Giving up to a U.S. invader in France

By Patricia Treble - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 8:50 AM - 0 Comments

John Lawrence/The Travel Library/CP

The canopy of plane trees that guard the banks of France’s Canal du Midi have created such scenic vistas that UNESCO calls it a “work of art.” Now that beauty is under threat by an invasive fungus in what President Nicolas Sarkozy calls “a great tragedy.”

For five years, officials have tried to contain Ceratocystis platani—believed to have arrived on wooden American ammunition boxes during the Second World War—by cutting and burning diseased trees plus the surrounding healthy ones. But the disease kept spreading along the historic canal, a 360-km network of waterways built in the 17th century to connect the Mediterranean with the Atlantic.

Now France has admitted defeat. It will fell all 40,000 trees. The chopping and replanting with resistant varieties, costing an estimated $300 million, will be carried out gradually to avoid leaving bald spots on the waterway’s banks. However, it will be decades, if not centuries, before the new trees are mature enough to recreate the magical views.

The resurrection of John Galliano?

By Leah Mclaren - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 8:40 AM - 6 Comments

Antonio de Moraes Barros Filho/WireImage/Getty Images

Earlier this month, a Paris court found fashion designer John Galliano guilty of “public insults based on origin, religious affiliation, race or ethnicity,” for his now-notorious anti-Semitic rant in a Paris café.

It was, of course, a crime for which the disgraced designer had months ago been sentenced in the court of public opinion, and rightly so. The diatribe in which he slurred “I love Hitler” in the faces of a couple of astonished women was caught on video and later posted online. After Galliano’s arrest in February, for which he was dropped both as head of the House of Dior as well as his own eponymous label, his career prospects seemed forever dashed. But now that the court case is over and the dust is beginning to settle, some fashion world observers are speculating that a comeback might be in the cards. “Given how superficial the fashion world can be—and how cynical—it could be that Galliano’s very notoriety makes him a short-term money-spinner,” Telegraph deputy fashion editor Luke Leitch wrote last week after the verdict came down.

The court found the designer guilty after hearing testimony from patrons who’d experienced Galliano’s abuse on several separate occasions over the past year. Plaintiff Geraldine Bloch testified that the designer remarked on her “dirty Jewish face” and called her a “ ‘dirty whore’ at least a thousand times” in a 45-minute rant as she shared a drink with a friend on the patio of La Perle, an establishment located in the Marais, the lively gay district and historic Jewish quarter of Paris. And another victim, Fatiha Oummedour, told the court of a separate occasion on which an inebriated Galliano taunted her as “ugly Jewish” at the same café a few months earlier.

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Explosion at French nuclear site kills 1, injures 4

By macleans.ca - Monday, September 12, 2011 at 10:22 AM - 0 Comments

At least one person is dead and four injured after an explosion occurred at a nuclear waste site in southern France. The incident occurred on Monday at the Marcoule site and was caused by a fire near a furnace, French officials said. According to the country’s Agency for Nuclear Safety, there are no radiation leaks. While there are no nuclear power reactors at the Marcoule site, there is a pressurized water reactor that is used to produce tritium. The site is owned by French power utility company EDP. Officials said the furnace where the explosion occurred is used to melt waste. One of the injured was airlifted to hospital in Montpellier, while three others were treated at a hospital closer to the site.

CBC News

France and the persistence of public order

By Andrew Potter - Friday, July 15, 2011 at 3:57 PM - 5 Comments

Happy (belated) Bastille Day, everyone. While the philosophy community is celebrating (or not) the arrival of Derek Parfit’s long-awaited two-volume work on ethics, I’ve been plowing my way through the first volume of Francis Fukuyama’s The Origins of Political Order. The basic question he’s trying to answer is how any society ever made the transition from a tribal society to a modern state. It starts with chimpanzee politics, moves quickly to the state of nature and then on status seeking, so it’s basically the perfect book, thematically. I’m going to write a proper review of it soon, but one passage I came across last night was particularly interesting: it is about the particular character of the French state, pre-revolution:

While England developed an advanced theory of public finance and optimal taxation, elucidated in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, French taxation was opportunistic and dysfunctional… Most important, the French fiscal system deliberately encouraged rent-seeking. Wealthy individuals, instead of investing their money in productive assets in the private economy, spent their fortunes on heritable offices that could not create but only redistribute wealth. Rather than focusing on technological innovation, they innovated with regard to new ways of outwitting the state and its tax system. This weakened private entrepreneurship and made its emerging private sector dependent on state largesse, just at the same moment that private markets were blossoming across the English channel.

