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INSIDE FRANCE

Inside France: Beer, George Clooney and France on the barricades

This week in France conversation has been dominated by the highly controversial decision of president Emmanuel Macron regarding pension reform, and the reaction that followed, but we've also found time for beer, street art and celebrities in our weekly newsletter Inside France.

Published: 18 March 2023 15:28 CET
Inside France: Beer, George Clooney and France on the barricades
Mural La fille des remparts (the daughter of the ramparts) in Angouleme. Photo by JOEL SAGET / 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.

To the barricades

A tumultuous week in France – a last-minute decision from Emmanuel Macron to ram through his highly controversial pension reform without giving MPs a vote, followed by predictable outrage and street protests.

Macron’s view is that he won re-election in 2022 on a platform that includes pension reform, which gives him a mandate to do this. The view of almost everyone else in France is that putting through a measure as controversial as this without allowing parliament to vote on it is deeply undemocratic.

It will definitely have an effect that reaches far beyond this bill, and even beyond the inevitable strikes and protests in the days to come, affecting the whole of Macron’s second term as president. One thing we can always say about France is that it’s rarely dull . . .

OPINION Macron, the government and France itself all lose from the pensions debacle

Street art

Also this week, I’ve been in the south west, visiting the town of Angoulême. Picture-postcard pretty (it’s used as the backdrop for the Wes Anderson film The French Dispatch) it’s also a cool town, hosting major festivals of film and comic books (bande dessinée) and boasting some seriously impressive street art.

It also has some good bars, including several serving beers from the Nantes brewery Little Atlantique. Although north-east France remains the beer heartland, the west coast and Paris both have a rapidly growing number of microbreweries providing some lovely brews for beer fans to taste. 

I’m a fan of the beers from Brasserie Melusine near Cholet and Gallia, Paname and La Parisienne – all based in the northern Paris suburb of Pantin. 

Celeb tie-in of the week

Hollywood star George Clooney and his wife Amal are reportedly funding an organic fruit and vegetable farm in the southern département of Var, which will be used to provide ingredients for local school lunches.

The Clooneys own property in Var and, according to the local mayor, are “very involved” in the community. If you want to subscribe to The Local’s newsletter for second-home owners George, just drop me a line . . .

Podcast 

This week’s Talking France of course discusses the latest political turmoil, as well as free chickens, swimming in the Seine, hijab rules and France’s ‘backwards language’ of verlan. 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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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

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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