The best of the web and the international press, collected for you by Frogsmoke. Enjoy!
Books or boutiques: a battle for the Left Bank’s soul
The struggle is to keep the Left Bank, once the cultural powerhouse of the French capital, from becoming an enclave of designer boutiques and clothes shops. Now, La Resistance de la Rive Gauche have a new ally: the town hall, which has just launched a £20m plan to save the area’s beleaguered booksellers, arthouse cinemas and independent galleries by buying up properties to stop them being converted into yet more fashion stores. [...]Full story (Guardian)
On Hallowed Ground, a Place of Painful Beauty
It’s strange that a military graveyard should be so lovely, but lovely is the only way to describe the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery, 26 miles northwest of Verdun. As exquisite as any French park or chateau grounds, the cemetery is a formal garden of perfectly clipped trees, immaculate lawns, fountains and roses and long white rows of grave markers. Given its beauty, it’s also strange how empty the place is [...] Full story (NY Times)
UK helps French off dole
A cheer went up and everyone in the job centre clapped. After months on the dole, Jean-Yves Ichallal, a salesman, had found work and was beaming with pleasure. Strangely, his gratitude was directed at Britain. Having long derided Britain’s economic vigour as free market savagery, the French have quietly called in expertise from across the Channel to help to bring down their unemployment. [...] Full story (Times)
How ‘a million little kisses’ might have left lipstick on Sarkozy’s collar
It is the question all France wants answered: who sent ‘a million little kisses’ apparently to President Nicolas Sarkozy? The answer may lie in the detail of French grammar. The phrase comes from a letter in a bundle of documents clearly visible under the President’s arm in a photo taken on the steps of the Elysée Palace this month. [...] Full story (Guardian)
French government embarrassed by Facebook
French government ministers faced embarrassment yesterday from their own children whose entries on Facebook, were aired to the public. French prime minister, François Fillon will be interested know that his son, Antoine, 22, is a member of several “high-brow” chat groups. One, entitled “I am too proud of my poo,” boasts 93 members who spend entire nights digressing about the “16 different types of turd.” [...] Full story (Telegraph)
Rugged, remote southwest France
You’re on the run, the cheque bounced, there are incriminating pictures on the internet and the dog died in mysterious circumstances. Don’t despair. I have a plan. You take an aeroplane to Perpignan, you drive into the Corbières mountains – and you disappear. Nobody will ever think of looking here. Rising northeast of the Pyrenees, these are France’s forgotten mountains. It’s not that they don’t want to see you, more that tourism hasn’t really occurred to them yet. [...] Full story (Times)
Sarkozy seeks restoration of France’s faded former glories in art market
Paris, once the capital of the world’s art trade, is seeking to recover past glories under a French Government scheme to attract painters, collectors and sales away from London and New York. Christine Albanel, the Culture Minister, has been instructed by President Sarkozy to slash the taxes and red tape that are blamed for shunting the French capital into the sidings of artistic history. [...] Full story (Times)