Free for now—but far from forgiven

By Michael Petrou - Thursday, July 14, 2011 at 1:10 PM - 1 Comment

Brendan McDermid/Reuters

It was the sort of fall from grace from which it seemed impossible for any leading public figure to recover.

On May 14, New York Port Authority police pulled Dominique Strauss-Kahn, then head of the International Monetary Fund and a likely Socialist challenger for the French presidency in 2012, from the first-class cabin of a flight bound for Paris. Early the next morning he was formally arrested on charges of sexual assault and attempted rape against a Manhattan hotel maid.

The allegations were particularly ugly. Police said the maid entered Strauss-Kahn’s $3,000-a-night suite thinking it was empty. Strauss-Kahn emerged naked from the bathroom and attacked her, forcing the maid to perform oral sex on him. Strauss-Kahn pleaded not guilty. His attorney, Benjamin Brafman, told New York criminal court: “The evidence, we believe, will not be consistent with a forcible encounter.” He did not deny a sexual encounter, in other words, but suggested it was consensual. DNA tests reportedly confirmed traces of Strauss-Kahn’s semen on the maid’s clothes.

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France puts itself on suicide watch

By Emma Teitel - Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 8:15 AM - 0 Comments

Pascal Pavani/AFP/Getty Images

No other nation in recent history appears to have taken so fervently to apocalyptic prophesies as France has, reports the London Times. Then again, not many nations have a government agency specifically responsible for investigating “cults and suspicious spiritual activities.” Indeed, the French agency—known as MIVILUDES—delivered a mass-suicide warning last week, apparently worried about a possible suicide frenzy come Dec. 21, 2012, the day the 5,000-year-old Mayan calendar ends. MIVILUDES contends that the Internet age, natural disasters, and economic turmoil—combined with the ancient Mayan prophecy—have inspired widespread belief in a coming Armageddon (there has been a recent migration of people to the hilltop village of Bugarach, said to be a place immune to apocalypse).

The agency’s concern is not entirely outlandish: in the 1990s, 74 people belonging to a cult called the Order of the Solar Temple—16 of them in France and eight in Quebec—died in murder-suicides to avoid an Armageddon. But cult expert Susan Palmer of Concordia University says that “MIVILUDES is creating artificial emergencies to support the state-sponsored anti-cult movement.” Palmer, whose upcoming book The New Heretics of France, about the French anti-cult movement, believes MIVILUDES spends more time vilifying cults than actually researching them—“obviously trying to justify its own existence.”

Canada’s warning shot to France via the IMF

By Erica Alini - Tuesday, June 28, 2011 at 3:27 PM - 105 Comments

Photo by Flickr user danorbit

U.S. treasury secretary Tim Geithner announced today that the United States will back French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde to head the International Monetary Fund, effectively sealing the race for the organization’s top job.

The race seemed tilted towards Lagarde’s candidacy from the beginning. When former Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn resigned in May to defend himself against sex assault charges, Europe immediately rallied behind Lagarde, eager to substitute a European national with another one. And although the U.S. has been cagey about its stance in the race, few doubted it would eventually also nod at the French minister, continuing the unspoken convention of having a European heading the IMF and an American the World Bank.

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Review: La Seduction: How the French Play the Game of Life

By Anne Kingston - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 11:00 AM - 0 Comments

Trying to dissect the French art of seduction is a bit like running Monet’s paints through chromatography to discern their magic. But in her compelling new cultural study, New York Times Paris correspondent Elaine Sciolino does a valiant job of deconstructing what she calls the “official ideology” of French society—one that animates daily interactions and world-stage diplomacy.

Exploiting the enviable access provided by her position, Sciolino plumbs the topic with forensic rigour, interviewing presidents, chefs, lingerie designers, perfumers, even her butcher. Her bid to define the elusive topic amuses some of her subjects (one man tells her Frenchmen’s self-awareness of seduction is akin to “goldfish not knowing what water is like”). But it also renders her an astute cross-cultural guide. Americans see seduction only in sexual terms, Sciolino points out, whereas the French regard it as a means to beguile, delight and persuade in every aspect of life, even as an end in itself.

Throughout, she’s a generous gossip and engaging observer, sharing that French women never parade naked in front of their husbands (it preserves mystique), it’s bad form to say “bon appétit” before eating (referring to bodily functions is gauche), and how entrenched attitudes toward femininity played out in the controversial burka ban.

