Like many artists, Francis Cabrel takes advantage of this period of confinement imposed by the coronavirus health crisis to keep in touch with his fans and offer them entertainment every day on Facebook.
Source: Coronavirus: in confinement, Francis Cabrel sings a song a day on Facebook – Ladepeche.fr
Residents of the French capital are adjusting to the country’s toughest restrictions on public life outside wartime
And suddenly, it was August. Grudgingly but obediently, the rue des Martyrs in Paris’s ninth arrondissement entered lockdown at midday on Tuesday, the few people on its pavements making their way home, baguettes and shopping bags in hand.
By 12.30pm, half an hour after France’s new reality – in essence, no going out unless to buy food or essentials, visit the doctor or get to a job certified as not doable from home – came into force, the normally bustling shopping street had emptied. Continue reading “France ‘at war’: how Parisians are coping with life under lockdown”
Streets that are normally busy, all of a sudden aren’t.
At noon today, as France slipped into confinement, I looked down from my balcony at the street below. A few people were riding bikes or walking. At the tobacconist next to the closed café, a woman was wiping down the door frame. The street is normally busy, and all of a sudden it wasn’t. For the next two weeks, and likely longer, we cannot go out except for urgent reasons: food, medicine, or essential work. A nationwide lockdown, enforced by police. “We are at war,” French President Emmanuel Macron said six times in a speech yesterday evening. “The enemy is there—invisible, elusive—and it is advancing.”
Macron is right. COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, has killed thousands and will likely kill thousands more, a tsunami that doctors have been warning will overwhelm the health-care system, as it’s already doing in neighboring Italy, the country hardest hit by this virus after China. This weekend, the government ordered all restaurants, cafés, and retail stores closed in France.
And finally, last night, Macron followed Italy and Spain—but not Britain or the United States—and mandated confinement to slow the exponential spread of the virus. Overnight, Macron, who was elected on a fluke and has faced popular revolts and flagging popularity, has become a war president.
We are at war. How strange to hear those words in Europe in 2020. It’s impossible, here in Paris, not to think of the Second World War. Not since Continue reading “A Letter From Wartime France”
As COVID-19 cases exponentially increase in the U.S. and Western Europe, leaders impose rules on restaurants and bars in effort to decrease infection rates
Across the United States and Western Europe this past weekend, the COVID-19 pandemic continued to grow, spurring leaders to impose new restrictions to attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Less than a week after Italy’s government shut down almost all schools and businesses, asking citizens to self-quarantine, France and Spain followed suit.
Continue reading “COVID-19: France, Spain Shut Down; California Asks Wineries to Stop Tastings “
This morning, Rosemary Standley and Dom la Neña, the Birds on a Wire duo, deliver their second album “Ramages”, as tasty as the first…
This morning, Rosemary Standley and Dom la Neña, the Birds on a Wire duo , deliver their second album, as tasty as the first. “Manouk & co”, by André Manoukian (7h22 – February 26, 2020) All the chronicles of André Manoukian on https://www.franceinter.fr/emissions/erudit-doudam
Source: Le 2ème album de Birds on a Wire
The elite world of French cinema is divided over the 45th César Awards ceremony, the French equivalent of the Oscars. A movie by the controversial and divisive Franco-Polish filmmaker Roman Polanski won three awards, including the coveted Best Director prize. This was a bitter pill to swallow for many, including feminist groups who had called for a boycott of the ceremony. The incident once again ignited a fierce debate about the question of “separating the man from the artist”. Does this episode highlight a deep-rooted problem in French society? And are things slowly starting to change?
Source: Does Polanski’s César award highlight a deep problem in French society? – French connections
