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INSIDE FRANCE

Inside France: Sexy films, protest blues and a British bromance

From a Frenchman's right to protest to rekindling the flame of the Franco-British relationship, via singing, birthdays and dodgy film titles, our weekly newsletter Inside France looks at what we have been talking about in France this week.

Published: 11 March 2023 14:43 CET
Inside France: Sexy films, protest blues and a British bromance
This week we're all about rekindling romances when it comes to international relations. Photo by ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT / AFP

Inside France is our weekly look at some of the news, talking points and gossip in France that you might not have heard about. It’s published each Saturday and members can receive it directly to their inbox, by going to their newsletter preferences or adding their email to the sign-up box in this article.

British bromance

There were a lot of serious topics discussed at the meeting between Emmanuel Macron and Rishi Sunak on Friday, but for much of the French media this was about a chance to go back to normal relations between neighbours and historic allies after the chaotic and tense relationship during the Boris Johnson years and the Liz Truss weeks.

I particularly enjoyed the front page of leftwing daily Libération ahead of the visit. My gran had some very similar souvenir mugs from the weddings of Prince Charles and Diana and Prince Andrew and Sarah back in the 1980s – I hope that’s not a bad omen for the Macron-Sunak relationship

Protest

I’m afraid I had to laugh this week when a Parisian told me, with a completely straight face, that: “Since Macron, no-one can protest in France any more or you will be shot in the back. It’s unfortunate but that’s the way it is.”

On Tuesday an estimated 1.2 million people protested against the pension reform, so I think that statement is not quite true (although there is certainly a serious conversation to be had about police violence in France).

The pension reform bill continues to make its way through the parliamentary process, coming back to the Assemblée nationale next week ahead of a final vote on March 26th. It’s widely expected that strikes will reach a crescendo over the next two weeks with official actions such as walk-outs on the railways and unofficial ones like the rogue Edf workers cutting off the power to towns that elected ministers who back the reforms. 

Song of the week

As the country of my birth takes on the country of my residence this weekend in the Six Nations rugby match known as Le Crunch, I’ll have the opportunity to hear La Marseillaise as it should be sung – bellowed by slightly drunk sports fans.

The French anthem is undoubtedly a cracking tune, so much so that I also heard it sung by groups of distinctly convivial farmers in the wine tent at the closing at France’s biggest farm show last weekend. Can’t quite imagine that happening with God Save the King . . .

Thread of the week

We’ve written about this before at The Local, but French versions of English-language film titles are often a bit . . . weird. Especially when it comes to sex, as the below thread demonstrates.

Although the urban myth that The Matrix films appeared in France as Les jeunes qui traversent des dimensions en portant des lunettes de soleil (young people who travel in dimensions while wearing sunglasses) is sadly not true. In France it was simply Matrix, while in Quebec it was La Matrice.

Puns, sex and urban legends: How French film titles are translated into English

Birthday cake

And the Talking France podcast is back with a special first birthday edition.

Yes, it’s one year since we said ‘Let’s launch a podcast to cover the presidential elections, we’ll probably just do it for a couple of months’. We’ve branched out since then from politics to cover all aspects of French news and life in France – this week’s episode covers; strikes (of course), drought, Olympics tickets, France’s privacy laws and 3 French islands you really should visit.

Listen here or on the link below.

And if you want to hear even more of me talking, this week I am a guest on the Navigating the French podcast, discussing perhaps the most French word of them all – la grève (strikes).

Inside France is our weekly look at some of the news, talking points and gossip in France that you might not have heard about. It’s published each Saturday and members can receive it directly to their inbox, by going to their newsletter preferences or adding their email to the sign-up box in this article.

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INSIDE FRANCE

Inside France: Political psycho-dramas, party in the port and Tricolore textbooks

From the latest political dramas (and what they say about a chaotic party) to French binge-drinking, parties and textbooks, our weekly newsletter Inside France looks at what we have been talking about in France this week.

Published: 27 May 2023 08:08 CEST
Inside France: Political psycho-dramas, party in the port and Tricolore textbooks

Inside France is our weekly look at some of the news, talking points and gossip in France that you might not have heard about. It’s published each Saturday and members can receive it directly to their inbox, by going to their newsletter preferences or adding their email to the sign-up box in this article.

Psycho-drama

After achieving almost two weeks of relative calm, the French government is involved in yet another political row, although this time most of the drama was created elsewhere. 

Approached behind the scenes and asked if they would consider supporting the government’s proposed immigration bill in parliament, the traditional centre-right Les Républicains party instead opted to launch their own immigration policy via the medium of an interview in the Journal du Dimanche. What they came up with would require changing the French constitution and possibly leaving the EU, and has been described as a “cut and paste from Marine Le Pen’s manifesto”.

It seems that the progress of the immigration bill is blocked for now, but this seems to be more about the internal psycho-dramas of the once-mighty Les Républicains (party of Sarkozy, Chirac and De Gaulle) than about the government’s truthfully fairly modest bill.

Heading for obscurity after securing less than five percent of the vote in the 2022 presidential election, the party gained a new lease of life as the potential power-broker in parliament after the government lost its overall majority. But can a party truly be a power-broken if it either cannot (as with pension reform) or will not (as with the immigration bill) deliver the votes? 

Party in the port

I’m severely jealous of anyone who was in La Rochelle last week as the entire town erupted into celebrations when their rugby team won the European rugby tournament for the second year in a row. 

The scenes from the Vieux Port on Saturday and during the team’s victory parade on Sunday looked like a lot of fun.

Le binge-drinking

Meanwhile, the French rugby league released this joke ‘sick note’ for fans who might have overdone it to present to their bosses on Monday. A handy template if you ever need to write a sick note, it also dispels that myth about the French always remaining moderate drinkers . . .

Tricolore

The below tweet will probably only make sense if you went to a British school in the 1980s and 90s . . .

We discuss the mighty Tricolore in the latest episode of Talking France, along with that immigration row, the great divide between car-free cities and car-dependent rural France, free Olympics tickets and the weird things that happen along the Franco-Spanish border. Listen here or on the link below. 

Inside France is our weekly look at some of the news, talking points and gossip in France that you might not have heard about. It’s published each Saturday and members can receive it directly to their inbox, by going to their newsletter preferences or adding their email to the sign-up box in this article.

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