Author: THE HOBBLEDEHOY

Michael Stevenson, aka Dai Bando, Johnny Foreigner, Monsieur Pas De Merde, is a blogger of French and British culture. His blogs "Pas De Merde" and "The Hobbledehoy" have been called "marvelous" by some, and "meh" by others.

Can The French Still Afford To Eat Their Own Food?

Aside from wine sales, the French agricultural sector is struggling to compete with cheaper, more intensively-farmed goods from overseas—are French people finding it difficult to buy French food?

France is incredibly protective of its agricultural sector—it has been the sticking point between France and the U.S. in the negotiation of their new trade agreement, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).  President Donald Trump has been threatening to increase tariffs on French food as a result of France not agreeing to include the agricultural sector in the trading agreements (France wants only non-auto “industrial goods” included and specifically not meat, fruit or wine).

Part of the problem is that France is resistant to allowing food to be mass-produced or intensively farmed; it wants to preserve the traditional ways of farming, of which it is proud. This means though, that food is much cheaper when it is produced by farmers in other European countries who don’t adhere to as strict agricultural standards as the French.

Christiane Lambert, chairwoman of the French Farmers’ Union reported in The Times, that President Emmanuel Macron’s approach to agriculture was pricing French food out of the market. “He told us to go upmarket but in the first six months of this year we imported a lot more poultry from Poland and Germany because it is cheaper,” she said. It has come to the point when French people cannot afford to buy their own food.

The deficit to the French economy is about €300 million, but many believe it’s a worrying sign and a marker of the health of the agricultural sector in general—even French cheese is suffering as consumers are increasingly turning to cheese from Ireland or the Netherlands (the growth appears to be in more “industrially-produced” cheeses for pizza toppings).

The only part of the food and drinks sector which is buoyant is the alcohol industry, where sales of wine and cognac are still far outselling imports, notably due to a huge increase of sales in the U.S and China of French wine. The French government reported in May that this success might be masking a more dire warning for the French agricultural sector in general.

Source FORBES: Can The French Still Afford To Eat Their Own Food?

Protesters, police clash around Paris’s Champs-Élysées after Bastille Day parade

French police fired tear gas to disperse protesters from Paris’s Champs Elysees avenue on Sunday, a few hours after President Emmanuel Macron had reviewed the traditional Bastille Day military parade alongside other European leaders.

Continue at FRANCE24: Protesters, police clash around Paris’s Champs-Élysées after Bastille Day parade

Send in the clowns – and send me, too!

By: Michael Stevenson

My wife Linda and I enjoyed such a wonderful vacation in France this past month.

We began our trip in Paris’ Butte-aux-Cailles neighborhood in the underappreciated 13th arrondissement. Butte-aux-Cailles was a pleasant surprise, with its amazing street art, local bistros, and funky bars. We had a groovy night of Afro-Pop and dancing the evening of the Fete de Musique!

Next we took a train to Avignon where we rented a car to drive to the seaside village of Cassis. This was perfect timing, as the temperatures climbed over 110 degrees. We cooled ourselves with an ocean swim and boat ride through Cassis’ beautiful calanques.

We then drove three hours north from Cassis to Vienne to attend their annual Jazz Festival. There, in the magnificent outdoor Theatre Antique, we watched a fantastic show performed by Canadian piano man Chilly Gonzales. We drove south again to our favorite village in Provence, Venasque, meeting-up with our friends Jim and Shirley, who are our neighbors back come in Rhode Island, USA.

It was in Venasque that I was fortunate to be introduced to “Compagnie Née au Vent,” in a street performance by the company’s two “clowns”/actors, Claire Néel and Alexandre Florent.

A bus crashes Cyrano and the clowns show their mercy

The two clowns, in character as “Bombyx” and “Luna”, performed scenes from the classic novel “Cyrano de Bergerac,” as well as skits from the Hollywood movies Dirty Dancing, Titanic, and (my favorite) the spaghetti scene from Disney’s Lady & the Tramp.

Walking through the winding streets of the tiny village, I loved every minute of their twilight performance.

It was hilarious, magical and unforgettable theater!

My only regret was that during the several requests for audience participation, I was too embarrassed by clumsy francaise to volunteer.

On the Compagnie Née au Vent website are these words from the beloved author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry:

“Make the dream devour your life and that life does not devour your dream”

Next summer, I promise to improve my French and to raise my hand to volunteer once invited to “send in the American clown!” C’est moi!

