s a great question. After six years in France I can’t imagine why anyone doesn’t have shutters – they keep your place warm in winter (far more efficient than curtains), cool in the summer and your bedroom dark enough for a lie-in. Plus there’s something unfailingly satisfying in throwing open the shutters and discovering that it’s a beautiful morning. 

Sort it out, England. 

French pun of the week 

Indeed, Je m’appelle Gemma Pell would be confusing for all concerned. 

But it’s still not as bad as as boys/men called Ken (in French a slang term for having sex), Peter (péter means to fart), Colin (a type of tasty white fish) or Connor (sounds perilously like connard – dickhead).

READ ALSO 9 boys names that sound very different in French

One of The Local’s readers recalls one of her son Connor’s school-friend calling out hello to him when they met on the street, only to receive a clip round the ear from his grandmother for his ‘foul’ language!

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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