Your Questions About Driving In France Roads
Steven asks…
Driving in France? Any video of road driving?
I am thinking of driving to Caen to see the area where my relatives were killed and injured during WWII, but I am apprehensive about driving on the ‘wrong side of the road’, as the French do.
I have read a little about the French road signs but am still nervous. Does anyone know of some video or similar on the web, showing how the French drive, ie roundabouts, and with examples of the confusing signage which seems to allow drivers to come out onto main roads?
Adelpho U – Unfortunately, can’t view that, it says domain unobtainable.
Thanks Elmbeard – That info you posted ‘Priorite a droite – where a tractor pulling out of a blind side junction has right of way still operates on some D roads and some roads in town. They are much better signposted than they were, but just be aware that someone might pull in front of you from the right. ‘ is the big scary thing -I worry I’d be doing 56mph down a road and then suddenly I have a vehicle come out in front of me.
admin answers:
Click to continue reading “Your Questions About Driving In France Roads”
Categories: Motoring Tags: driving, France, Overtaking, Right- and left-hand traffic, Road safety, Road transport, Roundabout, Traffic, Traffic law
Siege of the Chamber of Deputies
PARIS, 6 FEBRUARY 1934
I am telephoning you from a besieged fortress. No one can leave the Chamber of Deputies. The whole district on the south side of the river adjoining the Chamber is cordoned off by police, and as I speak thousands of rioters are attempting to break through the barricade of police vans on the Pont de la Concorde and get into the Chamber.
Click to continue reading “Siege of the Chamber of Deputies”
Categories: Famous France Tags: Édouard Daladier, France, French people, French Third Republic, Gaston Doumergue, M. Daladier, Paris, Politics, Politics of France, War/Conflict
The Artist Lucas Cranach
To mark the opening on the Europe of the portion of its programming dedicated to the Renaissance, the Luxembourg in Paris Museum reopens its doors with an exhibition dedicated to the German artist Lucas Cranach (circa 1472-1553). A painter prolific and versatile, yet unsung French public which can discover thanks to this exhibition the scope of his work.
The exhibition, the first in France dedicated to the painter, major German Renaissance artist to understand its place in art history and its involvement in the society of his time, then affected by deep political and religious upheaval. Painter at the Court of Saxony at the time of Martin Luther, and frequent traveler, artist success, it faces many commands.
International Year of Forests
The United Nations proclaimed 2011 “international year of forests”, to sensitize the populations of the world on the importance of sustainable management and conservation of forests. Major forest countries, the France will mobilize to celebrate this international event through demonstrations aimed at publicizing its action and commitment.
Forests are a crucial issue for the life of the planet. An integral part of sustainable global development, forests have an impact on the existence of 1.6 billion people worldwide. They are a natural resource, are sources of economic activities, and as ecosystems, they are essential to the balance of the planet: mitigation of climate change, impacts on water quality, biodiversity protection, limitation of erosion or reduced risk in mountain… For all these reasons United Nations decided to 2011 year of forests.
The forest, an asset for the France
In France, the forest area increased by half since 1950. Today the forests cover 30% of the territory, constituting a major asset for the French economy, particularly in rural areas. The French forest-wood chain has 425 000 jobs or twice more than the automotive industry, and generates a turnover of EUR 40 billion.
Facts and figures on the French forest:
13% wooded area de l’Union européenne, 15 3 million hectares in Metropolis (28.3% of the territory), including 10.6 million hectares of private forest and 4.7 million hectares of public forests, 7, 7 million hectares of tropical forests in the 4 overseas departments, including 98% in the only French Guiana (Amazon), 9 122 nature reserves and national parks the France is the third European country to its forest after the Sweden and the Finland surface.
Categories: Environment Tags: forests, international
A&F Markets Launches Art Exchange
A&F markets will offer shares in works by modern artists such as Anselm Kiefer, above. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian
Culture-lovers who cannot afford to hang a modern master on their wall will soon be able to buy shares in art works as the first art stock exchange prepares to open in the French capital.
Paris-based A&F Markets wants to allow investors to buy and sell shares in art works as they would any other commodity, with prices quoted on a public index. The shares will start at €10 for works valued at more than €100,000 (£85,880). The scheme will only trade in modern pieces from the late 19th century onwards, including painting, sculpture, video installation and photography.
The project, expected to launch in January, has been secretive about its opening art works. The first pieces for sale will include a 2006 installation by the German painter and sculptor Anselm Kiefer, who is based in the south of France. Also on offer is Irregular Form, a 1998 oil painting on paper by the late American artist Sol LeWitt. Those pieces are owned by galleries, but the scheme is also negotiating directly with the French painter and sculptor Richard Texier for one of his works.
The company’s founders are initially working with about six Paris galleries but are seeking to expand in the UK, China and across Europe. They hope to attract financiers and investors who might previously have been wary of the art world’s volatile and sometimes confusing prices. The scheme is also hoping to attract investors tempted by French tax breaks on art.
The idea has been lampooned by some cultural commentators, who warn that treating art like a financial commodity debases an artist’s work. Patrick Bourne of the London-based Fine Art Society said the idea was a “stinker”. But Pierre Naquin, the 26-year-old French entrepreneur behind it, argued that new investors in the art world would be “reassured” by a marketplace that copied the financial mechanisms they were used to. He said: “Just because someone makes an investment in art, it doesn’t mean they lose the emotional tie to the work. On the contrary, I think this will bring in new buyers, and allow people who can’t afford to pay €100,000 for their own work to take part. We’re actually opening up the market to art lovers.”
Night of the Caesar: stars and stars
Founded in 1976, on the American model of the Oscars, the Cesar ceremony is designed to reward excellence of French cinema. Each year, film professionals and lovers of the 7th art await the fateful moment for winners, beautiful confirmations as revelations of the new generation.
