France

Keeping France Afloat

December 17, 2011
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For the last couple of days President Sarkozy has been looking slightly like a 1.65 metre man standing at the bottom of a 1.75 metre puddle having a rhetorical go at the old enemy, but blowing a lot of bubbles instead. I want to suggest that, rather than responding with scorn, amusement or hostility, we [...]

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Killer Queen

September 1, 2011
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A mini convention of Raccoonistas occurred the other weekend, with various contributors to the blog turning up at Madam La Raccoon’s “chateau” in south west France. My chief contribution to this weekend was to provide much mirth as Madam La Raccoon’s enthusiastic hound placed a very well chewed and utterly salivated tennis ball on my [...]

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Questionable Habits

August 27, 2011
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France has passed a Law about the habit of wearing Burkas (there’s a good background discussion here at Open Democracy), but not apparently about berks wearing habits. This is alleged to be Gildas the Monk as he was dressed on arrival at the airport before travelling to Chez Raccoon. Here’s the photo in all its [...]

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Blood Sucking Bureaucracy

July 14, 2011
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I’ve got the hang of the local accent now; I rattle confidently through the questions with them as they laboriously write out the answers in triplicate. Nom, prénom flies out in the correct back to front order; I deliver my telephone number in batches of two digits at a time, no longer do they turn [...]

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Achtung Baby!

March 24, 2010

One of the most amusing ironies to ever emerge from the burgeoning European superstate is that it may well be the Germans who consign this thousand-year reign of corporatist “peace” to the dustbin: So after weeks of Euro-bluff it looks ever more like an IMF rescue for Greece after all, and hence for any other [...]

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Divining Loyalties

December 14, 2009

When Algeria qualified for the World Cup for the first time since 1986 in their match against Egypt, the violence that followed was not confined to Khartoum. Several thousand miles away, in the back streets of Marseilles and Paris, thousands of Algerians poured onto the streets chanting ‘Vive l’Algérie’. Throwing bottles, stones, and fireworks at [...]

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The Not So Triffling Truffle.

November 21, 2009

The weather is still 20 degrees plus every day, the skies are clear and blue, but we know that Autumn is with us for the woodlands in these parts bristle with signs warning that the age old Perigourdine tradition of hunting for mushrooms is interdit here, and here, and over there too. You quite literally [...]

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