Monthly Archives: January 2008

Cast of the “drowned Mona Lisa” and her modern incarnation as a CPR mannequin. In 1900, the body of an unidentified young woman, an apparent suicide, was pulled from the river Seine in Paris. Enchanted by the mysterious corpse’s beauty, … Continue reading →

Polnareff, Hallyday, Noah. Combined age: 173 years. Le Figaro has just released their annual “rich list” of French singers. It’s interesting to see that the biggest moneymakers in 2007 are also the oldest ones. Comeback-kid Michel Polnareff (63 years) made … Continue reading →

Found on VintagePhoto: a nice series of photos from the sixties. Click to see the rest. From Wikipedia: Gabrielle Bonheur “Coco” Chanel (August 19, 1883 – January 10, 1971) was a pioneering French fashion designer whose modernist philosophy, menswear-inspired fashions, … Continue reading →

Left: Closer magazine is too afraid to show the cover photo on their site. Right: the real thing. French magazine [tag]Closer[/tag] may regret the cover of their latest issue, showing [tag]Carla Bruni[/tag] and Cecilia (ex-)Sarkozy in bikini. Cecilia, who doesn’t … Continue reading →

For those who think this blog glorifies smoking (which is not the intention) here’s a sign of good will. These ads are part of a campaign by the French organisation Les droits du non fumeur (DNF, Rights for the non-smoker). … Continue reading →

The best from the web and the international press. Happy reading! French rally behind rogue trader as fraud scandal spreads. He committed the biggest individual fraud in history but France is lauding the ‘quiet and fragile’ Jérôme Kerviel as a … Continue reading →

A team of Italian designers has been thinking about dining in 2015, and came up with a way to recycle your French Bic pens. In their own words: Turn your favourite office tool from your desk in a common cutlery…this … Continue reading →

Next Tuesday you can look very presidential, provided you cough up some euros. A large part of ex-president François Mitterand’s wardrobe will be auctioned in support of his wife Danielle’s France Libertés foundation. The collection includes Mitterand’s famous hats, slippers … Continue reading →

Found on Flickr: In 1937, France counted 345,503 unemployed. The population in those days was 42 million. Today, France has 64.5 million inhabitants and around 2 million people without a job. This means that in 70 years, the French population … Continue reading →

French charity Solidarités wants to create awareness for the importance of clean drinking water. To illustrate the number of people dying from undrinkable water they use some strange arithmetics: 8 million victims equals the number of people killed on the … Continue reading →

Chéri Hérouard was a French illustrator who was most famously known for his forty-five year work for French society magazine, La Vie Parisienne, a French humoristic and erotic weekly magazine, published in Paris since 1863. ‘La Vie Parisienne’ was one … Continue reading →

The Museum of Natural History in Paris hosts an exhibition dedicated to life in the deepest parts of the oceans. If you can’t visit the show personally, you can make a virtual dive into the abyss on the exhibition website. … Continue reading →

Today’s Bouguereau rip-off comes from FreakingNews. This [tag]photoshop[/tag]ped version (view full size) is based on William [tag]Bouguereau[/tag]’s original 1901 work L’Amour s’envole (Love Takes Flight, inset, see original). It was the winning entry in the “Frisbee & Hula Hoop” contest, … Continue reading →

Despite his falling popularity at home, Nicolas [tag]Sarkozy[/tag] stays in touch with the rest of the world. Recently our beloved leader has been in eye-to-chin contact with Finnish PM Matti Vanhanen, Singapore PM Hsieng Loong Lee, the crown prince of … Continue reading →

The French president’s girlfriend just appeared in an ad for an Italian car company and now she’s featured in a two-page spread in a Spanish men’s magazine wearing nothing but black leather boots and diamond ring. It’s all prompting a … Continue reading →