It was the third worst civilian air disaster in French history and the first such crash in France since a Concorde crashed in flames at Charles de Gaulle airport in July, 2000, nearly 15 years ago. This week’ s plane crash was just the latest disaster to hit France this year; no wonder that so many French people think that 2015 is going to be ‘ doomsday year’ . Hardly surprising that Mario Monti, a former Italian prime minister, thinks that the big problem in Europe is France.
The explanation for the crash seems straightforward. Before take- off from Barcelona, the aircraft had been experiencing technical problems with a door. That could explain why the plane, within a minute of reaching its cruising altitude, went into a steep dive before crashing eight minutes later. If something had gone wrong with the door, immediate depressurisation would also explain why the crew never sent a mayday message. But thankfully, for all 150 people on board the plane, they would all have been unconscious long before it hit the ground and smashed into thousands of pieces. Just shows, with budget airlines as with everything else in life, you often get what you pay for.
A similar reason caused the crash of a Turkish plane en route to London, in the forests at Ermenonville, north- east of Paris, in March, 1974, when all 346 people on board were killed. A cargo door on the plane hadn’t been properly closed before take- off.
As if all that wasn’ t bad enough, today sees the funerals being held of the French sports stars killed in the helicopter crash in Argentina. Camille Muffat, the swimming star, is being buried in Nice and Florence Arthaud, the long distance sailor, is being buried on the Ile St Marguerite off Cannes.
Severe floods in northern Corsica over the past few days have claimed at least three people. In one case, the driver of a 4 x 4, trying to cross a river ford, was swept away. Then the police went to a woman’s house to tell her that her husband had been drowned in the floods. She wasn’t there and the police soon found that she too had been caught by the torrential floods and had perished.
The record high tide last weekend also resulted in two deaths. While an estimated 30, 000 people flocked to see Mont St Michel momentarily turned into a total island, and a further 20, 000 stood on the seafront in St Malo, a 70 year pensioner from Toulouse, who was on holiday in Soulac- sur- Mer at the mouth of the Gironde, was drowned. So too was another fisherman, this time off Grand Ile in western Brittany.
The effects of this high tide were felt far and wide. The Severn Bore, in the tidal part of the River Severn in the west of England, rose to 10. 4 metres on Sunday, while over in eastern Canada, the biggest tidal rise of all was reported at the Bay of Fundy, 16 metres. But even though everyone was calling this the tide of the century, it wasn’t; similar tide heights happen about every 18 years.
Then there was all the smog and foul atmospheric pollution over Paris and northern France. Fortunately, the traffic restrictions in Paris proved to be temporary. The free public transport only lasted a short while.
Results of the first round of regional elections in France last Sunday turned out not quite as expected. The pollsters had all predicted that the Front National would be the winner, with 30 per cent of the vote. In the event, it came in second, with around 25 per cent, although in some departments, like the Var, their vote got a nearly 40 per cent share.
The pollsters seem to be making a habit of wrong forecasts; they were also totally wrong about the elections in Israel last week. Can they be believed about the forthcoming UK general election? Perhaps Paddy Power the bookmaker is more believable; according to their odds, it looks like the Tories will manage to form a government on their own.
Now to legal matters. First of all, the famous chipper case in Albertville in the French Alps has been settled. Lindsay Owen- Jones, the former ceo of L’ Oréal, and four of his neighbours, had complained about the chip stand set up under their windows by Valerie Maertens. The smell was just too much for them. They have now won their case and she has been ordered to demolish both the chip stand and the eating area she had set up, before she makes an appeal against the decision. So the wealthy litigants have won their case, surprise, surprise!
An interesting new law has come into effect for new buildings in commercial zones in France. Their rooftops will have to either be planted with greenery or used for solar panels, which all seems very sensible.
