Over the Christmas, some 15, 000 people who had been hell bent on a ski- ing holiday got snowed in and all over the Savoie department, monumental traffic jams built up. All very exasperating for anyone caught in them, but the weather seems to have improved a little since then. Exactly the same problem has befallen the Swiss Alps; nothing like having too much snow! I was looking at some photos a short while ago that were taken in the Geneva area a couple of days ago. Snow and ice are everywhere, and although the photos may look very idyllic, they are anything but when you are trying to get around. This last weekend, too, the magnificent gardens in the palace of Versailles had to be shut to the public because of dangers posed by high winds.
One result of all the cold weather, especially in eastern and northern France, is that homeless people have been suffering a lot. An SDF, or homeless man, was found dead in the north- eastern town of Douai on Monday; the poor unfortunate had literally frozen to death one of half a dozen SDFs who’ve met the same fate over the past few days of freezing cold weather. In the small town of Villers- le- Lac in the Doubs department of eastern France, right up against the Swiss border, two people died when their third and fourth floor apartment caught fire. The cause of the fire was considered to have an electrical fault in the Christmas lights.
In the meantime, the President has been at it again- but not what you think! For Christmas, he made an unexpected overseas trip to the three islands that make up the French dependency of Saint- Pierre et Miquelon. These desolate islands are just off the coast of Newfoundland and the 6,000 or so people who live there couldn’t survive without massive subsidies from the French state. The last time the islands were really prosperous was around 80 years ago, when the prohibition era in the US ensured that the bootlegging industry became very big business indeed. The islands served as a natural gateway to the US, beyond US control, so they did exceptionally well from all the alcohol smuggling. The islands also used to be very prosperous from the cod fishing in the seas around them, but this too has died out. The islands, which are just 25 km from the New World, are 4, 000 km from mainland France, the last remnant of the once great French empire in what is now the US and Canada.
So when President Hollande showed up on the islands the other day, he got a very warm welcome, much more so than if he had visited anywhere in mainland France. Back there, unemployment hit a record high in November, of 3, 488, 300. At the same time, the government is trying to bring in deregulation in many industries to try and free up some of the logjams in the French economy. One example is that of long distance buses being able to compete for the first time against the services of SNCF, the state- owned rail company. But so many things have been so cossetted for so long in France that all these deregulation measures are extremely unpopular. Just to make matters worse, 2014 saw the UK overtake the French economy to become the fifth biggest in the world. Mind you, it will take another 16 years for the UK to overtake the Germany economy. It’s rather ironic that the UK has been able to leap frog France because of the economic “ benefits” of prostitution and drugs.
Just to make matters worse in France, a whole host of services are going up in price in the New Year, including diesel, electricity, gas, even the TV licence, which is being increased by €3 to €136. The price of stamps is going up on January 1, with increases of between seven and 15 per cent. La Poste says the increases will add a mere €4 a year to the bills of an average household. Train fares, too, are going up and this is the increase that has provoked the most comment in France.
At least, President Hollande got a new dog for Christmas, a three month old black Labrador, presented by Canadian war veterans. It’ s called Phillae after the European spacecraft that brought a lander recently to a far distant comet. In getting a black Labrador, Hollande continues a tradition held by previous presidents, including Sarkozy, Chirac, Mitterand and Giscard d’ Estaing. There’ s a lovely photo doing the rounds of the late Francois Mitterand having his ear nuzzled by the presidential labrador.
President Hollande is also getting a lot of stick for his support for a new TGV line. It’ s planned to go from Limoges to Poitiers, but it’ s to be a branch line- it won’ t lead to anywhere else. Critics of the scheme say it is absolutely mad, because the whole area is so under- populated it won’ t be able to generate enough traffic for the line. It so happens- surely no coincidence- that Hollande’s constituency of Tulle in Correze is 90km south of Limoges. No wonder that this planned line is being dubbed “Hollande’s folly” but the president has to decide by the middle of January whether this decidedly superfluous line should go ahead, at enormous cost to French taxpayers. Meanwhile, the TGV network is costing so much that the non- TGV network is being deprived of money for maintenance and is falling into serious disrepair.
There’ s always someone grumbling, though, and Brigitte Bardot, now a dedicated campaigner for animal rights, chose Christmas to launch her broadside at the EU commissioner for health. Christmas and the New Year are peak times for people to eat what they consider the delicacy of foie gras, so she urged the Commissioner to look at the health implications of the way in which birds are force fed to produce foie gras. Outside France, many people consider its production to be cruel and a growing number of non- French chefs are starting to ban the serving of it.
Someone from China who has a link to France seems likely to lose his stunning home there. Bo Xilai was once a political top dog in China, but not long ago, after the case against him for corruption was concluded, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. The Chinese authorities are currently conducting a massive campaign against corruption. Bo Xilai was accused of accepting a fantastic house in one of the posh suburbs of Cannes as a gift from a businessman, something he has denied all knowledge of. But the end result is that the house is now up for sale and is likely to make at least €7 million.