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Chirac really doesn’t like Sarkozy

By Cynthia Reynolds - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 10:50 AM - 0 Comments

Jason Edwards/Getty Images

In releasing the second instalment of his memoirs, The Presidential Time, former French president Jacques Chirac has reignited a long-time feud with fellow right-winger and current president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy. While initially touting Sarkozy as the most gifted politician of his generation, Chirac—who held the presidency for two terms before Sarkozy entered office in 2007—proceeds to slam the man he has frequently referred to as “the Traitor,” describing him as “nervous, impetuous, overflowing with ambition, doubting nothing, least of all himself.”

Though they both belong to the UMP party, the bad blood goes back to the 1995 presidential election, when Sarkozy, Chirac’s then-protege, abandoned his mentor in favour of another conservative candidate. Chirac went on to win, while the famously pugilistic Sarkozy took on the more expressive role in their unfolding rivalry, among other things poking fun of Chirac’s renowned love of sumo wrestling. Chirac mostly remained silent. But four years out of the Élysée Palace and just 11 months before the next election—and while Sarkozy’s dismal approval ratings hover around 34 per cent—Chirac apparently deemed the time ripe for revenge.

He casts Sarkozy as a divisive figure prone to exacerbating tensions, referring to the president’s controversial policies that have unleashed multiple street protests throughout his tenure, most recently his expulsion of the Roma from France. But in an interview with Le Figaro, Chirac denied his words were an attack. Instead, he described his present relationship with Sarkozy as honest and cordial. Classic Chirac—his career flip-flopping earned him the nicknames “Chameleon Bonaparte” and “la Girouette” (the Weather Vane).

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The French are coming

By Alex Ballingall - Wednesday, June 8, 2011 at 9:35 AM - 0 Comments

Sean Kilpatrick/CP

Mathieu Lam was 23 when he decided to leave his home country of France in 2005 to work and travel in Canada. He was interested in the country’s reputation for natural beauty and its relatively high standard of living. Plus, he felt his prospects for employment at home were dismal.

Now, six years later, Lam is a permanent Canadian resident who runs a software development company in Toronto. He also operates a website called Programme Vacances Travail, which helps French youth who, like him, want to live and work abroad. “Canada has always been a country that attracted me,” he says in French, describing why he chose to come to Canada.

Lam’s not alone. Over the past decade, the number of French people coming to Canada has risen significantly. Permanent residents admitted from France jumped from 4,345 in 2000 to 6,930 in 2010. The increase in temporary workers is even more dramatic. In 2000, 5,932 temporary foreign workers entered Canada from France. By 2010, that number had risen to more than 17,000.

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Dominique Strauss-Kahn's open secret

By Leah McLaren - Friday, May 20, 2011 at 6:45 AM - 23 Comments

Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

A wave of stunned indignation washed across France this week. The allegations of sexual assault against one of country’s most powerful men were appalling—but it was the image of Dominique Strauss-Kahn handcuffed and being escorted by police into a New York City police station that truly shocked the nation. In his position as head of the International Monetary Fund, Strauss-Kahn (or DSK, as he is commonly known in France) is a man who is used to jetting around the world to sort out economic affairs with members of the global super-elite. But today, the man who was once touted as a Socialist party presidential contender sits in a single jail cell in Rikers Island, where he was remanded by a judge without bail.

It is a far cry indeed from the $3,000-a-night suite in Manhattan’s Sofitel, where he last slept. It was in that plushy abode, with its grand foyer, living room and marble bathroom, that Strauss-Kahn is accused of sexually assaulting a chambermaid. According to authorities, the 32-year-old woman claims she entered the room to clean it, whereupon a naked Strauss-Kahn chased her thoughout the suite, finally dragging her into the bathroom where he forced her to perform oral sex, before she broke free and fled. He was arrested several hours later, having boarded Air France flight 23 to Paris at John F. Kennedy International Airport, just minutes before takeoff. He was later charged with attempted rape, a criminal sexual act, sexual abuse, unlawful imprisonment and forcible touching.

Despite his gilded career and exalted status in France (he served as a government minister under François Mitterrand and is credited with helping manage the recent global economic crisis), the allegations against Strauss-Kahn cannot come as a complete surprise to anyone who knows him well. “Paris has buzzed for months, if not years, in the political and journalistic milieu about the rather pathological relationship that Mr. Strauss-Kahn maintains toward women,” Marine Le Pen, his far-right political rival, gloated to the press this week. And, she added, the news Strauss-Kahn had been arrested “did not make me fall from my chair.”

