The bakery is run by Djibril Bodian, who hails from Senegal, and who puts his win down to sheer hard work. He won the competition before, in 2011, so he was a little surprised to have won it again this year. Last time round, the win brought him a 30 per cent increase in turnover.This time, the competition was even stiffer, well over 200 bakeries in Paris. The prize for Djibril is €4, 000 in cash and the contract to supply a fresh daily quota of baguettes for the President in the Elysée Palace for the next year.
He got much more favourable publicity than the patisserie in Grasse, in Provence, that was up in court the other day. The French council of black associations had complained that the chocolate figures in its window, depicting ancient African gods and deities, were racist and obscene. The court agreed and if the shop had failed to comply with the court ruling, it would have faced a fine of €500 a day.
But back to more pleasant topics. As usual, there are plenty of interesting events coming up in Paris. From April 7 until July 5, the 30th anniversary of the Géode cinema at the Cité des Sciences in north- east Paris, will be well represented. This hemispheric cinema is the most unusual cinema in Paris, as well as being the largest.
Then the Foire de Paris will be taking place at the Porte de Versailles from April29 and May 10. The fair has been going for many years, over 110 in fact, and this year’s will concentrate on everything to do with the home. It will also have a music festival featuring dancers from Tahiti and even a pétanque strip for anyone who feels so inclined.
From April 14 until August 23, an exhibition at the Francois Mitterand Library in Paris will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Edith Piaf. All aspects of the life and music of the “little sparrow” will be honoured.
Then finally, outside Paris, if you go to the marvellous cathedral town of Chartres, from mid- April up until the third week of August, you’ll find all the main landmarks in the town- and there are many, apart from the cathedral, lit up to the sound of appropriate music. Chartres is 55 km south- east of Paris and well worth the journey there by train.
But if you had any thoughts of taking part in the Paris Marathon on April 12, forget it and just go and watch. It’s so popular that all the places have long since been booked.
Something else that might happen in Paris before too long is the opening of casinos. At the moment, they are restricted to thermal spas and health resorts, which have to be more than 100 km from the capital. Now it looks as if this antiquated law will be abolished to open up yet another attraction for Paris.
It’s a clear sign that at long last, after such a miserable winter and spring, and not just the bad weather, summer is in our sights. Diggers have been busy over the past few days bringing materials to the beach in Nice, to bulk it up in readiness for the summer hordes. But winter hasn’t quite gone away- over the past few days, the Mistral has been blowing across Provence, making for very unpleasant walking conditions. In several departments, the strong winds have been causing havoc, as in the Aude department, where the winds forced the closure of main roads in Narbonne the other day.
In more news from the south, a former mayor of Vence, Christian Iacono, has been cleared of raping his grandson. He was only the 10th person to have been acquitted at the final stage of an appeal in France since the second world war. The case was finally cleared up when Iacono’ s grandson admitted to lying about the incident.
I really enjoyed a musical blast from the past on RTÉ radio the other day, a song called Apres Toi, sung in French by the Greek singer Vicky Leandros. It won the 1972 Eurovision song contest, staged in Edinburgh, for Luxembourg. Vicky Leandros really belted out the song, which sounds great after all these years, and it can be easily seen and heard on YouTube.
Another traditional note, this time in the newspaper world, came from the small town of Vervins, population 2, 500, in the Aisne department of north- eastern France.The local weekly newspaper, the Démocrate de l’ Aisne, was founded in 1906. It sells around 1, 000 copies a week, for a cover charge of 60 cent. Nothing unusual in all that, except that the paper is the last in France, and probably in Europe, that is produced by traditional methods, hot metal typesetting and letterpress printing. It’s printed on a press that was made in 1924 and is still going strong. And the newspaper, in another trend setting move, has no website.
The second round of the regional elections were interesting, not just because the Socialists did so badly, losing control of 30 of the 61 departments they had held, but because the centre- right alliance, fronted by Nicolas Sarkozy, did far better than the pollsters predicted. It won 70 local councils out of a total 98, an impressive tally. The Front National didn’ t do as well as forecast, winning control of no councils. It got 90 candidates elected, but that was out of a total of 4,108.