Paris to host free outdoor French film screenings (with English subtitles)

Free outdoor cinema screenings in Paris this summer will show French films with English subtitles, to help Anglophones keep abreast of French culture.

Cinema club Lost in Frenchlation – which regularly screens French films with English subtitles, is hosting three free outdoor screenings over the summer.

The first screening is romance Fidelio, L’Odysée d’Alice.

It is on Friday, July 12th at Mairie du 11ème, 12 Place Léon Blum, with a free concert at 8.30pm, followed by the screening at 10.30pm.
The second is American comedy mash-up La Classe Américaine on Saturday, July 20th at Mob Hôtel, 6 Rue Gambetta, in Saint-Ouen at 10pm.
And the third in the series is comedy La Nouvelle Ève on Friday, August 9th at Mairie du 11ème. The screening at 9.30pm, preceded by short movies.
The outdoor screenings are in addition to Lost in Frenchlation’s usual programme, which includes the new Jean Dujardin comedy Le Daim on  Friday, July 19th at Club de L’Étoile/Champs-Élysées.
Before the screening there is an optional Eiffel Tower Movie Tour at 5:30pm, drinks from 7pm, a stand-up comedy show (in English) at 8pm, followed by the screening at 8.30pm. €15 Full Price, €13 for students.

See the full schedule at http://lostinfrenchlation.com/

Source: Paris to host free outdoor French film screenings (with English subtitles) – The Local

How to eat like a French woman

Guilt-free two-hour lunches are standard in the south of France

Alix O’Neill is a freelance journalist and writer, who, after years of on-off scheming, has finally taken the plunge and moved to the South of France. In search of a simpler life, filled with more cheese and less stress, she charts her new chapter in the ‘rose city’ of Toulouse, with husband ‘Mr G’ and baby ‘Tibs’ in tow. You can read all about the highs and lows of settling into French culture here in her brand new column.

At my last antenatal appointment, the gynaecologist’s assistant told me I had a “beautiful uterus”. I’m as in awe of the female reproductive system as the next person, but it’s never occurred to me to compliment another woman on the pulchritude of her internal organs.

Of course, she wasn’t referring to the physical attractiveness of my womb. She was simply confirming that everything was healthy and progressing as it should be. I’m coming to learn that in French, anything has the potential to be beautiful, from an idea to cheese. The pursuit of beauty and its partner pleasure is a serious business here. As Lucy Wadham writes in her 2009 memoir The Secret Life of France, “Traits like rigour, reserve and resilience – qualities which, significantly, are usually attributed to France’s Protestant minority – are begrudgingly admired but never championed.”

Buying groceries becomes a thing of beauty

The French seek out small pleasures on a daily basis. Guilt-free two-hour lunches are standard, while I’ve seen locals enjoy a glass of wine at 10am before opening shop for the day. Even buying groceries can be a thing of beauty, if approached in the correct manner. When we were living in London, discounting weekends pottering around Borough or Broadway markets, most days I reluctantly joined the self-service queue of office workers clutching bags of ravioli and stir-in pasta sauce in my local Tesco. Beyond amusing myself by attempting to guess who would lose it at the next “unexpected item in bagging area”, it was invariably a soulless experience.

In Toulouse, picking up ingredients for dinner each evening is a joy. After coffee and croissants, Tibs and I will head to the market to stock up on fruit and veg, seeing what’s in season before deciding what to eat that day. We’ll head to the fromagerie and boulangerie, Tibs going native by demanding to tuck into warm baguette on the way home. (For non-perishable purchases, it’s Lidl. Even the French can’t make toilet paper sexy.)

The joys of simple cooking

In France, food and cooking is one of the greatest pleasures in life, and played a not inconsiderable part in our decision to move. Mr G is an excellent cook and I’ve always been a gourmand (not a gourmet. An important distinction. The latter knows a lot about food; the former is essentially a human waste disposal unit). Zola once said, “When there’s nothing good to eat for dinner, I’m unhappy – really unhappy. That’s all there is; nothing else exists for me.” I can relate. My friend Jude and I had a bad lunch on our sixth-form girls’ trip to Magaluf. I’m not sure what we were expecting from this well-known culinary hotspot, but the disappointment plagues us to this day. [ . . . ]

Continue at YAHOO: How to eat like a French woman