This fun and kooky scopitone is from the 60s and is called, “Comic Strip” featuring Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot. From what I can tell, Serge is beckoning Brigitte to come into his comic strip for some serious SHEBAM! POW! BLOP! and WHIZZZZ!

Click on the image to see the video at YouTube.

More Chinese haters of France. In this case, it’s a taxi driver that is refusing Frenchmen and dogs. What about French women? French children? Are they turning away French poodles? Bichon Frisés? The noyve.

I don’t think France cares too much if she’s hated but don’t you wonder why China is picking on France specifically - when there have been boycotts all along the world path of the Olympic torch? What about England? What about the U.S.? Japan? They tried to trample the Olympic torch, too.

And, and, and, what did dogs do to deserve that? Can’t we all just get along?

Apparemment non.

With all of the GMO (genetically modified organisms) laws being passed here and there and everywhere so the public never knows what they’re eating, gardening is becoming the new black. Why be left to wonder if you’re eating pesticides and other toxins when you can grow your own food. More and more people are turning to their own organic gardening so they know exactly what they are consuming. But what about city dwellers? Those fortunate enough to have a large basement are turning them into hydroponic artificially lit organic gardens. Apartment people have to turn to other methods. This is where resourcefulness and ingenuity come in.

French product designer, François Clerc, has come up with something so purely awesome: Graine de pot, a biodegradable, expandable garden pot that is great for urban gardening. How does it work? Plant your seeds, expand as necessary, watch your veggies, say tomatoes or courgettes or peppers, grow, enjoy them all summer and later in the fall throw all of it including the pot out into the compost. Hopefully, your city collects organic rubbish or you can just give it to a friend with a garden for compost.

Now if you can get your hands on non-GMO seeds, you’re in business - but that’s another matter.

[via]

Michel Fournier is at it again. Remember two years ago? He dropped out of the stratosphere from an altitude of about 130,000 feet (40 kilometers, nearly 25 miles) above the plains of Saskatchewan, Canada. This year he hopes to do the same while breaking the sound barrier and breaking some more world records.

From AFP:

“64-year-old retired French army parachutist said Monday he hopes to smash through the sound barrier with a record-breaking 40,000-metre (130,000-foot) freefall jump over Canada next month.

Michel Fournier hopes to set four new world records at once: for highest freefall parachute speed, at 1,500 kilometres (2,400 miles) per hour, 1.3 times the speed of sound, along with fastest and highest jump and highest air balloon flight.

The Russian Evgeny Andreyev made the highest recorded parachute jump with a 24,483-metre plunge in 1960, while the American Joseph Kittinger claimed an unverified jump of 31,000 metres in 1960.

The veteran French parachutist will take off from May 25 from the Canadian province of Saskatchewan in a pressurised capsule, harnessed to a 161-metre helium-powered balloon, rising to almost four times the height of an airline flight.

Pressure will be let off gradually to allow him to exit and make his jump, wearing a specially-developed protective suit with two oxygen bottles, in conditions similar to an astronaut leaving his spacecraft.

Fournier told a press conference in Paris his jump would have “considerable repercussions for aeronautics and space, for medicine and high-technology.”

French astronaut Jean-Francois Clervoy, who is sponsoring the project, said it could help shed new light on the behaviour of the human body at the speed of sound, with potential applications for future rescue operations in space.

The French army piloted a similar project in the 1980s, aimed at developing an ejector capsule for European spacecraft, in which Fournier was due to take part before it was finally aborted.

With more than 8,600 jumps to his name, Fournier holds the French height record at 12,000 metres.

His project, which drew teams of specialists in high-altitude and underwater conditions, spacesuits and extreme condition health experts, cost 11.8 million euros (19 million dollars).”

The Eurovision (the European annual talent show that has taken on a cult following)’s contestant from France is a guy named Sébastien Tellier. I like him; he’s fun and silly - though I’ve listened to the selected song and I have no idea what it’s about.

So, the big scandal in France is that he’s singing in English NOT in French. OMG!

So frickin’ what. The Belgian band, Ishtar, is singing in a non-existent language.

Anyway, that is sort of old news and I am a bit behind. However, when I watched the youtube video of “Divine,” the song he’s supposed to perform at Eurovision, I noticed something. Is it my imagination or is he not even in that video? Maybe, just MAYBE he’s in a couple of shots at most, but I don’t think that’s him lip syncing him - just other people wearing a wig and fake facial hair. Take a look at “him” at the pool. C’mon, that is totally not Sébastien Tellier. See, I told you he’s fun and silly!