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This week: Good news, bad news

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 15, 2011 at 10:40 AM - 0 Comments

Good news

Andy Clark/Reuters

Vive la France!

France played a crucial role this week in the surrender and arrest of the Ivory Coast’s defeated president Laurent Gbagbo and his militiamen. With its troops on the ground, France has publicly pledged to help the troubled nation in its reconstruction. Along with its recent calls for greater NATO involvement in Libya, France has suddenly become a robust player on the international stage, flexing its muscle in the name of democracy and global stability. It’s just too bad that same spirit isn’t on display back home, where French police arrested two women under the ban on wearing face-concealing veils in public.

In the classroom

The organization that regulates Ontario’s 230,000 teachers issued a new rule this week: no more connecting with students on social media. Teachers have been warned not to “friend” their pupils on Facebook, subscribe to their Twitter accounts, or use Flickr, LinkedIn or MySpace to interact online. Give the College of Teachers an A+ on this. The student-teacher relationship belongs in a classroom, not a chat room.

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'Acts of war'

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, March 19, 2011 at 4:28 PM - 57 Comments

From Paris, the Prime Minister comments on the Libya campaign.

“We should not kid ourselves. Whenever we engage in military action — essentially acts of war — these are difficult situations,” Harper said at the end of an emergency summit, hastily convened in Paris to deal with the crisis. “And we will have to monitor this very closely and be very careful what we do every step of the way.”

Harper said the no-fly zone that Canada, France, Britain and others have agreed to enforce over Libyan skies is a complicated affair that could involve loss of innocent lives. Enforcing a no-fly zone could involve attacking Gadhafi air defence forces, among other things. Minimizing civilian casualties was a serious topic of discussion among his fellow leaders, Harper said. “These campaigns are complicated and one cannot promise perfection. One cannot promise there will not be casualties on our side either. But obviously all precautions will be taken to minimize our own casualties and minimize those of innocent civilians.”

The campaign has begun with French, American and British military strikes.

France: Land of Conrad Black's dreams

By Paul Wells - Thursday, March 10, 2011 at 7:01 AM - 66 Comments

“And there is something Canada can do, which would be noticed by our allies: We should recognize the provisional government of Libya as legitimate, and make contact with it. This could have a catalytic effect, inspirit the rebels, nudge the Americans and Europeans into doing something, and generally start a rockslide around Gaddafi…. A gangster and terrorist regime is slaughtering its own population, which is fighting back gallantly. We owe them our support, and every day’s delay is shameful and could make a benign outcome more doubtful.

“For once, Canada could make a difference and be seen by the world to do so. There is no excuse for waiting.”

— Conrad Black, Saturday

 

“PARIS — Moving ahead of its allies, France said on Thursday that it would become the first country to recognize Libya’s rebel leadership in the eastern city of Benghazi and would soon exchange ambassadors with the insurgents.”

— New York Times, this morning

Sorry, boss. Waiting is all Canada does any more.

Sarkozy stumbles on the world stage

By Jen Cutts - Wednesday, March 9, 2011 at 10:59 AM - 0 Comments

Francois Nascimbeni/Reuters

After taking a drubbing in recent weeks for a string of slip-ups on the world stage, French President Nicolas Sarkozy is hoping a reworking of his cabinet—his fourth in less than a year—will lift his flagging reputation. Sarkozy announced several changes last Sunday, including ousting foreign minister Michèle Alliot-Marie, who’d only been in office for three months. Alliot-Marie had controversially vacationed in Tunisia over Christmas, as anti-government protests were gaining momentum, and, in January, offered the Ben Ali regime the use of French police.

The most notable criticism of Sarkozy came from a group of unnamed French diplomats, who published an opinion piece in Le Monde last week accusing him of “amateurism, impulsiveness and [a] short-term preoccupation with the image in the media.” They refuted his attempts to stick envoys with the blame for France’s slowness to react to the crisis in Tunisia, as well as in Egypt. Gaffes on the international stage are a sore point for the French, who take a particular pride in their nation’s diplomatic abilities. A recent opinion poll found that 59 per cent of respondents don’t want Sarkozy to run in the 2012 election.

