Maîtres mots

  • Il y a longtemps que notre pays est beau mais rude.

       --Newspaper editor Olivier Séguret, 25 January 2012

    The USA are entirely the creation of the accursed race, the French.

       --Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966), writing to Nancy Mitford, 22 May 1957

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French Freedom of Speech

Today the cheminots are:


  • "À nous de vous faire préférer le train!"
    "Voyager autrement"
    "Avec le SNCF, tout est possible"
      --Former ad slogans of the SNCF (French national trains), each in turn quickly dropped

Fun French words

  • ouistiti

    (literally: marmoset)
    Etymology: onomatopoeia from the sound a marmoset makes. Actual meaning: this is what you say in France when you want people to smile for the camera.

    Selon une étude réalisée par le fabricant d’appareils photo Nikon, le « ouistiti » utilisé en France au moment de se faire prendre en photo est le petit mot le plus efficace pour s’assurer un joli sourire.

Who's en colère today?

  • Private sector

    First strike in 43 years at an aeronautics company in Toulouse, Latécoère


    Public sector

    The SNCF (toujours eux), regional train employees in the Lyons area guaranteeing unpleasant travel from the 17th-21st December
    Also yet another strike by Sud-Rail, a particularly truculent SNCF union in the south of France, this time five days in January: 6,7, 21, 22 and 23. "We have no choice." Right.

    Marseilles trams on strike until February

Go back to school in Paris!

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After I posted this, I accidentally found this funny British blog called "It's All Downhill From Here" by an expat in the mountains of France. For a glimpse of the passions the ESF versus international ski teacher thing can arouse (I find it typical that the ESF is suing to eliminate the competition):

http://misplacedperson.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/foot-in-the-crosshairs-fire/

I love your blog! Always so interesting.

Aww! Thanks Nicole! Do you have one? Are you living in France?

That is interesting!!! So if you join a ski team do you have to prove you passed all the tests? I took ski lessons, but we didn't pass a test at the end... We went on a course run as a class. If someone struggled the instructor recommend the course was re-taken. In swimming lessons they just assessed us throughout. Basically one day midway through summer, my instructor handed me a certificate and informed my mom I passed the first level and I was so good I should jump to the third and skip the second. American children could probably use a little more competition in their lives. It's really fascinating to hear that the French have so much trust in their government. That is not the sentiment here.

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Today's quotation

  • In Paris, the purest virtue is the object of the filthiest slander.

      –Honoré Balzac (1799-1850), in Scènes de la vie privée

    À Paris, la vertu la plus pure est l'objet des plus sales calomnies.

Le petit aperçu d'Ailleurs

  • Annual Geminids meteor shower (shooting stars!) coming this weekend, if it's not too cloudy out at night.

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