French author Edouard Louis: Why Macron will lead voters to the far right 

The young literary star defied French elites and social taboos with his best-selling autobiographical novels that portray poverty made invisible in his country. He talks to DW about fiction and a forgotten underclass.

DW: Just like your first novel, “The End of Eddy,” your latest work is also strictly autobiographical. Why?

Edouard Louis: The world is currently saturated with fiction; it’s already structured by lies and fabrications. One of the reasons why people like Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange are persecuted is because they have showed us that governments are lying to us.When the French government claims that we can’t welcome migrants, it’s a lie. Why don’t they just say, “We don’t want to welcome migrants,” instead? That would be the truth…”

ReadFull Story at: French author Edouard Louis: Why Macron will lead voters to the far right | Books | DW | 11.10.2017

How to decode a French wine label

Buying a French wine can often be intimidating for those without an intimate knowledge of the language on the label. Unlike New World wines which often focus on the grape varietal used to make the wine, French wineries have typically relied on their place of origin and other information on the label to tell the consumer a story about the liquid contents in the bottle. In theory, a French wine label tells [ . . . ]

Full Story at: How to decode a French wine label | The Chronicle Herald

The erotic songs lost in translation

When Serge Gainsbourg died in 1991, France’s then-president François Mitterrand mourned the loss of “our Baudelaire, our Apollinaire,” the man who had “elevated song to the level of art.” In a career spanning five decades, Gainsbourg embraced everything from chanson, mambo and yé yé to rock, reggae and electronica, incorporating lyrics that were in turn profound, witty or provocative and at times utterly obscene. Frequently employing ingenious wordplay that would give the lyrics two, if not three different meanings his compositions remain wholly original and uniquely out of time [ . . . ]

More at: BBC – Culture – The erotic songs lost in translation

Au Hasard Balthazar de Robert Bresson – 1966

Anne Wiazemsky, a French novelist and New Wave actress who appeared in seven films directed by her husband, Jean-Luc Godard, died on Thursday in Paris. She was 70.

Ms. Wiazemsky expressed few regrets, though she recalled that when she was first cast by Bresson in “Au Hasard Balthazar,” she replaced an actress who had already been selected for the role.

“She lost the film because of me,” she said, “and I still feel a pang of regret for that unknown girl.” [ NYTimes 10/5/17 ]