Le Pen leads in new French poll

By macleans.ca - Monday, March 7, 2011 at 12:24 PM - 20 Comments

A new French poll has the leader of the country’s largest far-right party, the Front National, leading her two rivals in the mainstream parties in the lead-up to the 2012 presidential election. The survey, conducted by Harris Interactive for daily newspaper Le Parisien, shows Marine Le Pen (who took over from her father Jean-Marie in January) leading the race with 23 per cent support, while President Nicolas Sarkozy and the Socialist Party’s Martine Aubry are each at 21 per cent. The poll’s credibility has come under fire—most notably for its exclusion of International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn as the likely Socialist candidate rather than Aubry—but it hints at a repeat of the 2002 election, when Jean-Marie Le Pen made it to the run-off portion of the election before losing to Jacques Chirac.

France 24

This week: Newsmakers

By macleans.ca - Thursday, February 24, 2011 at 9:57 AM - 1 Comment

Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage/Getty Images

Fatheads resent war on fat

The latest conservative smear campaign against the White House circles around Michelle Obama’s waistline. According to radio host Rush Limbaugh, the first lady could stand to lose a few, particularly since being seen munching on braised short ribs while on vacation in Colorado. Limbaugh, who is no Adonis, suggested Mrs. O is a hypocrite for not following her own dieting advice. “Our first lady does not project the image of women that you might see on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue,” he said. Sarah Palin has ridiculed Obama’s anti-obesity efforts, too, arguing she has no business in America’s kitchens. Meanwhile, Andrew Breitbart’s website ran a cartoon depicting a double-chinned first lady hoarding hamburgers while mouthing pro-health slogans.

The simple life of an Amish schemer

Unlike fraudster Bernie Madoff, Monroe L. Beachy lived a simple life among his fellow Amish in the quaint village of Sugarcreek, Ohio. But the Securities and Exchange Commission alleges Monroe, 77, ran a Ponzi-style scheme for 24 years, costing his largely Amish clients millions. It began to unravel after Beachy declared bankruptcy last June. (A horse, buggy and harness are among his personal assets, the Washington Post reports.) By then, less than US$18 million of the original $33 million invested remained. Ironically, some of the loss resulted from the dot-com bust, a shock to his investors, who shun modern technology. Investors don’t want to pursue the claims in court, saying it’s a matter for the church. “Members of the Plain Community love and trust one another in all their relationships,” an Amish creditors group said.

Win McNamee/Getty Images; Paul Chiasson/CP

Where have we heard that before

Maclean’s took a thrashing last fall for calling Quebec “the most corrupt province” in Canada. While we don’t wish to reignite that debate, it’s refreshing to see the announcement last week of a permanent anti-corruption unit in the province. It will have a $30-million budget and 189 investigators and support staff, said Quebec Public Security Minister Robert Dutil. He called it a better anti-corruption strategy than the public inquiry demanded by the opposition. “We want to have these criminals in jail, not on television,” he said. Stéphane Bergeron, public security critic for the Parti Québécois, conceded the unit “wouldn’t hurt” the corruption fight. It’s “also an admission that the problem is bigger than [the government] has been willing to admit,” he told reporters.

Paul Chiasson/CP

What would Jack Bauer say?

Kiefer Sutherland is considering a return to TV after his break from eight seasons playing CTU agent Jack Bauer on the hit series 24. The Hollywood Reporter says he’s in talks for the lead role in Touch, by Heroes creator Tim Kring. He’d play the dad of a mute, autistic son who predicts the future. Meantime, the past of his real-life grand­father Tommy Douglas resurfaced in declassified documents, the Canadian Press reports. In one curious item, the former RCMP security service claimed Douglas, then NDP leader, met with actress Jane Fonda in 1970 about efforts to stop the Vietnam War and to bring Vietnamese to Canada for a public inquiry.

And baby makes four

Little Viva Katherine Wainwright Cohen has an impressive parentage. “Katherine” honours her father Rufus Wainright’s late mother, singer Kate McGarrigle, and “Wainright” his father, Loudon Wainwright III. The other “proud parents” are “Deputy Dad” Jorn Weisbrodt (Rufus’s romantic partner), and Lorca Cohen, daughter of Leonard Cohen. No pressure to deliver on a dazzling musical career, kid.

Party for one!