Another politician who is now slightly better off, in a perfectly legitimate way, is Florian Philipott, a senior advisor to Marine Le Pen of the Front National. He complained because Closer magazine published photos of him with his male partner, thereby “outing” him. The case has now been settled and Philipott is being paid €20, 000 in damages. He’s also getting his legal costs of €3,500 paid.
One town that hit the headlines for the wrong reasons the other day was Angouleme, a pleasant enough place on the way to the Dordogne. But the local council had the not- so- brilliant idea of placing cages on park benches in the town so that homeless people couldn’t sleep on them. Such was the scale of public outrage that very soon, another brilliant bureacratic idea hit the dust.
But sometimes, modern technology can be fascinating. Everyone’s heard of the drones that Amazon is planning to use to delivery orders. Now La Poste in France is thinking along the same lines. At its research centre in the Var in southern France, it has been experimenting since last September with using drones for parcels delivery. In due course, it’ s hoped that the postal drones will be able to deliver parcels weighing up to four kg over as much as 20km. Also on the subject of flying technology, you’ ll be interested in a website called flightradar24. com which allows you to see the movement of aircraft in and out of any civilian airport in the world, all “live” . France has just over 50 civilian airports and it’ s fascinating to see for instance all the flights in and out of Roissy or Nice Cote d’ Azur.
Here in Ireland, an aviation story has come up in the forecasts for 2015. Old Moore’s Almanac has been going since the late 18th century and its predictions, of weather, calamities and events, have long been treated as close to gospel in many rural households. It’ s also surprisingly accurate in its predictions, which are compiled by a middle aged psychic who lives in the Dublin area. Among its predictions for 2015 are a major crash in the Irish property market in July and a big air disaster in Ireland in November.
The way things are going in Greece, the first prophetic warnings sound all too plausible. With Greece headed for a general election, due on January 25, which will probably be won by the extreme left Syriza party, Greece could end up leaving the eurozone and helping plunge the rest of the eurozone into financial chaos and instability.
One Irish political party came up with an eye catching headline the other day. Sinn Féin said that Fine Gael, the current majority partner in the coalition government, was adept at robbing the poor to pay the rich. For a large section of the public, it seems that breaking point has been reached with the water charges, which start in 2015. They are highly unpopular with a large section of Irish society. The other day, Liam Neeson, the 62 year old Irish actor who has lived in New York for the past 20 years, said that he had been thinking of moving back to Ireland, but had now changed his mind because of the water charges. He said that the Irish public had been fucked from a great height by the bankers and now by the water charges. “Don’t fucking insult the Irish people any more” , he counselled the government, not that ‘ they’ will take the slightest bit of notice.
No wonder, as a little light relief, one of the main papers and websites in Ireland ran a rather disgusting story the other day about a music competition on a radio station in Chile. A female listener suggested that she would quite happily lick cream from the bum crack of the presenter, in order to win her prize in the competition. The paper and website in question published photos showing her putting her suggestion into practice, all very offputting, especially for anyone allergic to overdosing on cream.
But to end on an intriguing note. The other day, the Daily Express in London ran a feature about people who had fallen into comas and as a result, ending coming back to consciousness and speaking other languages or doing other odd things. An 81 year grandfather fell out of a plum tree in his garden in Switzerland back in 2010. When he came to, he had turned into a total sex maniac and in just one session at a local brothel, he spent the equivalent of £3,000. He became such an addict that a court ruled he was no longer capable of managing his own money and the two properties he owned, so control was handed over to his son. The motto must be “don’t on any account fall out of the plum tree” .
At the moment, there’ s a certain rather peculiar fondness for looking back on 2014- which I don’ t enthuse about-but out of all the news stories in France during 2014, one stands out. Well, it would, wouldn’t it? Around 150 years ago, the painter Courbet unveiled his painting, “L’Origin du Monde”, which depicted a nude model with truly luxuriant pubic hair. At the time, it caused an immense scandal, but these days, when going Brazilian is the mode, such visual images are almost everywhere. No- one takes any notice. But earlier last year, the Musée d’ Orsay in Paris put this notorious painting on display. A Luxembourg- based artist, Deborah de Robertis, sat herself in front of the painting, bottomless rather than topless, with her legs wide open. Visitors to the museum rather enjoyed the sight, but the stuffy old museum authorities told her to go away and cover herself up.
Now we can look forward to Epiphany on January 6th, Little Christmas or Women’s Christmas in this part of the world; in Russia, it’s Christmas proper. But whatever the date of a moveable Christmas, the New Year is almost upon us. I wish one and all a bonne année and all the best that 2015 can bring in what promises to be yet another chaotic and tumultuous year.