Hardly surprisingly, an opinion poll the other day found that 57 per cent of people in France are pessimistic about the prospects for 2015, so it’ s hardly noteworthy that all this pessimism has fed into the cult of the year ending in 15. It all started with a recent book called La Fatalité de l’ an XV, which pointed out that in recent centuries, any year ending with 15 saw big historical events and major upheavals, such as the death in 1715 of King Louis XV, who died from gangrene after sitting on the throne for a record breaking 72 years. If you sat on the throne that long, wouldn’t you expect to get gangrene?
Following on from the book, the social commentators have been hard at work and as just one example, on the TF1 television network, the other night, a clutch of them said in unison that what the world is probably going to see this year will be continuing economic crisis in many corners of the globe, causing much more widespread violence. People who follow the stock market note that the US stock market is still in one of its longest bull runs in history, similar to the situation just before the 1929 crash. So there you have it!
No wonder then that a leading economist and essayist in France, Jacques Attali, says that France is going into the new year on auto pilot, with little sense of direction or ease. No doubt the president, Francois Hollande, is hoping that miracle upon miracle, he’ s actually going to get popular again. His approval rating in November fell to 12 per cent and you can’ t get much lower than that. But a new opinion poll a few days ago, put his plus rating at an astonishing 25 per cent. To celebrate, the president did an interview on France Inter radio for the New Year; it went on for an interminable two hours. I’ d love to know what the ratings were at the end of the show, compared to the beginning. However, President Hollande has been calling for an end to the endless French bashing that’ s going on, with many of the culprits being inside France. The country may be in the grip of an interminable recession, but it still has loads going for it.
At least the super rich can now abandon their French- bashing. The government has dispensed with the 75 per cent tax on the super rich, since it brought in so little extra revenues, and has proved counter- productive.
But Valérie Trierweiler has just spiked the president’ s shoes with a few stones. Her recent revelations about life in the Elysée palace, Merci pour ce moment, which sold immensely well, are now to be turned into a film, and it seems that up in the Elysée, they are fuming at the prospect. Nicolas Sarkozy, who fancies himself as a runner once again in the presidential stakes, took himself off with his beloved, Carla, to spend the Christmas holiday in luxurious style in Morocco.
Thomas Piketty, the economist who wrote Capital in the Twenty- First Century, has just done the unthinkable. His tome on wealth and inequality around the world sold well and created enormous waves around the world, not just in France, but elsewhere like the US. Whether it will actually contribute to any equalising of the vast imbalances in world wealth is another question altogether. But the author has turned down the Legion d’ Honneur that the French state wanted to award him. Turning down such honours in France is rare indeed; back in 1954, Sartre declined the Nobel prize for literature and that created quite a frisson at the time.
Other odd happenings have generated much more digital mileage than Piketty’ s decision. Recently, a young Twitter user in Lille @vanoukia, posted a tweet saying that if Burger King ever opened in her home city, she’ d buy a Burger King meal for anyone who wanted it.
The other day, Burger King did indeed announce that it is to open in Lille and in its publicity, made much of that tweet, but fortunately, the woman in question was able to duck out of her previously announced intentions. Amid all the fatuities and crassness of the digital age, this was a classic case of a stupid, non- story grabbing the headlines. It attracted almost as much attention as the game last Sunday when fourth tier club Grenoble managed to knock the leader in Ligue 1, Marseilles, out of the French Cup, with a 3- 3 draw.
Needless to remark, the advance of digital is unstoppable and now SNCF has said that it’ s going to equip all its TGV trains with wifi. Another recent innovation in Paris has however fallen foul of the vandals- cultural, social and other kinds of vandals are everywhere these days. About six years ago, the craze started of couples clicking lovelocks onto the bridges of Paris, especially the Pont des Arts, which attracted three quarters of a million of them. The city authorities came up with the ingenious solution of removing them by filling in the blank spaces on the balustrades with clear perspex sheeting, but over the past few days, these sheets have been filled with one Spanish word, preciosa, which means ‘beautiful’ .
While you’ll soon be able to use wifi on TGV trains, another new opening in Paris is also causing much controversy, hardly surprising. Well heeled lovers of classical music have been going to concerts in the Salle Pleyel in the Faubourg Saint-Honoré for almost a century now. But the new ultra modern concert hall for the Philharmonie de Paris is due to open on January 14. It’s cost €390 million to build, well over the original estimates and needless to remark, is years behind schedule. But it’s ready now and promises to be an acoustic masterpiece. Only snag is that it’ s in a working class area of north- east Paris, quite a trek from the city centre, and battle is raging between its advocates and those who love the Salle Pleyel.
But if you want to look forward to fun and frolics of a different kind, then head to Menton, close to the Italian border. Its famous lemon festival has been going for over 80 years; the lemons flourish in its mild winter climate. This year’s starts on February 14 and runs until March 4; over 200,000 visitors are expected. All kinds of events are planned, musical and otherwise, so although it’ll be very noisy, it will also be great fun. A 42 year elephant called Mozly is the mascot of this year’s festival and miniature mascots showing a likeness of Mozly will be everywhere.
In nearby Monaco, today, January 7, sees the new royal babies being shown off to the public for the first time. Prince Jacques and Princess Gabriela are appearing on the balcony of the royal palace and just to encourage everyone to join in the festivies, today has been declared a public holiday in Monaco.
If you go further east from Monaco, the next big stopping point is Nice, which has just been declared one of the most gay friendly places in France, since one in 10 of marriages there are of same sex couples. But from Plymouth in the UK came a very sad story about a same sex couple on New Year’ s Day. Two men living together in a council flat had just decided to get engaged and hours later, their flat went up in flames. One of the two men died and the man who survived said that all their possessions had been destroyed in the fire.
There’ s lots happening on the international front, like the impending election in Greece.The other day, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, was quoted as saying that if Greece wants to leave the eurozone, it’ d be welcome to do so. So expect a lot more euro upheavals. Apart from the political discontent in Greece, in Italy, three out of four political parties want to leave the eurozone, while in Spain, opposition to the present right wing government is mounting by the day. Britain has a general election in May that’ s likely to result in a fragmentation of the political system, while here in Ireland, exactly the same process of political fragmentation is under way, for entirely different reasons. At the moment, it looks as if at least four new political parties are going to be launched in Ireland this year.
See what the French mean about the doom- laden year 2015? But in all these European countries, with so many political parties promising so much, one should always remember the old saying that politicians’ promises are about as sincere as a whore’s kiss.
Meantime, I’ve discovered a new source of international fascination, Armenia. Until Radio 4 broadcast a series about the country last week, I knew all too little about the place. But Armenia goes back to the sixth century BC and it was the first country in the world to make Christianity its state religion. Its history and culture are extraordinary and it also produces some pretty good wine, champagne style wine and brandy. Even though its borders with Turkey and Azerbaijan are still closed, it manages to keep going and its capital Yerevan, seems to be a cultural hotbed. This year of course Armenia is in the news for another reason, the 100th anniversary of the terrible Armenian genocide by the Turks in 1915. The Armenians will be making much of it, while Turkey of course continues to try and whitewash the whole event out of history.
In conclusion, I can’ t resist a lovely typo. From time to time, I get email flyers from a UK company called USB- Flashdrive. This week, it’ s advertising a 48 hour flash sale of USB personal sticks, except that in the flyer, ‘sticks’ came out as ‘sicks ’ . They are not alone; the other day, I was reading some musical programme notes on a BBC website and they were littered with typos! Clearly, the 2015 effect is already at work!