A renowned French photographer, Marianne Rosenstielh, has produced a series of 24 photographs showing the taboo subject of women’ s menstrual cycles. The ground- breaking exhibition is at Le Petit Espace in Paris and Marianne says that the public reaction has been very positive, especially from men.
There’ s a strange phrase that’ s often used by French women when their periods are on their way; the expression is “ Les Anglais ont debarqué” . It’s a reference to the English redcoats who landed on French beaches during the Napoleonic wars, and it has become a very graphic cliché.
The run- up to this Christmas has seen the usual litanies of tragedy, made all the more poignant by their closeness to the festive season. The accident in Glasgow at the start of this week, when six pedestrians were run down and killed by a runaway bin truck was truly shocking. But incidents in France could have been equally serious. First in Dijon and then in Nantes, pedestrians were deliberately run down by car drivers who were shouting out “ Allahu Akbar” . So far, in these incidents, and another one last weekend in Tours, two people have been killed and over 20 have been injured. High profile tourist locations in Paris and elsewhere are being patrolled by the French military and there’ s a general feeling of nervousness in the air.
Over in western France, a strange discovery has really hit the headlines. A former transport industry entrepreneur, Roger Baillon, collected many rare motor cars but when his fortunes went into decline 40 years ago, he started selling them off. But around 60 went unsold and were tucked away on a farm, where they lingered until they were discovered recently. These very unusual cars are being put up for auction in February, when they are expected to fetch around €16 million.
Something that has disappeared without trace was Malaysian Airlines’ flight number 370. Many theories have been put forward, but the latest seems quite plausible. Marc Dugain, who was a boss in the French aviation industry for many years, wrote a six page article for last week’ s Paris Match. He reckons that the plane was taken over by an external hacker, who managed to get into its control systems and thereby fly the plane. Dugain thinks that the plane was coming close to the huge US military base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean when the US air force shot it down, fearing a 9/ 11 type attack on the base. Dugain says that it’ s amazing that the Americans, with the best technology in the world, haven’ t been able to locate a 63 metre long object and he reckons there’ s a big cover- up going on. He also says that he warned by a British intelligence officer of the dangers of investigating the disappearance of Flight MH 370. So the mystery continues...
There’ s no mystery about the continued rise in temperatures in France this year and no- one is complaining, especially the wine makers. In the south- west of France, including the Bordeaux region, temperatures this year were higher than they have been since 1991 and it has meant a substantial increase in wine yields. The benefits can be felt throughout the year; tomorrow on Christmas Day in Paris, the forecast temperature is around 12 degrees C, which is pleasantly mild for the time of year.
Better news, too, for train travellers in the south of France. The Italian train company, Thallo, is starting a new direct service between Marseilles and Milan. Each afternoon, there will be one direct train in each direction. In France, the train stops at Toulon, Cannes, Nice and Monte Carlo, while 12 towns and cities in northern Italy will be served.
Excellent news on the museum front in Lyon, where the Musée des Confluences opened last weekend. It’ s sited at the confluence of the Rhone and Saone rivers in Lyon and it’ s a Frank Gehry lookalike- think Guggenheim in Bilbao and you have a close approximation of this new museum. The construction of the museum ran years late and cost three times as much as originally planned, €180 million instead of €60 million. The museum is devoted to the earth sciences, science generally and anthropology and people who’ ve already visited say that it’ s stunning, with very imaginative content.
On a more topical note, there’ s ongoing controversy over the warships that France is contracted to building for the Russians. The first one is completed and should have been delivered, but it’ s stuck in the shipyard in St Nazaire; the French government won’ t release it until the situation in eastern Ukraine shows some signs of resolution and the 400 Russian sailors who were in St Nazaire preparing to take over the ship have gone home. Even six months ago, who could have predicted the mess in which the Russian economy now finds itself, mainly thanks to falling oil prices.
Another controversy, but nearer home, seems to have reached some kind of resolution. The French government has passed its legislation to reduce the number of regions in France from 22 to 13, but the discontent in various regions, especially Alsace, is far from quelled.
But France being France, there’ s always a dispute on somewhere. Last week, delivery drivers caused widespread disruption by blocking roads and warehouses, saying that they are being underpaid. But another traffic disruption the other day didn’ t cause any bother at all, since it was for a very good cause. Some 3, 000 bikers dressed as Santa Claus, took to the streets of Paris for the 12th year running, in their quest to raise funds for orphaned children and the orphaned children of firefighters. A very worthy cause indeed.
