latest.jpg Find out what's new!

What makes France such an endearing and infuriating country at the same time?

Why are the French a people that you love one day and hate the next?

Come here every day and you may find out...

• Front Page
• FAQ
• 
• RSS Feed
• Subscribe
• Add to Technorati Favs
• 
• 

Live search:

Archive for 'Environment & Health'

New Aids Awareness Animation

France's AIDES organisation fights against the spread of HIV-AIDS using controversial cartoons. Here's the latest one. The message is the same: Explore — Just protect yourself. As usual, the video is fairly explicit and NSFW:

Posted: Fri 19-Sep-08 under Created in France, Environment & Health

Next Rip-Off: Picnic Tax

The cash-strapped French government has found a new way to strip its citizens: the Picnic Tax

Edouard Manet: : The Picnic on the Grass (Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, 1863). Click for bigger
Ecology minister Jean-Louis Borloo wants to add a 20% tax to all disposable articles: plastic cutlery, plates and beakers, but also plastic bags, shrink film […]

Posted: Sun 14-Sep-08 under Environment & Health

France by Numbers: 206.5 Billion

In 2007, the French health care system has cost the country 206.5 billion euros, or 10.9 percent of GDP. Only two countries spend a greater part of GDP on the health of their citizens: the US (15.3%) and Switzerland (11.3%). Germany follows closely, with 10.6%. Some analysts don't believe those figures are comparable, because they […]

Posted: Fri 05-Sep-08 under Society, Environment & Health

Keep your hands above the sheets — Or else!

This is what happened if you lived in sin in France in 1844:

It's along pictorial story without a happy end:

View the full story on Neatorama

Posted: Wed 03-Sep-08 under History, Created in France, Environment & Health, Oops

The Test

The French National Health Prevention and Education Institute INPES has just released two videos urging lovers to keep using condoms until they pass a negative HIV test. Here's the hetero version (slightly NSFW, English subtitles):

You can watch the gay version here on YouTube.

Posted: Fri 29-Aug-08 under Created in France, Environment & Health

"Shame on France"

French AIDS activists protest against French policy on AIDS during the 17th International AIDS Conference in Mexico City. For the first time, France has decided not to send a representative to the meeting. The demonstration also targeted France's recent reduction in the funding of AIDS research.
It's not clear who funded the flights to Mexico […]

Posted: Thu 07-Aug-08 under Environment & Health, Events

'Ollandais Go 'Ome

I often mock the Dutch for driving over 1,000km for their annual dose of French weather. It seems they can just as well stay where they are. According to this map, the temperatures in Holland are now as high as they were in France just 10 years ago:

Click image for original Dutch article
Holland Warms To […]

Posted: Mon 04-Aug-08 under Country & Travel, Environment & Health

Movable Eco House

French company Ecop Habitat has just developed a fully self-sufficient home that moves with you.

The Mini-Loft 36 is small but flexible. Depending on your energy needs it can be equipped with a wind generator, solar panels, a rainwater recipient, and dry toilets. Best of all, it's portable. If you want to move to another place, […]

Posted: Mon 28-Jul-08 under Created in France, Environment & Health

Fold-up Peugeot

Designer Daniel Bailey wanted to create a solution for overpopulated cities, with increasingly limited available parking space. He came up with this fold-up Peugeot 908. His car, called BRB Evolution, jacks up on its nose and saves half the normal parking space. So far, the car only exists on a computer, but who knows it […]

Posted: Sun 27-Jul-08 under Environment & Health

The Wine That Wants To Nuke Itself

I pity the vintners in Tricastin:

For years they've worked hard to give their Coteaux du Tricastin wine some notoriety, and now they feel forced to start all over again, with a new name. The reason? Tricastin happens to be the place where one of the biggest nuclear sites in the world started leaking two weeks […]

Posted: Fri 25-Jul-08 under Food, Drink & Smoke, Environment & Health

Cheers To Your Coma!

The French government wants youngsters to drink less. Here's the latest TV clip, introducing the side effects of alcohol abuse: vomiting, rape, drowning, and a coma to end the party:

Posted: Fri 18-Jul-08 under Food, Drink & Smoke, Environment & Health

Green Energy From The Bottom Of The Sea

Is this the future?

French energy giant EDF is planning to build a park of "underwater mills" off the Brittany coast. It will be the first non-polluting energy source with an inexhaustible potential. Between three and six mills will be built, each with a capacity of four to six MW. The aim of the demo project […]

Posted: Wed 16-Jul-08 under Created in France, Environment & Health

Leak closes French nuclear plant

View Larger Map
Maybe it wasn't a small incident after all… (Full story on the BBC)

Posted: Fri 11-Jul-08 under Created in France, Environment & Health, Oops

Far from Paris: New Caledonia becomes World Heritage Site

The World Heritage Committee has inscribed 19 new cultural sites and eight natural sites to the List. One of them is the Lagoons of French New Caledonia:

The Lagoons of New Caledonia: Reef Diversity and Associated Ecosystems comprise six marine clusters that represent the main diversity of coral reefs and associated ecosystems in the French Pacific […]

Posted: Thu 10-Jul-08 under Country & Travel, Environment & Health

Home — The Movie

Filmmaker Luc Besson and photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand have joined forces to create Home, a film about the planet we live on (or what's left of it). Filmed in more than 50 countries, the film surveys our planet, and provides suggestions for a sustainable world. The movie will have a worldwide — and free — release […]

Posted: Wed 02-Jul-08 under Created in France, Environment & Health

« Older