Kim Jong Il usually uses his birthday celebration to instill confidence in the North Korean people by giving them at least a day’s worth of rice and corn. This year, though, the Supreme Leader failed to carry out the ritual, since food shortages are crippling the country, with the UN predicting shortfalls of more than 500,000 tonnes of grain. Even senior officials felt the pinch, reportedly receiving knock-off celebratory Rolex watches and Gucci bags in lieu of real ones. But the day wasn’t all for naught: Jong Il went home with presents including a fleet of Mercedes Benz automobiles and a US$16-million yacht. And heir apparent Kim Jong Un was named vice-chairman of the defence commission on the eve of his proud papa’s birthday.

Tears of a clown

Coming from a world of squirting flowers and joy buzzers, Brazilian clown and newly elected congressman Francisco Everardo Oliveira Silva would surely be adept at pushing buttons. But last week Silva, a.k.a. Tiririca, generated more groans than laughs when he blew his first congressional vote. He’d pledged to back the government’s austerity measure for a new minimum wage. But he pressed the wrong button on the computerized system and backed an opposition motion for a much higher wage. Tiririca had outpolled all candidates by admitting he knew nothing about politics. But his slogan, “It can’t get any worse,” apparently underestimated his abilities.

High art with a very low brow

Fallen women tend to figure in opera—think of Violetta in La Traviata. But most divas haven’t fallen this far. The Royal Opera House in London dressed itself in sequins and hot pink this week for the premiere of Anna Nicole, an opera about Anna Nicole Smith. Richard Thomas’s libretto—called “caustically witty”—follows the life of the late Playboy model who married an 89-year-old billionaire, then died of a drug overdose. Composer Mark-Anthony Turnage said people will be “surprised how seriously we’ve taken the subject,” and soprano Eva-Marie Westbroek was hailed as sensational. Not all critics were moved: the Financial Times said the opera “belongs in the same genre as Jerry Springer, strung along a clothesline of lewd ditties and frothy choruses.” But the masses gobbled it up: all six performances sold out.

Ye can’t fight city hall, matey

Rodney McGrath calls his backyard—with its homemade two-storey pirate ship and “Mohawk Mountain,” a sculpture of tires and concrete—an “enchanted kingdom.” But what city inspectors and many of his neighbours on Midwood Avenue see is an unsightly safety hazard. Last week, after a two-year fight, councillors issued a demolition order for both ship and mountain. City engineers say the structures are unstable and aren’t built to code. Pirates, of course, aren’t big on rules and codes. “It’s beautiful,” McGrath says of his land-locked ship. “When the sun comes up in the morning it… reflects on the whole structure,” he told the CBC. “It comes alive.”

The new Wonder Woman

It wasn’t enough to possess superpowers, fight crime and look impossibly good in satin granny underpants; in a TV remake starring Adrianne Palicki of Friday Night Lights, she also has a power career and work-life balance issues. The new show departs from the old, but apparently Lynda Carter approves.

Home, sweet KABOOM!

Steve Jobs ended a decades-long battle to tear down his own house. In 1984, the Apple CEO purchased a Spanish-style mansion in Woodside, near San Francisco, in the hopes of demolishing it and building a new residence. But Jackling House was the 1920s dream abode of copper industrialist Cowan Jackling, and Jobs faced legal challenges and cries for preservation of the manse. When he finally obtained a demolition permit this week, Jobs’s demo team destroyed the house in a single day, prompting Wired magazine to note the move was consistent with Jobs’ career: “He doesn’t have any doubts about deleting the past to create the future.”

Unlikely queen of queens

At age 15, Phiona Mutesi may be Uganda’s best female chess player. She’s certainly the unlikeliest, living in a Kampala slum, and just learning to read. She was attracted to the game at age nine, after her brother learned it from Robert Katende of the U.S. charity Sports Outreach Institute. Soon she was beating Katende. By 2009 she’d won regional tournaments. Last fall she travelled to Siberia for the Chess Olympiad, where she was beaten by Dina Kagramanov, the Canadian champ, who gave her advice and books on advanced chess. Mutesi continues to improve. “In chess, it doesn’t matter where you come from,” she said, “only where you put the pieces.”

AFP/Getty Images

Another day for the Jackal

The French aren’t finished with Carlos the Jackal, one of the world’s most hunted terrorists pre-Osama Bin Laden. The 61-year-old Venezuelan—real name is Ilitch Ramirez Sanchez—goes on trial in Paris in November for a series of bomb attacks that killed 11 people in France from 1982 to 1983. He’s already serving a life sentence for a run of deadly crimes, including an attack and hostage taking at the Vienna headquarters of OPEC in 1975.