In another legal decision, controversial comedian Dieudonné has been given a two month suspended prison sentence for saying on Facebook that “I feel like Charlie Coulibay”. He has also been fined €22, 500 for saying that a Jewish radio presenter would end up in the gas chamber. Yet in another legal judgement, another comedian, Nicolas Bedos, who said in an article in Marianne magazine in January, 2012, that Marine Le Pen was a “fascist bitch”, has been decreed to have been within his rights. Meanwhile, troubles at the Front National mirror what’s been happening with UKIP. A total of 20 people working as assistants to French MEPS are now being suspected of fraudulent activities.
Then the electrician who was once a handyman for Picasso and stuffed 271 works of art in his garage, has been found guilty of theft. Pierre Guennec has to pay token damages to members of Picasso’ s family and has been given a two year suspended prison sentence; his wife Jacqueline was found guilty alongside him.
But sometimes, people can ignore the law with impunity. The famous Baoli nightclub in Cannes was legally licensed, until six months ago, when its licence expired. But that hasn’t stopped it operating ever since and attracting full houses every night!
Another proposed law won’t now happen. It seems that France isn’t going to ban skinny models, for the simple reason that the proposed law would discriminate against thin people in the workplace. But another ban has just been lifted, for extraordinary reasons. The Musée d’Orsay in Paris VII has had a ‘no photos’ ban in place since 2010, but the other day the Culture Minister, Fleur Pellerin, went to the current Pierre Bonnard exhibition and took a photo of a painting, which she then posted on Twitter and Instagram. So many people complained that this was unfair that the museum had to lift its general ban.
Also on the cultural front, the new film about the Irish designer who lived for so long in France, Eileen Gray, has been completed. The bisexual artist, architect and designer lived from 1878 until 1976 and was remarkably innovative. The biopic, called The Price of Desire, has been hailed as a fine piece of film making.
And an interesting cultural phenomenon was shown at the recent Paris Book Fair, the latest versions of book printing machines that from a computer file, can produce a fully complete book within five minutes. This could start an interesting trend in bookselling. Instead of people going to Amazon to buy an obscure book, they may go to their local bookseller, hopefully an independent, who will then call up the file and print the book on the spot.
I was sad to read about the passing of Hans Enri, the renowned Swiss artist, at the age of 106, in a clinic in his native Lucerne. He had only celebrated his last birthday last month. In a remarkable career, he had illustrated 200 books and done a 60 metre long ceramic mosaic for the entrance to the UN building in Geneva, just six years ago, all part of a remarkable career.
He also had a second home in the lovely Provencal town of St Paul de Vence. He was very much an ecologist and a pacifist and in his earlier days, from the second world war to the Hungarian uprising in 1956, had been a Marxist. When he was a Marxist, he got a commission to redesign all the Swiss bank notes, but the government wouldn’t go ahead with the designs because of his Marxism.
Talking about bygone cultural heroes, I heard a music piece the other day by a Mexican composer who died in 1948. He was a maestro on the guitar, but suffered from a most unfortunate second name, Manuel Ponce.
On more serious international matters, the widespread Russian military exercises in recent days have caused much alarm, with commentators saying that Russia is now quite capable and willing to start a large scale war in Europe. As for the Crimea, which Russia annexed a year ago, a very telling article in the New York Times describes the place as a kleptocracy. Assistant US secretary of state Victoria Nuland went further, saying that a reign of terror is under way there. The headline in the New York Times piece read: “To see Ukraine’ s future, recall Crimea” .
Also continuing on the ‘ gloom’ theme, remember you read it here first. The FTSE 100 share index is standing above 7, 000 and a similar trend is evident on the New York Stock Exchange. It all seems to me like a bubble waiting to burst.
But to end on an equally subversive note nearer to home, I see an interesting article in today’s Guardian saying that advertising is merely consumerist sewage. And when you add in recently revealed facts that Roundup and other much used pesticides used in food production are carcinogenic, it’ s enough to make people deeply sceptical about taking the official line on anything!