French pole vaulter Romain Mesnil has taken to the streets of Paris naked, to draw attention to his lack of sponsorship.
Tags: Romain Mesnil
The Indian Ocean island of Mayotte voted on whether to become Frances 101st overseas department and the first with a 95% Muslim population.
Tags: Mayotte
As the economic crisis deepens, more people in Europe are turning to left-wing politics. In France, one of the most popular political figures, is a self-styled revolutionary.
The board of PSA Peugeot Citroen have sacked its chairman Christian Streiff and replaced him with Philippe Varin, who at present is the chief executive Corus, the Anglo-Dutch steel group. It was not surprising that heads would roll given the dire stat of the motor industry in France and the very sharp drop in sales.
Last year PSA Peugeot Citroen made a loss of 343m euros and plans to cut 11,000 jobs this year, even with the 3bn euros government loan that is shoring them up.
Tags: Christian Streiff, Citroen, Peugeot, Philippe Varin
Out with the old and in with the new. Saturday we went to the Conforama (http://www.conforama.fr) store in Narbonne, after having had a look at their website, picking out a new office chair, and checking that it was in stock. From parking the car at the store to driving away with the chair in the back, it took all of about 5 minutes. Now that is the way to shop. In and out like an S.A.S. assault team.
Ironically last year we saw the same chair in Conforama but it was out of stock, and we were told there were no plans to restock, so we could not pre-order one.
The salesman offered to sell us the display model at €180 instead of the ticket price of €230, which would have been o.k. if it had not been dirty, stained, and showing lots of signs of wear and tear.
€50 would have been a fairer price, for the display model, but as we didn’t want to pay €180 for the shop soiled chair we decided to purchase a stop-gap chair in another store, which would be good enough for us to use until we could purchase a better quality, reasonably priced, chair that we really liked.
When I looked on the Conforama website a couple of days ago I saw that the chair we had initially wanted to buy last year was on promo at only €189, which meant that for an extra €9 we got a brand new, clean, non-stained chair on which to park our derrieres.
Mission Control!!!!
A Video Moment
Tour de France 2008 ( Stage 12 )~ Villeneuve les Corbieres
Cooking class is the idea of bringing high quality cooking to amateur population, with top-quality but affordable food served as by the gourmet chefs.
Each universe has its own glossary. At the Paris fashion week, John Galliano turns his heady fashion fantasy into contempory poetry and tells FRANCE 24 why his brides wear black.
Tags: John Galliano
Tags: François Boucher
Jean-Marie Le Pen, MEP and leader of France’s far-right Front National, outraged assembled members of the European Parliament by repeating his assertion that the Nazi gas chambers were “a mere detail” in the history of the Second World War.
Tags: Front National, Jean-Marie Le Pen
Yesterday evening I posted a BBC news video from YouTube to my Facebook wall.
The news item was about the fact that Facebook are now allowing police and security services to have unlimited and unchecked access to any Facebook account. This means they can access your personal information, your private messages, and those of your Facebook friends.
In essence it means everything you do, and every interaction you have with other members is now monitored by the state.
30 minutes after I posted the video I found that my account had been closed down.
It seems Facebook does not believe in freedom of speech and open debate about its actions.
A Video Moment
Villeneuve les Corbieres in Colour
Just finished reading
Dean Koontz - Dark Rivers of the Heart
Classic Koontz and a real pleasure to re-read after all these years. It is deep and dark suspense dished up at break neck speed. This shows the real power that those with power can wield with clandestine government agencies that answer to know one. What is really scary about this novel is that is is not far from the truth.
Amazon Review
Do you dare step through the red door?
Spencer Grant had no idea what drew him to the bar with the red door. He thought he would just sit down, have a slow beer or two, and talk to a stranger. He couldn’t know that it would lead to a narrow escape from a bungalow targeted by a SWAT team. Or that it would leave him a wanted man. Now he is on the run from mysterious and ruthless men. He is in love with a woman he knows next to nothing about. And he is hiding from a past he can’t fully remember. On his trail is a shadowy security agency that answers to no one–including the U.S. government–and a man who considers himself a compassionate Angel of Death. But worst of all, Spencer Grant is on a collision course with inner demons he thought he’d buried years ago–inner demons that could destroy him if his enemies don’t first.
Tags: Dean Koontz, Facebook Privacy, Villeneuve les Corbieres
French workers at a factory south of Paris have freed their boss after barricading him in a row over lay-offs.
Barack Obama says the US must take responsibility for the crisis but indirectly says Europe needs to do more to stimulate the economy. President Sarkozy has given a speech to justify his position on the economy. Its rubbished by Liberation which reveals that a subsidiary of Credit Agricole has made redundancies while guaranteeing bonuses.
Nicolas Sarkozy, mardi, à Saint-Quentin, qui a parlé “des valeurs”, notamment celles du “travail” et de la “responsabilité”. Selon le président américain, les États-Unis doivent être exemplaires dans trois domaines pour faire face à la crise : la relance de la croissance, la mise en place dun contrôle sérieux du système financier et laide aux pays les plus pauvres.
Tags: G20, Nicolas Sarkozy
After decades of denying responsibility, France has announced it will compensate the victims of its more than 200 nuclear weapons tests conducted in Algeria and French Polynesia.
Workers and those who lived near the test sites say the radiation made them sick.
A nice and fruity Vin de Pays des Cotes de Thonque wine. Good black cherry high notes with and soft and warm spicy finish. You can’t knock this wine at just over 3€ a bottle. In fact it is an excellent value wine and better than some wine that are 3 or 4 times that price, that I’ve had of late. This wine is from the Abbaye des Monges stable and I will have to drive down there and see what other cheap delights they have on offer.
