Just to prove her point, over the past few months, she spent more than €7, 000 on having lunch at the nine restaurants in Paris that each have three Michelin stars. These were places where lunch cost anything from €450 for two people right up to €1, 100 for two and she says that very few of the dishes she was served were any better than those she tasted elsewhere that cost between a fifth and a tenth of the price.
In conclusion, she says that many of the Michelin restaurants offer some of the most overblown and least exciting cuisine in Paris and that the Michelin guide-the latest guide to French eating out was published this week- is largely oblivious to what gastronomic explorers are looking for. In short, concludes Meg, the Michelin guide to eating out is looking backwards and is out of touch with all the exciting developments in contemporary French cuisine. Ouch! But then the Michelin restaurant star system is comparable with so much in the French establishment, hopelessly out of touch, wrapped up in its own little cocoon.
Traditional France was of course still remembered on Monday of this week, February 2, the day of candles and crepes and by tradition, the most superstitious day of the year. Like much old French folklore, the myths attached to the 40th day after Christmas vary from region to region. In Brittany, if someone can successfully turn six crepes in a row then they will marry within the year. In another superstition, it was said to be lucky if a new bride threw a crepe on top of a wardrobe, while if someone holds a gold or silver coin in one hand while they’ re tossing a crepe with the other hand, then their family will have enough money for the year.
But tradition or no tradition, morals have long been lax in France compared to Anglo- Saxon countries; many would argue that the French attitude towards sexual matters is far healthier than what prevails in other countries, such as Britain, which for long had a Puritanical approach to the subject, although not these days, fortunately. But in France, it seems as if some old Anglo- Saxon correctness is emerging, as can be seen in the differing attitudes towards the DSK sex trial in Lille.
So far, the details of the trial have proved tedious rather than titillating, but what strikes me is how people like DSK and his cohorts at high level in France could possibly have done a proper day’ s work when they spent most of their time fornicating. Some of the more recent evidence has centred around the lunchtime sex parties in which DSK allegedly took part. DSK was head of the IMF when the whole financial and economic crisis was breaking on an unsuspecting world from 2008 onwards, yet by all accounts, that was the least of his worries.
It may be the current sex trial of the moment, but France being France, these have been a regular pattern for many years, with scandals being unearthed in high places every now and then. Back in 1959, the then president of the national assembly, André Toquer, was accused of organising sex parties at his official residence outside Paris, attended by girls as young as 14. Major French business figures were also implicated and so too was a Romanian countess. Toquer had been a member of the French resistance during the second world war and served alongside General de Gaulle, mitigating circumstances that meant that Toquer got off with a suspended prison sentence and a fine of 3, 000 francs. What amuses me about this whole story is that the president of the national assembly who was so busy organising sex parties had lost an arm during his resistance activities, but being short an arm obviously was no deterrent to his later activities!
Similarly, in more recent years, Frédéric Mitterand, a nephew of one time president Francois Mitterand, who died nearly 20 years ago, also went public with a lurid sex life. At one stage, he confessed to have been overwhelmed with joy and excitement when he discovered the boy brothels of Bangkok, yet all this had no impact on his ministerial career.
Back to the France of today. The south- west in particular is being shaken by some really violent weather, with the risk of avalanches throughout the Pyrenees. Flood risks are likely in Gascony while in the Jura and Alps, more heavy snow is forecast, with the possibility of many avalanches in Savoie. Just across the border in Switzerland, around a dozen skiers have been killed in the past few days.
The flu season is also in full swing, with the Auvergne, Limousin and Picardie departments the most affected. The number of cases nationwide has doubled over the past week, so it’s now close to epidemic level, with around 470 cases for every 100, 000 inhabitants. To make matters worse, the flu vaccine that has been developed for the current season doesn’t protect against the current strain of flu, so the flu jab is only 25 per cent effective. Then in Nice last weekend, in a crime of passion, the owner of a snack bar in the city shot dead the woman cashier in a supermarket on the Rue Cassini then turned the gun on himself. All in all, the usual litany of murder, mayhem and gloomy tidings.
None of this stopped former president Nicolas Sarkozy celebrating his 60th birthday the other day and he invited exactly 60 guests to his birthday bash. If he has his way, he’ ll be taking part in the presidential contest in 2017. A recent opinion poll said that Marine Le Pen, the leader of the Front National, would top the first round in this contest but that she would narrowly fail to make the top of the second round.
Despite all the current gloomy news from France and the Middle East, there have been positive things happening. Last week, in a clinic at the Avenue Lyautey in Nice, a mother of three arrived with her youngest for a checkup. The midwife, Laurence Stella- Maubad, realised that the prematurely born little boy had turned blue and was having difficulty in breathing, but the midwife promptly saved the child’ s life by giving it a cardiac massage. The little boy is now recovering and the midwife has been honoured with the award of a departmental medal of honour.
The French president has also updated powers that date back to Napoleonic times. In 1804, Napoleon decided that since animals were largely beasts that worked on farms, they were no more than goods or chattels of the people who owned them. Now this Napoleonic decree has been set aside and animals have been reclassified as living, sentient beings. In another worthwhile move, the agriculture minister has decreed that the government wants to reduce the amount of pesticides used in farming by 50 per cent over the next 10 years.
On the international front, quite apart from the Middle East, news from the eastern part of Ukraine is far from good. The situation there is deteriorating rapidly, as Russia pours munitions and men into the conflict, supporting the rebels in this part of Ukraine. To the east of Turkey, another war zone seems about to develop. Armenia and Azerbaijan have long been in conflict over the area of the latter country that has always been claimed by Armenia, Nagorno- Kazabakh. Efforts to solve the dispute over the past 20 years have been fruitless and now it seems, the two countries are on the brink of war. Yet the only media coverage I’ve seen in this part of the world was a story in the New YorkTimes the other day.
Talking about news coverage, what a mess The Guardian has made of the new website for its Sunday paper, The Observer, which used to be very easy to navigate.
The new look Guardian website is easy enough to get around, which is more than can be said of its Observer equivalent, which is shambolic. By comparison, other news website, like the London Independent, the New York Times and the Washington Post are models of clear, easy to follow layout. And as for the BBC, here we go again. This week, on Radio 4 FM, they are serialising the new biography of the poet T. S. Eliot. Yesterday, it should have been exceptionally interesting, because it detailed Eliot’ s arrival in Paris. Needless to remark, the online connection broke down- the fault seemed at the BBC’ s end- so the episode went unheard. But sadly these days, that level of competence, or incompetence, seems merely par for the course.