was totally stupid and therefore, all the more hilarious, showing a Gallic bulldog that had a rampant fear, of its own farts, running around in small circles, chasing its tail, just like a typical politician.
Why should all this remind me of President Hollande? Well, for starters, he’s running in fear of the French electorate. In May, his approval ratings were down to 30 per cent, but in June, they fell even further, to 26 per cent. No new president in France – and Hollande has only been in office just over a year- has ever had
such low ratings. Apart from that, the ruling Socialist party is in a state of turmoil and upheaval. Yet while the great French public has so little confidence in President Hollande, neither is there much appetite for the return of that great swashbuckler, Sarkozy. Another recent poll showed that 60 per cent of the French electorate would issue a resounding “non” to any idea of him ever returning to power.
President Hollande looks so worn out these days that inevitably, there must be speculation as to whether he is actually going to see his term of office through to the bitter end. In the US, where similarly, President Obama has promised much and delivered precious little, there’s a lot of speculation that he won’t complete his second term of office.
In France, the slump in approval ratings for the president comes amid increasing economic gloom. The recession is getting really serious, but it’s a sign of how generally useless the mainstream media is at reporting what’s really going that the state of the French economy merits little if any coverage. An exception to this rule is the Daily Telegraph in London, which with its EU sceptical bias, does deliver some excellent news coverage of what’s really going on in Europe, including France.
The Cour de Comptes, which is the watchdog for French government finances, says that over the
next two years, the country will need an extra €28 billion in cuts, targeting such areas as employment benefits, pensions and family support. Those projected cuts are about twice what is proposed for government cuts in the UK in 2015 and 2016.
Ambitious plans to double the size of the high speed rail network over the next two decades have been scrapped and places like Normandy which had hoped for a TGV service, will now have to put up with a slow, conventional rail service for goodness knows how many years to come. The only new TGV line to survive these massive cuts is the extension of the new Paris to Bordeaux line, already under construction, to Toulouse. Hardly surprisingly, the French data office, INSEE, has said that consumer confidence in France is at its lowest level for 40 years.
More fury was generated last autumn when Libération, that left-wing organ of the media, published a commentary piece that said that France was a decrepit, overcentralised gerontocracy, stating that if young people in France wanted to get on in life, they best thing could do would be to leave the country. The basis themes of this piece were repeated in a feature the other day in the New York Times. Yet unlike countries like Ireland, where qualified young people continue to leave the country by the planeload, there’s little tradition in France of this kind of mass emigration, unless you count the big exodus in recent years to London. In terms of its French population, London can now be classed as the sixth largest French city!
French consumers do not take attacks on their well-being lying down; the stage is being set, through
the massive decline in consumer confidence and the economic woes, for much social unrest, which the French do all too well. Whereas in Ireland, people have taken all the austerity measures like sheep in doze mode-hardly anyone raises a voice in protest-the French are all set to become very vocal indeed on the subject.
In Germany, an Anglo-Saxon term has become very popular, among all classes, and is even being used by the Chancellor, Angela Merkel, yet is not even raising an eyebrow. It’s very impressive: shitstorm. Who knows, its French equivalent, merde orage, may be about to happen!
At least, there’s one piece of good news from Paris. An old mansion at number 5 bis, rue de
Verneuil in the 7th., was home to Serge Gainsbourg in 1969. He was perhaps the most iconic performer of his generation in France. For the past 40 years, the wall outside has been plastered with graffiti. Now comes news that for the first time, Charlotte Gainsbourg, who owns the house, the daughter of the singer and of Jane Birkin, has authorised a renovation of the graffiti wall. There are also plans to open a Gainsbourg museum inside the house; meanwhile, as from September, small groups of people will be able, for the first time, to have a look round the interior of the old Gainsbourg abode.
But one should always be highly sceptical about over-wrought hyperbole in the media. I had an
excellent example of this the other day when I went to see a screening of the Renoir film by young French director, Gilles Bourdos. The film is set in Cagnes-sur-Mer, in the south of France, in 1915,and shows the great painter Renoir, in the last stages of his life (he died in 1919). Into the picture comes one of Renoir’s sons, Jean, as well as the woman who was the last of Renoir’s models, Catherine Hessling, born Andrée Heuschling. From the Champagne-Marne region, she had escaped wartime Paris and gone to the Cote d’Azur, when she stumbled into the job of model for Renoir. When the film opened in the US earlier this year, reviews of it in major media outlets like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, were positively gushing, making it out to be almost the greatest French
film of all time. It just shows how even the big media brands in the US can get it wrong!