Look.

This is what Sébastien Tellier looks like:

It made me wonder if Thomas Bangalter & Guy Man de Homem-Christo from Daft Punk actually perform in their own vids. It doesn’t really matter, I suppose.

But! Will the REAL Sébastien Tellier show up for Eurovision Belgrade (May 20) 2008? On verra.

From iht:

“Nearly a year into his term, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France has hardly mentioned the arts or culture. In late February, he said that French cuisine should be added to the Unesco World Heritage list.

Every French president since the Liberation has cooked up some such pharaonic new museum or opera house or library or initiated some legacy-minded cultural program, until now.

Sarkozy’s taste is said to be for…”

Full article

Tags: france, sarkozy, embarrassing, french+politics

As most people expected, Reporters without Borders did manage to get some attention during today’s Olympic torch relay in Paris protesting against China’s inhumane treatment of the people of Tibet. There was so much disruption everywhere that the last leg of the Paris torch relay was canceled.

Related: Photos from Paris Bloggers, Olympic Torch

From the daily mail:

“French President Nicholas Sarkozy will boycott the opening of the Beijing Olympics unless China opens dialogue with the Dalai Lama and frees political prisoners, a French minister told Le Monde today.
Secretary of State for Human Rights Rama Yade said these conditions were “indispensable” for Sarkozy to attend the opening of the Games.

His warning comes as Government security forces fired on crowds of civilians, killing at least eight people in the Tibetan area of western China.

Xinhua news agency said rioters attacked government offices in Garze, Sichuan province, on Thursday, leaving one official hurt and others seriously injured.

Sarkozy is set to announce his decision on the boycott after consulting with his European counterparts and will be speaking as current president of the European Union.

“Nevertheless, three conditions are indispensable for him to go: an end to violence against the population and the release of political prisoners, light to be shed on the events in Tibet and the opening of dialogue with the Dalai Lama,” Tibet’s spiritual leader, Ms Yade said.

France calls on China to undertake “a really constructive dialogue with the Dalai Lama”.

“These discussions should be about the recognition of Tibetan autonomy and the spiritual, religious and cultural identity of Tibetans,” she added.

The French minister said 132 Tibetan monks had been arrested last year for political reasons.

“At the moment, China practises a politics of…

Full article

From woostercollective:

Artist: Duster

From AP:

“French athletes said Friday they want to be able to wear a badge marked ‘For a better world’ at the Beijing Olympics to show support for human rights in the wake of China’s crackdown in Tibet.

The athletes plan to lobby the International Olympic Committee for permission to wear the badge, a symbol of their attachment to principles they said China is not respecting.

About 20 former and current French athletes, some already qualified to compete in Beijing this August, attended the unveiling of the badge. It shows the Olympic rings, below the words “France” and “For a better world.”

The badge is the result of several weeks of reflection among athletes in France about how they should respond to the events in Tibet and the broader question of human rights in China…

(more…)

From wwd:

“Make no mistake — Louis Vuitton is well-equipped for combat against counterfeiters.

Tonight, Vuitton is celebrating Takashi Murakami’s “© Murakami” exhibition with a “Brooklyn Ball” at the Brooklyn Museum featuring a special performance by Kanye West, the unveiling of a new camouflage print developed by Murakami and Marc Jacobs called Monogramouflage and a special installation designed to bring attention to one of the industry’s biggest travails — counterfeits.

But rather than simply hand out leaflets to alert guests about the importance of protecting original designs, the French luxury goods house will be taking a novel, somewhat intriguing route. Outside the museum, Vuitton is setting up 10 New York-style street vendors — not to sell fakes, but rather authentic Louis Vuitton product and special Monogramouflage canvases that Murakami has created specifically for the exhibition.

While it may seem lighthearted on the surface, the presentation is meant to underscore just how serious Vuitton executives are taking the counterfeit trade, and how diligently they are working to stop copycats from getting their merchandise to consumers.

“We always thought that counterfeit requires zero tolerance for several reasons,” Yves Carcelle, chairman and chief executive officer of Louis Vuitton, told WWD in an exclusive interview. “It’s a gray economy that escapes all rules of normal labor and normal economic rules and taxations, so it’s a bad thing for every state in the world. Secondly, it’s bad for any kind of creativity, research and development, because if you don’t protect intellectual property, why should people dedicate time and energy to create?”

