Recently, and for two nights running, drones appeared in the skies above Paris. They appeared to hover over various landmarks, including the place de la Concorde and the porte de Clignancourt. Last year, drones caused much controversy when they hovered over various nuclear electricity generating stations.
A natural phenomenon is coming soon and should create just as much public interest, the eclipse of the sun on March 20. In some areas, north of Europe, it’ll be a total eclipse, but over much of northern Europe, including most of France, the sun is going to largely disappear for most of the morning of March 20th. As usual, the doomsday forecasters are having a field day, saying that with so much electricity being generated in Europe by solar power, it’ s going to have a big effect on the continent’s electricity supply. The following day, what has been billed as the ‘tide of the century’, although that is not a very accurate description, will reach northern and western coasts of France.
At least, natural wind power is being put to good use on the Eiffel tower, where two wind turbines have been installed on the second level, 127 metres above ground. They should be able to produce 10, 000 kWh per annum, enough to satisfy the energy needs of the shop on the first floor.
Another naturally related story comes from the Gard, down in the south of France. There, the first strawberries of the year have already gone on sale at local markets; they ripened earlier than usual this year, despite all the bad weather, and they’ re being described as deliciously full of flavour.
Also in the south, Christopher Estrosi has launched a petition against the planned privatisation of Nice- Cote d’Azur airport and not only does he want to stop that, but he is also drafting a parliamentary bill to prevent the privatisation of all French airports, some 50 in all. Nice has taken another bold step, too, as part of the annual carnival. The other night, a gay and lesbian night was organised as part of the carnival; the event was named the queernival and was said to have been the first carnival event of its kind in France.
Another story from Nice the other day was eye catching. Police stopped a driver and arrested him for not having a driving licence and for being drunk at the wheel. Neither was he wearing his seat belt. It turned out that he had five blocks of hashish concealed in the car, while he also had a machete tucked away under the passenger seat.
Stories about French bloodymindedness are always commonplace, but one I heard about a few days ago really took the biscuit. It was a true story of an Irish woman who was caught short in Paris and went into a café to use the loo. She didn’t buy a drink and after she had left the place, an irate waitress came out after her, chased her down the street and wouldn’t let her go until she had paid €1. 50 for using the loo! I’m glad to say that here in Ireland, while this same kind of thing happens all the time, naturally enough, no- one takes any notice. I’ve never heard of any hospitality industry staff displaying a French attitude to such an event.
A big new investment in Euronews, which is based in Lyon, should enable the channel to expand. An Egyptian billionaire called Naguib Saviris has invested €35 million in the channel, which gives him 53 per cent control. It’s an interesting concept, broadcasting news and news features in 14 European languages 24 hours a day. It reaches more than 155 million European households and can also be seen and heard in 155 countries around the world. Personally speaking, it’s an invaluable source of news, often carrying precisely the international news that the BBC never bothers to mention.
There has even been a small drop in unemployment figures in France, down by 19, 100 in January, which is at least a step in the right direction. Another piece of good news came a few days ago for the Pompidou Centre in Paris. Back in 2001, an artwork by Picasso that the centre had in storage was stolen, but it has just turned up in New York. La Coiffeuse is likely to go on show at the Pompidou Centre shortly. No artist has had more works stolen than Picasso; it’s been estimated that currently, around 1, 000 of his works are on the stolen and still missing list. But at the Fontainebeau chateau just south of Paris the other day, thieves raided the place’ s Chinese museum and got away with 15 Chinese artefacts.
Another interesting piece of news came from the Correze in central France, a department that has had a close relationship with the Chiracs for years. Jacques Chirac, the former president, is now 83 and a bit gaga, but his 81 year old wife Bernadette is still going strong, so much so that she is standing for re-election in one of the department’ s electoral divisions at the end of this month.
But strong words about France came from Madonna, who said the other day that France and indeed the whole of Europe was now like Nazi Germany, because intolerance was at such a high level. She said that France used to be a bastion of diversity and freedom, but no more. Madonna added that France used to embrace everyone and encourage freedom in every way, including artistic freedom of expression, but that all that has gone by the board nowadays. Not so long ago, she and Marine Le Pen of the Front National had a big spat, but now Le Pen says she is more than willing to meet Madonna for a drink.