It’s all in the mail

A forensic scientist and a student from Simon Fraser University may offer the best hope of solving one of aviation’s great mysteries. Amelia Earhart vanished in 1937 while circumnavigating the world. Donya Yang hopes to collect DNA from the envelope glue of four letters written by Earhart to see if it matches a bone found on the South Pacific island of Nikumaroro. The letters came from a collection held by student Justin Long’s grandfather, Elgen Long, an Earhart scholar. The letters are personal: “One was written by Amelia on airline letterhead while waiting for a flight—so we can be fairly certain that she is the one who sealed the envelopes,” says Long.

The spring water murder

By Jane Switzer - Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 3:05 PM - 0 Comments

A French woman is prison-bound after a poisonous battle between neighbours in the idyllic Quercy valley turned deadly over a pure source: a mountain spring splitting their properties. Hélène Issakhanian began her 12-year jail sentence last week for shooting her neighbour’s house guest at the height of the long-time feud. According to The Guardian, Issakhanian and her American husband, Robert, were attracted by the spring water river that flowed into a pond when they purchased their home in 1995. But when Thomas Nieste and his wife moved in next door in 2001, relations between the two couples quickly deteriorated, especially over the spring water that flowed between their properties.

Escalating physical aggression and death threats came to a head in August 2008 when Issakhanian knocked on the Niestes’ door after the water supply to her house was interrupted. After arguing with Johannes Van den Oudenhoven, a guest of the Niestes who had nothing to do with the feud, Issakhanian retrieved a pistol from her home and shot him in the head. After years of failed mediation, Didier Doriac, mayor of nearby Montcabrier, told reporters the crime was inevitable: “Everyone in the village knew it was going to come to this. There was nothing we could do.”

Sarkozy vs. the press

By Julia Belluz - Monday, December 13, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 2 Comments

Most of the reporters who say they have been targeted have been investigating politically explosive stories and scandals | Guillaume Horcajuelo/Eric Feferberg/EPA/Keystone Press

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has had, at best, a peculiar relationship with the press. Unlike his remote predecessors, who shut journalists out of their private lives, Sarkozy ferried reporters right into the presidential bedroom. “Me and Carla, it’s really serious,” he gushed at his first major press conference in 2008, referring to then-girlfriend Carla Bruni, whom he married that year.

In addition to courting the press, Sarkozy has enjoyed unprecedented power over it. The 23rd president of the French republic is the first to be in charge of nominating the chairman of France’s public television broadcaster, France Télévisions. Close friends, too, run some parts of the media, which has raised questions about dropped stories and the sacking of journalists who present unfavourable depictions of the leader. “Sarkozy plays with the press more than any other president,” says Dominique Moïsi, founder and senior adviser at the French Institute for International Relations, “and he also seems more intent on controlling it.”

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Sarko's new globetrotter

By Josh Dehaas - Thursday, December 2, 2010 at 1:40 PM - 0 Comments

Lionel Bonaventure/AFP/Getty Images

With the masterpiece of Nicolas Sarkozy’s domestic policy (raising the retirement age from 60 to 62) safely hung on the wall, the French president has signalled that he will refocus his efforts on the global stage, an always popular move in a country that has seen its influence decline over the past century. While Sarkozy is busy selling the G20 nations on global currency plans or trying to impress Russia, he needs someone to manage the rest of the foreign file with the precision of a TGV conductor. That’s why he fired Bernard Kouchner, the left-wing foreign minister with whom he has often butted heads, and replaced him with former justice minister and one-time leadership rival Michèle Alliot-Marie.

The choice is a strong signal that Sarkozy’s Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party is going back to its conservative roots, says Thomas Klau, the head analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations in Paris. Alliot-Marie, known as “MAM” for her schoolmarm fashion sense, possesses the “safe hands” Sarkozy needs as he packs his suitcase and prepares to impress the world ahead of 2012’s national elections, says Klau.

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Maman Mia comes to Paris

By Katie Engelhart - Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 3:40 PM - 0 Comments

Dominique Charriau/WireImage/Getty Images

Move over, Sartre! Au revoir, Camus! Eleven years after it debuted in London, Mamma Mia! has finally arrived on the Parisian stage. French theatregoers, once less than shy about their distaste for “Anglo-Saxon” productions, are flocking in droves. More than 125,000 advance tickets were sold before the show opened last month. Of course, the lyrics have been translated—and not always seamlessly. “Mamma Mia, here I go again,” now reads “Mamma Mia, c’est la même rengaine” (“Mamma Mia, it’s the same old tune”). The confident claim to “Knowing me, knowing you” has been replaced by the more introspective “Qui je suis, qui sommes nous?” (“Who am I, who are we?”).