(more…)

Do most Americans even know who Tex Avery was? I’m not sure but the French sure know American cartoons and the people behind the cute characters from way back when. This year La Poste commemorates Tex Avery, a prolific American animator, cartoonist and director whose bold style broke away from the realism established by Walt Disney. Tex Avery would have been 100 years old today.

The French Post Office paid hommage to this great animator, and came up with the cutest postage stamps featuring Droopy, the mild mannered, monotone basset hound. Avery created Droopy in 1943 at MGM, which was originally called, “Dumb-Hounded.”

Everyone (I’ve asked) in France knows Droopy, and loves him. They’ll inevitably say, Droopy’s famous line in the most dreary, lifeless tone possible, “Vous savez quoi? Je suis heureux.” (You know what? I’m happy.)

Related: Stamps in France

With his approval ratings plunging into seemingly negative numbers, Sarkozy has been under extreme mounting pressure and stress to improve his popularity as was witnessed earlier in his presidential career. He has shocked the world by taking France by the horns (feathers) with his immediate action against immigration. His stance on “work more, earn more” slapped lagging chomeurs and professional “RMIistes” out of their beds. His marriage to a supermodel taller than him caused a stir outside of France. Of course, inside the hexagon, the French did not bat an eye, and wouldn’t do so even if he married a hairless dwarf monkey.

Although no one faults him for his singularity and take-charge attitude, the people of France expected an overall improvement in the quality of French life from Monsieur le president. Instead they got skyrocketing inflation and endless reportages of his love life. The public knows that during the myriad of marriage footage in the media, he was covertly passing unsavory laws - and le peuple is not pleased.

But in an unprecedented move to come clean, Sarkozy has offered complete transparency and divulged his intentions in an impromptu press conference today. He has decided to be open and honest about his plans for the country and has taken a vow of truth to disclose all plans and events to the public as they happen. He also plans to admit his recent “misinformations.” (We call those “lies.”)

He then continued to inform the media and general public of his recent decisions and actions, which are as follows:

1. He admits to having married supermodel, Carla Bruni, because she is a perfect trophy wife. He felt that having a beautiful, tall younger woman as a wife would boost his ratings. He, in actuality, hates Carla with the passion - particularly because she looks better nude than he does, speaks better English than he does, and everyone would rather talk to her and not him at cocktail parties.

2. Since the launching of the euro in France in 2002, the price of food and goods have gone through the roof, so much so, that many people are running out of money. They’ve had to resort to spending their savings. When France’s currency was the franc, even poor people could afford basic needs and still were able to save a little in the bank. Sarkozy realizes this and confesses that he does not care about poor people, so originally he had no intentions of any kind to make changes - but since today, he’s decided to bend a little and although it may sound shocking, he has decided to bring back the Franc. “Forget euros,” he quipped, “that currency is for pauvre cons.”

3. Regarding the Olympics in Beijing this summer, Sarkozy has urged everyone to buy a Reporters without Borders t-shirt and wear them next week, April 7, when the Olympic torch passes through Paris. “You must change the t-shirts a little, however,” he said, “please tear off the sleeves so that we all look like Rambo. Don’t forget to wear a bandana around your head, too”

Poisson d’avril!! April Fools!

Related: France Demands Worldwide Royalties

From AP:

“SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — At first listen, the grainy high-pitched warble doesn’t sound like much, but scientists say the French recording from 1860 is the oldest known recorded human voice.
The 10-second clip of a woman singing “Au Clair de la Lune,” taken from a so-called phonautogram, was recently discovered by audio historian David Giovannoni. The recording predates Thomas Edison’s “Mary had a little lamb” — previously credited as the oldest recorded voice — by 17 years.

The tune was captured using a phonautograph, a device created by Parisian inventor Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville that created visual recordings of sound waves.

Using a needle that moved in response to sound, the phonautograph etched sound waves into paper coated with soot from an oil lamp.

(more…)

From IHT:

“Bernard Kouchner, the foreign minister of France and a longtime humanitarian, diplomatic and political activist on the international scene, says that whoever succeeds President George W. Bush in the White House may restore something of America’s battered image and standing overseas, but “the magic is over.”

In a wide-ranging conversation Tuesday with Roger Cohen of the International Herald Tribune at the Forum for New Diplomacy in Paris, Kouchner also held out the eventual hope of talking with Hamas, the Palestinian movement that controls the Gaza Strip but has been ostracized by the West and by its Palestinian rival, Fatah.

