DIPLOMACY: Mexico to shun French festival over Cassez row
It’s been a long time in the planning, but a year-long French festival celebrating Mexican culture is now being boycotted by a very high-profile guest: the Mexican government.
Mexican officials said on Monday that they would not be participating in the “Year of Mexico in France” amid simmering tension over the conviction of a Frenchwoman, Florence Cassez, on kidnapping charges.
The ostensible reason behind Mexico’s decision is French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s recent comment that the festival should be dedicated to Cassez.
French Silver Fashion
Silversmithing is a sector of excellence of French craftsmanship, which has experienced a continuous development in the middle ages and a major revival in the classical era. Later, renowned companies heirs of this golden age or the industrial revolution, girls will wear at a very high level of innovation and creativity of the sector.
Silversmithing relates to the manufacture of objects made from precious metals, mainly gold and silver. The silversmith craft actually combines several specialities which are sometimes trades full: glider, Turner-repousseur, editor, Carver, polisher-brightener.
Barbarian peoples, who destroyed the Roman empire, were introduced in France and Europe taste of luxury and their masters work of precious metals. With the Christianization, this know-how benefits objects of worship – shrines, shrines, crosses and votive crowns – and continues to grow in the middle ages. The Gothic period, these pieces often take a monumental appearance.
Silversmithing knows a new golden age in the 17th century. Louis XIV command for his expensive lacquerware homes and furniture in solid silver, who come from the Gobelins Manufactory and adorn the Hall of mirrors of the castle of Versailles. In 1689 to finance the war effort, the King melted its silver furniture. In the XVIII th century under the reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI, silversmithing be miniaturised, leaving us snuff boxes, boxes with portraits, boxes of smell or favors… During the revolution, the corporation loses all its privileges, and countless pieces of liturgical silver is melted.
Large houses, like Odiot, were born in the 17th century. France, then Europe, courts pass command to this dynasty of goldsmiths recognized as one of the most illustrious. Napoleon will be one of the most illustrious customers of the House, who will sign the cradle of the King of Rome, huge Madam mother and Pauline Borghese services or service campaign of Emperor.
Other prestigious houses grow with the industrial revolution. The Christofle silver was born in middle of the 19th century and practice very quickly the gilding and silvering by electrolysis.
It is part of a tradition where nature and wildlife take a special place. A tea service can thus take the form of a PEAR and wear on its flanks Silver butterflies. Napoleon III instructs all the Empire table services this House also sought by the Emperor of Mexico or the Russia Tsar. It becomes the supplier of ministries, embassies, parliaments worldwide, but also the hotel of luxury, and until today, the Palace of the Elysée Palace in Paris.
Another great House, Puiforcat, created in 1820, will be a resurgence in the interwar avant-garde and stripped style that showcases the metal. Or even Ercuis, the name of a small village of Oise, including the young priest climbed in 1867 a firm religious silversmith. Ercuis specializes in arts of the table, tea and coffee services as well as massive silver cutlery. The plant is still in his home village.
In recent years, have worked for these homes of designers like Ora dayglo and Putman for Christofle, Francois Bauchet for Ercuis, Hubert Le Gall Odiot, Claude Bouchard and Patrick Puiforcat June.
Nantes silversmithing
Alliot-Marie Regrets Holiday
French foreign minister Michèle Alliot-Marie says she has ‘learned the lesson’ after criticism for using a private jet belonging to a Tunisian businessman linked to ousted president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. Photograph: Georges Gobet/AFP/Getty Images
French foreign minister Michèle Alliot-Marie is under pressure to resign after the emergence of further damaging allegations about her holiday in Tunisia during last month’s unrest.
The beleaguered minister has come under attack from all sides after a series of gaffes in recent weeks, leading to questions about her judgement.
There was widespread anger at the weekend when it emerged that Alliot-Marie had used a private jet belonging to a Tunisian businessman with alleged links to ousted president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali not once but twice during her controversial holiday. Rather than apologising, her response was combative. “When I’m on holiday, I’m not the foreign minister, I’m Michèle Alliot-Marie,” she said.
Less than 24 hours later, she has been forced to retract the statement.
Perhaps mindful of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s oft-repeated mantra: “When you’re a minister, you’re a full time minister,” Alliot-Marie told Le Parisien newspaper: “Obviously I am a minister 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. Even on holiday, I work in constant contact with my colleagues.”
On French radio, she said: “I thought a minister had the right to have friends but if that’s the way it is I’ll be very careful. Next time I won’t leave the Dordogne.”
She admitted she could understand why people were shocked by the revelations. “When I agreed to take this plane I was on holiday with my family, with my friends. I didn’t consider how it might be seen otherwise I wouldn’t have done it,” she said. “I’ve learned the lesson: if I am asked again, I will obviously not accept.”
Responding to calls for her resignation she went on the attack: “I will reply to questions, not to insults. I can assure you that this polemic will not distract me from my job.”
Alliot-Marie, 64, is one of France’s most experienced and long serving cabinet ministers. She was defence minister, interior minister and justice minister before being named foreign secretary in a reshuffle of the right-of-centre government last November.
Her judgment was first called into question when she offered to send France’s “world renowned” security forces to help quell the uprising in Tunisia three days before Ben Ali was forced to flee to Saudi Arabia on 13 January.