I found it was boring as hell and all I became interested in was how much time was still to elapse before it ended and I could leave the cinema and get some fresh air. It gave little if any appreciation of what life was like on the Cote D’Azur in 1915, while in north-eastern France, the war was being waged ferociously. The characters were two rather than three dimensional, so that one cared little for them. Directors often think that nudity and sex in a film will cover a multitude of sins, but that
simply isn’t true. The lead actress in the film (how I hate the use of that word, actor, for both sexes!) was Christa Theret, born in Paris in 1991. She was excellent, however, and what’s more she has a lovely body, seen to full naked effect in the film. But all her displays didn’t remotely compensate
for the boredom that had already set in.
It wasn’t until the last half hour of the film, where Jean Renoir comes into prominence, that the film
started to come alive. He had recovered from his war injuries and announced he had signed up again, this time, as an aviator. He forms a relationship with his father’s model. The most interesting part of the film came with text at its very end, where it outlined what happened later to Jean Renoir. He and Catherine got married and during the 1920s, when Jean was beginning his film career, Catherine
was his lead actress. Up to the end of the 1960s, Jean Renoir made more than 40 films, becoming one of the greatest ever film directors. But he and Catherine had split up in 1930, although they didn’t divorce until 1943.
After the split, Catherine appeared in a few more films, then disappeared from public view, but always living in Paris. For the rest of her life, she maintained a monastic silence. Jean Renoir died, in California, in early 1979, a feted figure in the movie industry. In September, 1979, Catherine died, an impoverished and totally forgotten old lady. This part of the story has the makings of a much more interesting film, but whether the French film industry in its present state, is up to the task of making such a film is a very good question.
Somewhere with vestiges of French culture that’s well worth exploring, the Channel Islands, came to mind when I saw the latest offerings on the Internet from the tourist board for Guernsey, Herm, Sark and Alderney. I must say that I’ve always found Guernsey by far the most appealing of the two big
Channel Islands and I made my first trip there, aged seven, which is rather a long time ago. The other big island, Jersey, has never appealed as much to me; it always seems more of a honky-tonk, nouveau riche (very rich) place.
Guernsey on the other hand is full of flowers and lovely lanes and beaches. Its capital, St Peter Port, is much more interesting than St Helier in Jersey. One place in St Peter Port that’s particularly fascinating, despite its gloom, is Hauteville House, where Victor Hugo lived in exile for 15 years, up until 1870. The house in the Marais, in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris, to which he returned, is even gloomier!
But apart from Victor Hugo, Guernsey has lots to offer and through this summer, it has all kinds of events, including the famous Battle of the Flowers and a parade of islanders in traditional costumes. There’s even a scarecrow festival on the 3rd and 4th of August, while you can also enjoy outdoor cinema on the island during the summer. During seven Sundays through the summer, St Peter Port seafront is closed to all traffic, to give free rein to pedestrians and all kinds of markets. All in all, Guernsey is a wholly delightful place, one that I can wholeheartedly recommend. But even though
the original culture of the islands was French, these days, you’ll find only vestiges of it left, including the local patois.
If you take a very short boat trip from the harbour in St Peter Port to the tiny island of Herm, you’ll be mesmerised. There’s little to do on Herm except explore the vast sandy beach. The island has a lovely hotel, the White House, where you can really get away from it all. A two day package, half board, including flights from the UK starts at £330, a little but expensive, but well worth it to escape from the woes of the 21st century.
Sark is the only Channel Island I don’t know and I’m not tempted to go there, since the place seems bogged down in acrimonious land disputes. The Barclay Brothers, whose business interests include
the Daily Telegraph, live offshore from Sark. The other Channel Island, Alderney, I wouldn’t particularly recommend. We found the atmosphere round the harbour really oppressive, with almost a feeling of evil in the air. It wasn’t until later that I discovered that during the World War II occupation of the Channel Islands by the Nazis, dreadful atrocities were carried out on Alderney - the spirits of the departed must haunt the harbour.
And just to end on an Italian note - I’m currently engrossed in a new book called Italian Ways, by Tim Parks, who has lived in Italy for many years. He explores Italian railways and uses them to
paint an all too realistic portrait of Italy. It’s gripping reading and as I know from my own experiences over the years, it may be a delightful country, but when it comes to mind crushing bureaucracy, the Italians can really put the French in the shade! And that’s really saying something!