One casualty of the current lack of artistic freedom came in Caen in Normandy, which had been planning to run its annual festival in April for cartoonists. Now it has been cancelled, because of the risk factor of an attack against the many international cartoonists who were planning to attend.
Bad news turned out to be false in the case of a leading industrialist, Martin Bouygues, who is the chairman and ceo of the group named after him, one of the biggest in France, in construction, property, telecoms and media; it owns the TF1 television channel. The other day, a reporter working for Agence France Presse was told by the mayor in the small town of Saint Denis Sarthon in the Orne that Martin Bouygues had died. Without bothering to check the veracity of the story, AFP promptly broadcast the news, which was quickly relayed on many TV news bulletins. The story was false, very embarrassing for AFP.
Then in the ski resort of Les Angles in the Pyrenees the other night, a female seasonal worker in her early 20s, managed to get sucked into a snow clearing machine and was killed. As yet, no- one has come up with a plausible explanation as to how the accident happened.
Also in the Pyrenees, where the weather had been so bad recently, the hamlet of Gazost has been completely cut off, as a mudslide blocked 150 metres of the approach road to the place and left several houses precariously perched near ground that has just been sheared completely away.
But at the end of February, Prince Albert of Monaco had the grace to apologise to Arsene Wenger, the manager of the Arsenal football club in London, for spoiling his evening. In a match in London, the Monaco football team managed to beat Arsenal 3- 0.
An extraordinary story came up about a Tory councillor in Newton Abbot in south Devon. Eve Barisic has been a councillor there for some time, but not long ago, her husband got a new job in Roscoff in Brittany. The end result is that she moved there to be with her husband, but makes the 240km journey by ferry and car to spend a week a month in Newton Abbot looking after her local council ward work. She says, with a lot of justification, that with modern communications like email and Facebook, she can keep in touch with everyone very easily, no matter where she is.
Back in the UK, yet another howler from Radio 4. Recently, Melvyn Bragg’ s Thursday morning discussion programme was billed as being about Beowulf, the epice Anglo-Saxon poem. Epice is French for spice, so maybe this was hot stuff! But to give credit to Radio 4, it did an outstanding programme the other day, recorded on location at the main music museum in Prague, about Smetena and his composition, Ma Vlast. Smetena’ s failing battle against total deafness was highlighted. It was a fascinating programme, the kind that’s all too rare these days in the Radio 4 schedules, and it reminded me vividly of Prague. I have always found Prague the most intriguing and mesmerising city in Europe, even ahead of Paris, so anything to remind me of my times there is always welcome.
On March 7, it is exactly two months to the UK general election. The outcome is anyone’ s guess. Will the Tories win enough seats to form a government on their own? Will Labour do a deal with the SNP to form a coalition? Or will the Tories swallow their pride and form a coalition with UKIP? What part will the Greens play in all this and will the Lib Dems just disappear down the plughole? But at least from the UK comes a brilliant description of overseas aid. It’s something paid by poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
Here in Ireland, another example of a dysfunctional system came to light. A single mother from Co Donegal had been fined for not having a TV licence. Despite her lack of money, she had been paying off the fine. But the other day, she was carted off to prison in Dublin for just three hours before being released. Using a taxi to transport her all the way from Donegal to Dublin cost taxpayers something like €350. The case was just so daft it beggars belief. There’s more political trouble on the way with all the people threatened with eviction because they can’t repay their mortgages, some 30, 000 families waiting to be thrown onto the street. It doesn’t sound a good idea, for obvious reasons, and especially with a general election coming up, but you can guess that the response of the government is to all this! Yes, you’ re right.
A very sad story about a young sports journalist on The Irish Times. Carl O’Malley was just 36, with a wife and three young children, the youngest of whom was only born in February. When he was playing indoor soccer the other evening, he collapsed and died. Then, four days later, his wife’s father died.
But at least I have a nice smooth story to end with this week. The last silk factory in Switzerland, in Ticino in the Italian speaking part of the country, closed down in 1914. But in 2009, a farmer and textile engineer from Bern canton, Ueli Ramseier, set up the SwissSilk Association. Now, 12 people are breeding silkworms in Switzerland and now they’ve produced 20kg of silk, which is being used to make 150 ties and 30 scarves. It’s great to see a very traditional industry being revived like this.