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INSIDE FRANCE

Inside France: Storm damage, gender versus grammar and beer records

From an actual storm to a storm over French grammar, via a cheering beer statistic and some spooky topics, our weekly newsletter Inside France looks at what we have been talking about in France this week.

Inside France: Storm damage, gender versus grammar and beer records
France made an estimated €2 billion from the Rugby Word Cup. 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.

Storm in a dictionary

This week a real storm – Storm Ciaran bringing 200km/h winds and leaving a trail of destruction in northern France – has somewhat overshadowed the political storm, in which a right-wing Senator opened the culture war playbook and tried to ban ‘inclusive writing’.

The motion has little chance of being passed by the Assemblée nationale – the parliamentary chamber with the real power – but has revived the debate about how French (and indeed all grammatically gendered languages) can become more gender-inclusive.

It’s true that the median point – writing les étudiant·es to include male and female students – is complicated and confusing, especially to French learners, but I see no reason not to have masculine and feminine versions of job titles, for example. And I’m not just saying that because my own feminine job title – rédactrice en chef – trips off the tongue so beautifully with its repeated rolling French ‘R’.

OPINION Making French fully inclusive is a grammatical and political nightmare

Pint power

The first accounts are in from the Rugby World Cup and it seems to have been a financial success, netting France an estimated profit of €2 billion.

From my experience it seemed like an organisational success too – a fabulous tournament with a great atmosphere at matches and in fan zones (although the steam did go out of things once France were knocked out).

Ireland might be disappointed at also being knocked out at the quarter final stage but at least they can take comfort in this stat – Irish and Scottish fans set a new record for beer sales at Stade de France during their pool stage game, with an impressive 137,000 pints sold. Santé !

Animal instinct

The Talking France podcast is taking a short break this week – you can catch up on previous episodes here – so instead I have some scary film French recommendations, courtesy of the lovely people at Lost in Frenchlation. I enjoyed Le Règne Animal which is not really scary in ‘make you jump’ way, despite involving a mysterious illness that makes humans mutate into terrifying creatures.

Instead it looks at the extremely pertinent (and terrifying in their own way) themes of how we deal with epidemics and how we co-exist with the animal kingdom. 

Widening horizons

And perhaps not strictly related to France, but I have been struck this week as I watched the UK’s Covid inquiry by how insular UK planning and emergency responses were. 

Former French health minister Olivier Véran recalls in his book Par-delà les vagues (beyond the waves) that, in February 2020, he was having meetings with fellow health ministers around Europe. In Downing Street, meanwhile, the only mention made so far of how other European countries were dealing with the crisis was Boris Johnson reportedly ‘laughing at the Italians for over-reacting’. Tragically, the Italians were not over-reacting. 

Véran’s book was, incidentally, my beach reading last summer – because obviously I know how to relax and enjoy myself . . . 

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.

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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