It’ s being said that the huge snub for the Socialists and the embrace for the centre- right happened partly because consumer confidence in France is at last on the rise. It is said to be at its highest level for five years.
But with the local elections out of the way, two more campaigns are under way in Paris. A TV presenter, Thierry Ardisson, is up in arms at the state of the rue de Rivoli, at the back of the Tuileries. The street is rather drab at the best of times, but he reckons it’ s being totally ruined by all the kebab and other fast food stall along and off the street, so he’s started a campaign to get them shifted out of the way.
Cafés and bistros in Paris have started another campaign, against loud-mouthed tourists. Some tourists talk so loudly- who do they have in mind, I wonder?- that they are spoiling what they say is the sophisticated experience of dining out in Paris.
It’s also April 1 today, the date when the eviction season opens for people living in rented accommodation. They can’t be turned out of their homes during the winter, but as of today, in Paris and the rest of France, they can be. A big increase in homeless people is expected. April 1 is also April Fools’ Day, at least up to midday. It was on this day way back in 1957 that Richard Dimbleby delivered the best- known and loved media prank of them all. He filmed an insert for the BBC showing spaghetti trees being cultivated in Switzerland, but he said that the Swiss crop was of course far smaller than the Italian, pointing out that the Po Valley in northern Italy was absolutely plastered with spaghetti trees. Viewers fell for the joke completely and in the years since, it has become an absolute classic.
I also note that there was a very interesting art auction in Fontainebleau the other day. About 100 works by Pierre Bonnard were up for sale, paintings, sketches and memorabilia, which went in total for €5. 5 million. A self-portrait was expected to go for €250, 000, but it was bought by an American art lover for close to €1 million.
Meanwhile, the Germanwings air crash in the French Alps last week continues to get much media coverage; it certainly seems extraordinary that Lufthansa, which owns the airline, was able to let a co-pilot with very obvious medical problems slip through their checking system. The image of Germany being a country with meticulous adherence to the rules has certainly taken a battering.
But then how much can you trust airline companies? Late last Saturday, an Air Canada airbus made a crash landing at Halifax in Nova Scotia in very bad weather. The plane landed well short of the runway and hit aerials on the way down. It was so badly damaged that it’s write- off. Yet all the passengers and crew got out safely and at this stage, only one person is still in hospital. Yet Air Canada, to the derision of those who were on board, persists in saying that the plane had merely suffered a hard landing!
It’s the same with the proposed takeover of Aer Lingus by IAG, which owns British Airways and Iberia. Of all the lavish promises being made by IAG, how many are equivalent to fool’s gold? After all, look what happened to British Midland, once a very successful airline, that has been totally blotted from existence after its takeover by the same airline group. When multinationals are making takeover bids, they usually promise the sun, moon and all the stars, then when successful, promptly forget most of their promises. Remember the takeover five years ago by Kraft Foods of Cadburys?
Talking of new beginnings, the BBC revamped its news website last week and in typical BBC style, the end result is far worse than what they had before, since it is now much less informative in terms of news. It’ s the same with The Guardian’ s new look website; it’ s significant disimprovement, so I spend much less time now reading it. As for BBC radio, it’ s like so much radio these days, just plain beige and boring.
The UK general election campaign promises to be equally tedious and boring, although the end result might be a lot more interesting. On Monday, the day the campaign started, the best highlights were Larry the Number 10 cat berating a police sniffer dog outside the Number 10 front door; while all this was going on, a fox was strolling along Downing Street. Then Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader, was pictured in a nature reserve in the Midlands with Humpty the hedgehog. I wonder will the pollsters be wrong again?
A political figure from the past has also resurfaced, Enoch Powell. I always thought he was a very strange and dangerous character but now it seems that he may well have had a penchant for young boys, which if true, would make him even more disturbing.
But if you think things are bad in this part of the world, you should read a book that’s just been published about contemporary Russia. It’ called Nothing is True and Everything is Possible, by Peter Pomerantsev. It’ s an extraordinary book and really tells the inside story of what life is like in present day Russia- it all reads like some totally surreal gangster movie script, except that it’s all true.