Afterwards details emerged of her post-Christmas holiday in Tunisia, after the unrest had begun. The minister – with her partner Patrick Ollier, also a minister, and her parents – took a nine-seater private jet belonging to businessman Aziz Miled, who was alleged to have links with the Ben Ali regime. Revelations about a second flight in the same jet were published this weekend.
Alliot-Marie claimed Miled, 75, who sold carpets on the streets before building up a travel empire, was a victim of the ruling clan’s corruption. Critics claim he worked with Ben Ali’s brother-in-law and last year signed a petition calling for the president to stand again when his mandate ended in 2014.
Jean-Marc Ayrault, head of the Socialist party parliamentary group, labelled Alliot-Marie’s behaviour as indecent. “That the French minister for foreign affairs spends her holidays in a country in the middle of a popular revolt is unacceptable behaviour,” he told Le Parisien.
Later he added: “She has to go. It’s impossible … her resignation is inevitable; it’s France’s image that has been damaged.”
Dominique de Villepin, a foreign secretary in a previous centre-right government, said the minister had shown that French diplomacy was “not at its best”.
Sarkozy has made no comment but the prime minister, François Fillon, said last week that Alliot Marie had “all his confidence”.
Fresh concerns over French Aviation Security
Two journalists have questioned the robustness of aviation security throughout France after successfully boarding domestic flights from two of the country’s busiest airports armed with a weapon concealed in their hand-luggage.
Linda Bendali and Mathieu Lere, filming a special report for France 2 television channel, boarded a morning flight from Charles de Gaulle to Nice on November 8 and returned to Paris from Marseille airport without being stopped by any of the passenger screening controls put in place by airport authorities.
What makes the report so alarming is both the ease with which the 9-mm semi-automatic handgun was disassembled, placed into two separate pieces of hand-luggage and carried onto the plane, and the incredibly close occurrence of the incidents, both happening within hours of each other.
Skiing in the discovery of nature: the French Mountain Summit
The French mountain is characterized by the immensity of its ski area. Much more rich and varied, it offers a wide variety of stations, activities and scenery to discover.
The France has 357 stations spread over seven massifs. Some have acquired a world renowned Megève, Morzine, Courchevel, Méribel, or Alpe d’Huez.
The immensity of the French ski resort indeed paradise for lovers of downhill skiing, snowboarding, cross-country skiing, but also mountaineering and hiking ski. It is the largest domain worldwide, extended more than 1,180 km². It occupies only 30% of the world ski area. French specificity: some of these areas are connected to form of huge “linked ski areas” by lifts or shuttle. They offer the possibility to travel hundreds of kilometres of pistes with a single package.
The variety of landforms and home devices allow the practice of a much broader related activities range in snow and the mountain: stations are more likely to offer you opt for “soft” such as Snowshoes and sled rides, skating, thermalism or thrill with “Snowkiting” (using a sail tension with a snowboard or skis), the “speed-riding” (association of ski, paragliding and parachuting), ice diving or biking activities snow.
Before learn about weather conditions in the mountains, including the snow bulletins and the potential risk of avalanches.
British skier killed in French Alps
A British skier has died in an accident while on holiday with his family in the French Alps.
John Atkinson reportedly crashed into a rock when he went off-piste at the popular resort of Les Deux Alpes, near Grenoble, while skiing in poor visibility on Christmas Eve.
A spokesman for the resort said Atkinson, from Salisbury, Wiltshire, had diverted off the La Fée piste, a blue run suitable for beginners and novices, when the accident happened. He was not wearing a helmet and was skiing behind his son and daughter, who are said to be in their 20s, when the accident occurred at about 2.30pm yesterday.
A doctor on holiday who was skiing behind him came to his aid and sent out an alert, but poor weather conditions prevented a helicopter being sent out. A local doctor arrived at the scene and Atkinson was pronounced dead at about 3.30pm.
Atkinson, his wife and children arrived at the resort on Wednesday. A spokeswoman for the police in Les Deux Alpes said the family were “in shock” and too upset to talk about what happened. “He was skiing with his children on a blue piste at around 3pm yesterday,” the spokeswoman said. “It was snowing, and the visibility was not good. He crashed into a rock.”
The Atkinsons had booked their holiday with the holiday company Les Deux Alpes Loisirs. Marie-Claude Berini, from the company’s rescue department, based at the resort, told the Evening Standard.
She said: “Mr Atkinson was skiing at 2,400 metres and hit a rock. He was experienced, but you always take a risk if you go off-piste.”
Atkinson’s wife, Susan, had decided not to go out with the others and had stayed at their rented flat.
A spokesman for the Foreign Office said: “We are aware of the death of a British national at the Deux Alpes yesterday and we are attempting to contact the next of kin to offer consular assistance.”
Two Britons died at the resort in March last year. Richard Ryan, 27, and Christopher Lockwood, 28, fell down a ravine after a night out.
Best Jobs to apply for in France for british moving to the North?
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I am considering starting university in France. What is a good university there? How should I start applying?
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French Financial Rescue Plan
The French plan to rescue the financial industry do not disrupt competition, says EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes .
The European Commission on Thursday cleared French and Dutch plans to preserve their lenders from the global credit squeeze.
Both were judged to be in line with EU rules on community aid and with guidelines reported by the European Union’s executive arm on 13 October.
These say that any rescue package should be limited in time and range and must not discriminate against foreign-based banks operating in that country.
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