The history of the César begins in 1974 when Georges Cravenne producer created the Academy of arts and techniques of cinema, commonly referred to as the Academy of Caesar. Consisting of personalities and professionals of the cinema, the Academy is designed to reward accomplishments and French cinematographic work on the model of the American Academy, by awarding a trophy called “César”. A single reproduction of the work created specially for this purpose by the sculptor César of the founding of the Academy.
The first ceremony, so-called “night of César”, therefore held in 1976 at the Palais des Congrès in Paris, under the chairmanship of the actor Jean Gabin, a few months before his disappearance.
At this time, 13 statuettes were awarded; Today, they are the number of 20. For years, the César Academy welcomed many confirmed talents of French cinema (Jean Rochefort, Michel Serrault, Alain Delon, Michel Galabru, Gérard Depardieu, Romy Schneider, Simone Signoret, Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Adjani,…), but also propelled under the spotlight of the young revelations of the 7th art (Richard Anconina, Mathieu Kassovitz, Yvan Attal, Mathieu Almaric, Tahar Rahim, Sophie Marceau, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Vanessa Paradis, Audrey Tautou, Julie Depardieu…), welcoming film technical teams and making vibrant tributes to missing celebrities.
This 2011 Edition takes place under the Presidency of the American actress Jodie Foster. Who will succeed the tsunami of “Prophet” of Jean-Jacques Annaud (9 Caesar in 2010) to top this year? Verdict Friday, February 25.
Lino Ventura opens 1977 César ceremony paying tribute to Jean Gabin:
Categories: Famous France Tags: Caesar, Night, stars
Chin celebrates lemon and citrus
Dubbed “the city of lemons”, Menton, Alpes-Maritimes, celebrates annually the local product. The lemon feast is a unique event in the world, featuring giant patterns exclusively composed of citrus and floats decorated with oranges and lemons.
Since the 15th century, Chin is a major producer of lemons. Beginning of the 20th century, the Mediterranean town imposed as the leading producer on the continent. In 1929, a hotelier had the idea to organize an exhibition of flowers and citrus fruits. The success was such that the following year, party down streets with carts of shrubs planted oranges and lemons.
Click to continue reading “Chin celebrates lemon and citrus”
Categories: Events Tags: Chin, Europe, Food and drink, French Riviera, Fruit preserves, Hospitality/Recreation, Menton, Orange, Political history, Structure, Tropical agriculture
Chirac’s collection of kitsch gifts wrecks region’s economy
Jacques Chirac and his wife, Bernadette, on a visit to the museum that has become a liability. Photograph: Antoine Parat/AFP
Bill Clinton gift-wrapped a pair of cowboy boots, the Comoros islands framed a prize stuffed fish and various world leaders gave gold-plated camels, diamond encrusted swords and statues of sumo wrestlers.
When Jacques Chirac used vast state funds to build a lavish museum to all the gifts given to him as French president, his political opponents feared a vanity project. Now the Museum of President Jacques Chirac, incongruously located in a secluded rural village in central France, has fallen so badly into debt that it has plunged the local economy into crisis.
Building a shrine to the fancy trinkets exchanged in the name of foreign diplomacy is not new in France. A small museum in Burgundy houses the vases, clocks and silverware given to the socialist president François Mitterrand on his travels. But Chirac’s attempt at oneupmanship by building a gargantuan personal showcase has turned into a white elephant, described as “a bottomless financial pit” in a scathing financial watchdog report obtained by the newspaper, Le Monde.
Chirac and his wife Bernadette built their vast modernist granite museum in 2000 in Sarran, a tiny village of fewer than 300 people that has long served as their personal and political fiefdom in the rural and sparsely populated Corréze. Built not far from the couple’s 16th-century castle and holiday retreat, Mrs Chirac personally helped to curate the collection, which features 5,000 pieces and thousands of books received during Chirac’s presidency from 1995 to 2007.
Gifts on permanent display range from a chess set depicting South African politicians to African art pieces and belts used in sumo, Chirac’s favourite sport. Moroccan vases decorated with Koranic verses compete with an array of gold watches and sculpted glass birds.
“A mixture of local good taste and the most appalling kitsch,” was the verdict of the newspaper Liberation at the museum’s launch.
In keeping with the Chirac’s lofty ambitions, the museum’s architect was Jean-Michel Wilmotte who worked on the modern wings at the Louvre. It cost €7m (£6m) of state funds to build and was then extended in 2006 for a further €9.6m.
Now a report by the Limousin region has revealed that the museum’s deficit far exceeds its takings and it has helped make Corréze the most indebted department in France.
Visitors numbers have halved from the 144,000 the museum attracted in 2001 and the museum made just €200,000 in 2008, while costing the state €1.7m. Its spiralling costs are now such a drain that each visitor who walks through the door paying the €3 entry fee pushes local French taxpayers €30 further into debt.
The socialist-run local government says there is no point closing down the museum, which also runs temporary exhibitions, but it will reduce staff and cut costs. Even the state-subsidised restaurant at the site has cost the taxpayer more than €270,000 since it opened.
Chirac’s other pet museum project, Paris’s Quai Branly, the national museum of African, Asian and non-European art, has almost doubled its visitor targets since it opened in 2006. But the Corréze museum’s misfortunes are a personal blow for the 78-year-old, who was once nicknamed “the bulldozer” but is now beset by troubles.
In March, the former president will face an unprecedented corruption trial over accusations that he rewarded political cronies with salaries for non-existent ghost jobs when he was mayor of Paris from 1977-1995.
Categories: Living in France Tags: Chiracs, collection, economy, gifts, kitsch, regions, wrecks