Though the changes were approved by ABBA co-founder Björn Ulvaeus, Gilles Médioni, musical critic for L’Express, is unconvinced. “[The audience] doesn’t know these versions,” he bemoans. “It can’t sing along, like in a concert!” Words aside, Paris’s appetite for the pop classic may signal a larger shift. Jerome Pradon, who stars as Sam in this latest production, says that Paris has finally embraced the kitsch and sparkle of musical theatre and is learning from “Anglo-American savoir faire.”

The Memory Project – Allan Smith, Stories of survival WWII

By Philippe Gohier - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 at 4:00 PM - 1 Comment

Telegram to Allan Smith's Father, Allan Smith after his arrival at Stalag Luft III | Courtesy of The Memory Project

Click play to hear Allan Smiths’ complete audio story

Forced to bail out after his aircraft was “shot up quite badly,” Allan Smith, a bomb aimer with the Royal Canadian Air Force, found himself drifting toward occupied France in 1944.

I hit the ground very gently and hid my chute under some underbrush and got rid of my sidearm, a Smith & Wesson pistol. I took off into the unknown. I knew I was in the neighbourhood of Chartres. During the second day of wandering around, I made contact with the French resistance. The resistance hid me out in the small village of Berchères-la-Maingot, and I stayed with a French family.

I spent my nights in a cupboard, along with a huge spider. After almost two weeks with the French family—their name was LeGrande—it was starting to heat up in the area and people were coming to their door and inquiring if a British officer was staying with them. So they decided I’d better move and made arrangements that I would go to Spain, over the Pyrenees [mountains].

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The Memory Project – Maurice White, On the front line

By Philippe Gohier - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 at 4:00 PM - 0 Comments

Maurice in England at the end of the war and after he transferred to the Canadian Provost Corps | Courtesy of The Memory Project

Click play to hear Maurice White’s complete audio story

Why Maurice White, an infantryman with the Loyal Edmonton Regiment, will never forget the Christmas of 1943.

We went into Ortona under a creeping barrage on Dec. 20. We entered the southern part of the village at night. I think we spent the night in a soap factory. The next morning is when things really started to happen. It took eight days to take the town. We had to go from one room to the other—we’d blow a hole in the side of the house and go in through there because the streets were filled with rubble and machine guns.

Things were kind of slowing down a little bit [by Dec. 25]. I had got a position up in the east of a house, and I had knocked out two bricks, so I could observe the square behind the house. I was eating my Christmas dinner there. They brought up hot food for us, I don’t know how they got it up there, but they did. I think it was hot pork and gravy, mashed potatoes and a bottle of beer. I had taken it up to my lookout post. I shot a German on Christmas Day. At the time, it didn’t bother me. But ever since, you know, I thought, “Why did I do that?” It was Christmas. But you don’t have a choice, you either shoot somebody or they shoot you. When I shot him, he fell, and two German soldiers came out and grabbed him and I didn’t shoot back. I thank God that I didn’t because that would have been even worse to handle.

France isn't the only country that needs to get real

By macleans.ca - Thursday, November 4, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

MAXPPP/HUGUES LEGLISE BATAILLE/KEYSTONE PRESS

France’s penchant for public displays of political discontent is frequently at odds with the basic tenets of economics and logic. Alexis de Tocqueville, the famous 19th-century French writer, noted as much during the Paris Commune unrest of 1848 when he observed that French rioters understood quite a bit about politics but very little about the economy. Over a century and a half later, not much has changed.

Energetic protests against plans by the government of President Nicolas Sarkozy to reform the French retirement system have cut national fuel supplies, stopped trains and roiled the nation. But despite all this furious protesting, the motivation behind it requires a deliberate blindness to economic reality.

The current minimum age for retirement in France is 60, and a full public pension is available at 65. Today, there are approximately four people of working age for every person in France receiving public benefits. Without changes, the ratio will drop to 2:1 by 2050. A falling birth rate and lengthening life expectancy are to blame for this demographic crunch, along with a lowering of the retirement age from 65 to 60 in 1983 by the socialist government of François Mitterrand. It’s one of the lowest retirement ages in the developed world. The pay-as-you-go public pension plan is forecast to run a $45-billion deficit this year.

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