Asked whether the United States could repair the damage it has suffered to its reputation during the Bush presidency and especially since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Kouchner replied, “It will never be as…”

Read the full article

Paris-based musicians, Julien Garnier and Julien Gaulier began as a punk rock band called British Hawaii but moved on to find their own sound as Hey Hey My My. They created their own musical style while taking inspiration from Neil Young and some of their favorite indie bands. They sing in English. Tonight they’re playing at Soundfix in New York but will continue their tour in France at the end of the month (see full schedule below).

Their first album is set to be released on April 23, 2008.

More about them from their label Sober & Gentle:

“Hey Hey My My is a superbly instinctive blend of enthusiasm and melancholy. Above all, it’s an explosion of energy and the deceptive lightness of simple folk, as if to give more space to the words, which go right to the heart… In all cases, their love of catchy ballads always has the same devastating effect. We leave Julien Garnier and Julien Gaulier with a smile on our lips and a tune in our heads. With the hope of savouring this tantalizing, irresistible folk pop once more and heading back to Merryland, the intimate and enchanting world of Hey Hey My My…”

Their Upcoming Schedule
8 March 2008 20:00 Soundfix New York
21 March 2008 20:00 Tandem w/ Calc, Appletop TOULON (83)
22 March 2008 20:00 Akwaba AVIGNON (84)
25 March 2008 20:00 Le Bikini w/Capsula, Sweet Apple Pie, Meltintone TOULOUSE (31)
28 March 2008 20:30 L’Aire libre w/ Calc RENNES (35)
29 March 2008 20:00 File 7 w/ Syd Matters MAGNY LE HONGRE (77)
3 April 2008 12:00 Festival Chorus des Hauts de Seine La Défense (92)
20 April 2008 20:00 Festival Paradis Articifiels LILLE (59)
25 April 2008 20:00 Les Silos CHAUMONT (52)
11 May 2008 20:00 Festival Rue des Sens w/Stuck in the Sound, Uncommonmenfrommars NANTESS (44)
13 June 2008 20:00 Festival Mouen Fort la Zic MOUEN (14)
25 June 2008 20:00 Festival le Grand Souk RIBERAC (24)
23 August 2008 20:00 Les Nuits d’O. MONTPELLIER (34)

Hey Hey My My MySpace (Listen to their music and watch videos there)

From AFP:

A letter of love sent by a French 13-year-old to her late mother, addressed to “Paradise Street, Heaven,” was returned to sender with a postage fine slapped on, a report said Thursday.

On the second anniversary of her mother’s death the young girl from central France, named as Anais, wanted to send her a “message of love, like a bottle in the ocean,” according to the Journal de Saone-et-Loire newspaper.

But two days after she slipped it into a local postbox, marked with her mother’s name but no stamp, her missive was returned as a mistaken address — along with a 1.35 euro (two-dollar) fine for unpaid postage.

Asked to explain the mishap, the French post office said there really was a town in the area called Heaven — “Ciel” in French — but that the street was unknown.

Can you imagine the First Lady of another country posing nude? *shudders!*

From the belfasttelegraph:

“Saint Céneri could hardly be more French and yet its rich history has been shaped, for good and ill, by foreign missionaries and invaders. The small settlement, just within lower Normandy, was created in the seventh century by an Italian saint and hermit – Saint Céneri himself – who conjured up springs and parted the waters of rivers by pointing his stick. During the Hundred Years’ War, in 1434, the village castle was besieged for months and then demolished by 15,000 obstinate Englishmen.

After 561 uneventful years, the village fell, willingly this time, into the clutches of another foreigner – a Yorkshireman. For the past 13 years, Ken Tatham has been the mayor of Saint Céneri-le-Gérei, the only British mayor in France.

On Sunday week, 9 March, he is up for election for the third time. There are no opinion polls in Saint Céneri but Mr Tatham, 62, is likely to win by a miniature landslide.

How many voters would that mean exactly? Mr Tatham considers for a moment. “We have a population of 140, of whom 160 can vote,” he said. “This is just like Corsica, although you’d better not quote me saying that.”

Mr Tatham has lived in Saint Céneri for 38 years. He is married to a…”

Read the full article

From Timesonline:

“Mark Boyle was a man with a dream. He was so convinced that a world without the evils of money is possible that he set out to walk from Britain to India without spending a penny in order to prove it.

But Mr Boyle, who hoped to reach Gandhi’s birthplace within two-and-a-half years, had reckoned without one sizeable stumbling block: the French.