Someone else who’s hoping to make some money for himself is Florian Phillipot, a senior advisor to the Front National, who was recently ‘ outed’ as gay by the magazine Closer, which published photos of himself and his partner. Phillipot is now looking for €50, 000 damages from the magazine.
Despite everything, many of the Christmas traditions live on. Many people will go to midnight Mass tonight, despite the secular tradition in France. The old tradition of Le Reveillon, or the big pre- Christmas feast, still continues, either before people go to midnight Mass or else when they return home. The ingredients don’ t sound particularly tasty- turkey stuffed with chestnuts, goose, oysters and foie gras. Down in the south of France, people still carry on the tradition of the Yule log, which was kept burning from Christmas right through to New Year’ s Day. In the old days, part of the log was used to make a wedge for the family plough, in the hope of bringing good luck during the new year. These days, of course, the Yule log is much more likely to be chocolate!
Another old tradition is still going strong, the idea of the crown in the cake on the Feast of the Ephipany, the 12th day after Christmas. Who ever finds and wears the crown chooses his or her partner; it’ s still a tradition many people adhere to.
We once spent Christmas in Paris and a pretty miserable time it was, since most places were closed and the weather as awful. Our flight arrived at Roissy late on Christmas Eve. We had booked into one of the big hotels at the airport. Normally, its 600 or so rooms were booked out, but we were the only two guests. Despite that, the staff opened up the disco- just for two! The next day, we checked into our hotel in the 7th but traipsing round Paris on a cold, wet Christmas Day wasn’ t much fun. For dinner that night, we ended up in a Greek restaurant on the Boulevard St Germain that was totally devoid of any Christmas cheer whatsover. New Year’ s Eve is always a much bigger festival in France and another year, we arrived in Paris on New Year’ s Eve. Having travelled at lightning speed from the South of France in a TGV, we then spent an hour waiting in a taxi queue at the Gare de Lyon! That was rather an exhausting experience, so that by the time we got to our hotel and turned on the TV to see the New Year programme, not even the topless dancers could raise a cheer!
Mind you, a fishmonger in the town of Auchel in the Pas- de- Calais in the north- east of France, found a novel way of celebrating the Christmas spirit at the end of last week. He had only recently opened his shop and thankfully, he had got plenty of orders for Christmas. To celebrate, he got gloriously drunk, dressed up as a woman and did a dance in the window of his shop. To the astonishment of passers- by, he had forgotten to put on a codpiece, so his private parts were on full display; a very embarrassed fishmonger now faces a court appearance in February on a charge of indecent exposure.
Other have been luckier. An English couple running a small hotel in the town of Castilonnes in the Lot et Garonne district of the Dordogne, were doing some renovation work on a old coach house near their hotel. Ron Whetton discovered a cloth parcel full of 16th century Spanish gold coins. One of the coins was dated 1590. Luckily for Ron and his wife Jennie, since their find was made in a wall and not in the earth, they are now free to sell their treasure trove.
Elsewhere in the Dordogne, an elderly lady called Huguette, living on her own, had an unfortunate accident. She went to sit on the toilet and instead fell into the bath. Her emergency call device was on the handbasin, so she couldn’ t reach it. Huguette ended up spending six days in the bath ,taking water from the tap, which saved her. On the third day of her ordeal, the local postwoman , Silvette Villaud, thought something was wrong when she saw all the windows in the house open. On the sixth day, when she returned, she found they were still open, so she called to the local mairie. The mayor came round and got a spare set of keys to the house from a neighbour and Huguette was rescued, in remarkably chipper form considering her ordeal.
Internationally, the big news has been the thaw between the US and Cuba. President Obama seems to have a new lease of life these days and while the Cuban thaw is to be welcomed, it’ d be very sad if Cuba ended up swamped with McDonalds and Starbucks. Also in central America, work has started on the new 200km canal across Nicaragua, in which the Chinese are very involved, and which one day will be a serious competitor to the Panama Canal. In Spain, there’ s much anguish over the new and very undemocratic laws that deprive protestors of many of their rights. Protesting now outside a government building is now a punishable offence. I wonder how long these new laws are going to last or indeed how long the present right- wing government is going to survive.
Meanwhile, if anyone wants a good laugh, then just look at some of the recent news photos of Nigel Farage of UKIP, being followed by someone dressed as Jesus. Assolutely hilarious!
But if you’ re waiting for a post- Christmas upset, you won’ t have to wait beyond Monday. That day, the Greek government will make its third and final attempt to get a new president elected. It’ s widely expected this won’ t happen, so a general election will be the order of the day. The extreme left wing party, Syriza, is expected to be swept into power with its anti-austerity programme. Expect much quaking in boots in Brussels! And on that note, happy Christmas!