Switched on the radio to hear an interview with the director of the ‘Lactopole‘: ‘the world’s largest dairy product and cheese museum’. This is how he described his institution:
C’est un lieu de mémoire pour ne pas oublier nos racines fromagères.
Hard to imagine a better parody of French museum-speak. But more importantly, is there any remaining [...]
Well, he hasn’t actually said he’s standing, but on TV on Wednesday night he said he might, which is about as committal as he’s likely to get. It’s a curious comeback since after his ignominous defeat in 2002 he declared that he was leaving politics altogether and for about 3 years made no public statements [...]
Before I went to Belgium I managed to get to see La Force de l’art (otherwise known as the ‘expo Villepin’) at the recently rennovated Grand Palais. The exhibition was supposed to be France’s answer to the Venice biennale and a showcase for contemporary art in France. The Prime Minister is well known to be [...]
Oli and I are trying to book our holiday to Greece, travelling overland via Munich, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade and ending up in Thessaloniki. A large part of the motivation for this is environmental and I’m delighted we’re only going to be flying one way. It’s also a huge adventure, of course. So far we’ve booked [...]
Last Monday I was in Lyon again to interview the filmmaker and ethnographer Daniel Pelligra about his plans for a Cite du voyage in a disused factory in the Lyon suburb of Vaulx-en-Velin. While I was there I went to visit the controversial new memorial to the Armenian genocide, inaugurated in April. Most of the [...]
Last Friday whilst in Belgium I visited the Royal Museum for Central Africa. Until very recently the museum remained a paen to the glories of Belgium colonialism. It was established in 1897 by Leopold II who ran the Congo as a private fiefdom, resulting in the deaths of somewhere between 5 and 15 million Africans [...]
The Quai Branly museum of what-is-it-that-we-call-it-these-days?-no-no-not-primitive-anymore arts finally opened its doors last week. I haven’t had the chance to go and visit it yet but plan to do so tomorrow. Architecturally it is clearly a resounding success. Jonathan Glancey obviously loves it and Le Monde has also given it the thumbs up, describing it as [...]
If the issue of immigration is particulary pressing today it is precisely for this reason. On June 30 the ’stay of execution’ for families scheduled for deportation ends. Families with children in school were given leave to remain until this date last autumn, however from tomorrow onwards we can expect the unedifying site of police [...]
Today, Chirac has been in Tours, handing out naturalisation certificates to new French citizens. Ceremonies of this sort were made compulsory in April this year by the interministerial committee on integration. The decision to participate in this ceremony, normally conducted by local officials, is clearly an attempt to wade into the current (is it ever [...]
Since first being elected President Chirac has made a point of distinguishing himself from his predecessors in his willingness to acknowledge the crimes committed by the Vichy government during the Nazi Occupation. Unlike his predecessors he has never lain flowers on Petain’s tomb. However at the weekend he became the first French President to actively [...]
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