Specifically…”

More

From news.com.au:

“FRENCH President Nicolas Sarkozy said he wants to see French cuisine listed as a world heritage item by the United Nations.

“Agriculture and the jobs which produce it every day are the source of our country’s gastronomic diversity. It is an essential element of our heritage,” Mr Sarkozy said at the opening of France’s huge annual agriculture show in Paris.

“That is why I want France to be the first country to apply to UNESCO for our gastronomic tradition to be recognised as a world heritage,” Mr Sarkozy said.

“We have the best gastronomy in the world,” he said.”

[source]

From reuters:

Italian scientists say they have proved Napoleon was not poisoned, scotching the legend the French emperor was murdered by his British jailors.

Napoleon’s post-mortem said he died of stomach cancer aged 51, but the theory he was assassinated to prevent any return to power has gained credence in recent decades as some studies indicated his body contained a high level of the poison arsenic.

“It was not arsenic poisoning that killed Napoleon at Saint Helena,” said researchers at the National Institute of Nuclear Physics and the University of Pavia who tested the theory the British killed him while he was in exile on the South Atlantic island in 1821.

The Italian research — which studied hair samples from various moments in his life which are kept in museums in Italy and France — showed Napoleon’s body did have a high level of arsenic, but that he was already heavily contaminated as a boy.

The scientists used a nuclear reactor to irradiate the hairs to get an accurate measure of the levels of arsenic.

Looking at hairs from several of Napoleon’s contemporaries, including his wife and son, they found…

More

Margot Wallstrom, the communications commissioner (and 2nd in command in Brussels) recently said that she is fed up with the reign of old men governing the EU. I couldn’t be more in agreement with her.

So when I read that 18 year-old Diane Serrano is running for mayor of Florac, a village of 2,000 inhabitants in the south of France, it was more than welcome news. France and Europe in general, need a huge reform and it’s going to take younger people to make those huge changes happen. A crusty, 80-year old mayor may not want to do anything different than he’s done for the previous several decades, and he may not even care that the villages are dying and anyway, the crusty crowd should be retired. In the area where I live, there are at least three mayors over 70. That’s gotta change.

France has about 5,000 villages and cities and many of them are in a state of disrepair and no one is doing anything about it. It’s sad. But, Ms. Serrano wants to revitalize her village and though she is criticized for not having the experience behind her, she at least HAS the energy and new ideas and willingness to propose a an upward improvement. Hopefully, people in other cities and villages will be inspired by her - and we’ll start seeing much needed change in France.

Note: I’m not saying older mayors are incompetent, though some of them obviously are - I’m just saying that France would benefit from having more younger people in leadership roles.

[photo: Anne-Christine Poujoulat AFP]

If you stroll through the Palais-Royal in Paris you’ll come across the shiny metallic fountain sculptures of Pol Bury, which are a welcoming sight and a nice example of old and new blending well with each other. However, you then stumble upon something else that only a crazed artist obsessed with black and white stripes could only dream of. Oui, I’m talking about the 260 striped marble pillars, which are part of a permanent sculpture installation at the Palais-Royal’s open courtyard where there previously was a parking lot. They sort of slap you in the face and leave welts of black and white on you. Forever.

You can thank contemporary artist, Daniel Buren, aka The Stripe Guy, for that striping striking monochrome art. You can also send a merci to Francois Mitterand, (may he rest …where ever he’s resting) - for having commissioned The Stripe Guy’s columns in 1985. Named Les Deux Plateaux (the two levels), it has a underground level covered by metal grilles. On this level water is supposed to flow and at night the columns/pillars are meant to be illuminated by floodlights. The upper columns are on the street level in the south courtyard.

Today, the lights don’t work and there is no water flowing happily beneath. In fact the water stopped about seven years ago. Instead of water, there’s trash. The Stripe Guy is not happy about this! He’s accused the French government of vandalizing his work with neglect and the pillars are dingy which makes the contrast of black and white less striping striking. Daniel Buren would like Les Deux Plateaux dismantled, as it’s really only half an art piece, with the working half in a state of disrepair. Dismantling it would cost about the same as restoring it (about € 3 million) but if restored, it would need regular maintenance. Is it worth it?

Ok, ok. So I’m not a huge fan. But, I do like how it looks from Google Earth.

Related: books: Daniel Buren by Daniel Buren (release date March 1), Daniel Buren, slideshow of the work-in-progress

Watch the music video