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It was a calamity for French viticulture - and it sparked a wine war that rages even to this day.
In 1976 a group of 11 distinguished wine experts were asked to compare some of France’s finest wines with some little-known California bottles in a blind test. At the time it was carved in stone that […]

This poor chained crocodile was paraded around the 18th hole at the Evian Masters, to promote a French sports clothes brand of which I refuse to mention the name.

How can anybody think that this makes good advertising?
Source (in French)

Another charmingly racist and politically incorrect drawing from the 30s:

Try that in today’s rainbow nation! Click pic for bigger. Via Agence Eureka

What’s more fun than watching French cars getting wrecked? The first video is only 15 seconds, but is one of the most popular ones of the moment (guess why?). (HT Videosift)

The following one is just a fun fragment (2:15) from the 1982 movie Le Gendarme et les Gendarmettes. With some divine help and a prayer, […]

France is shutting military bases by the dozens, and kicking 54,000 soldiers out of the army, but don’t believe for a second that the country remains defenseless. The combat 2CV is ready to get rid of all the baddies in the world!

Click pics for bigger

As if two uranium leaks in one week isn’t enough to worry about, the French are now missing 28 kilos of Semtex, which were stolen from a depot of the Sécurité Civile (sic!) near Lyon.

Semtex is a powerful explosive favoured by terrorist groups as it is odourless and difficult to detect. The stolen quantity […]

The picture is six years old, but it has never disappeared from the net:

These happy hunters in the Alsace celebrate a good day’s bounty. The naughty bit was never spotted by the publisher of the Journal de l’Alsace, and even today it’s still on their archive site. Click pic for bigger.

An American couple are preparing their trip to Paris on Google Earth. Daily paper Le Parisien teaches them their first French words:

Who are they going to sue this time? (Via Growabrain)

From the Independent:
A blue beard hangs from a statue on a monument on Republic Place in Paris, after three women from the feminist action group “La Barbe” (the beard) hung coloured beards on three of the memorial’s statues protesting the dominance of male managers in employment. The three promised to return every year until a […]

A French guy named Rémi thinks he’s very funny — and many people seem to to agree. (I don’t.)

More of the same

Two weeks ago, I showed a new advertisement for Amnesty International, dedicated to the Olympic Games in Beijing. Since then, the ads have gone around the world, plus some other ones, as shown above.
Now, Amnesty is crawling back. From their website:
Amnesty International would like to make clear that it was not involved in the […]

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Maybe it wasn’t a small incident after all… (Full story on the BBC)

Le Monde reports that a 32-year old Moroccan woman has been refused French citizenship, despite the fact that she’s married to a Frenchman, has lived in France since 2000, has three kids who are all born in France, and speaks good French. The reason? She’s dressed like this:

According to the Conseil d’Etat, her dress code […]

A Spanish supporter waves his national flag to encourage his compatriot Alejandro Valverde in the fourth stage of the Tour de France. At least the guy had the decency to keep his hat on.
Click image for bigger and source