TouteFrance

I was reading an interesting article in The Times this morning about a website that has produced a list of people who were beheaded during the French Revolution. The site, Les Guillotinés de la Révolution Française, has been created by an amateur genealogist called Raymond Combes who estimates that up to 5 million French people have ancestors who fell victim to the blade of the infamous guillotine. From his research, there could be a lot more people who fell victim to the violence than the 17,500 which is the official figure.

It looks like the French are just as much into genealogy as us Brits, and for those of you who have French ancestors to research, Cyndi’s List has a lengthy list of websites to help in your quest to find out more.

Today sees the local council elections in France in thousands of communes across the country. Communities will be voting for their local ‘maire’, but what’s interesting is that with the number of British expats now living in France, one ‘commune’ in Normandy has already had a British ‘maire’ for 13 years and in another community in the Dordogne, in the village of Eymet, 5 Brits have been nominated to stand for council elections. It’s nice to see that British expats are now integrating themselves into local communities and wanting to influence life in their new home.

 This may all change though if Sarkozy has his way as he wants to abolish the many thousands of local communities from 36,000 to 6,000 ’super communes’. As you can imagine this isn’t going down very well with most communities. Sarkozy isn’t exactly a popular President and may well make things worse for himself! It’ll be interesting to see how life in France may change under the new President.

Friday (7 March) sees the beginning of a two week long French film festival in select cities in the UK. I would go along, but unfortunately there isn’t a venue near where I live. The venues include Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee, Inverness, Birmingham, Manchester & London. If you’re in easy reach of any of these places then make sure you go along!
Visit the website to find out more.

For those of you who live near where I do, which is on the south coast between Chichester & Portsmouth, the Chichester Cinema at New Park often shows French films and will be showing the award winning ‘La Vie en Rose’ from 29 April - 1 May, so I must try and see it. Again, you can find out more on their website. Other upcoming French films include The Singer (Quand J’Etais Chanteur) with Gérard Depardieu.

I’ve recently been wondering about the difference between ‘organique’ & ‘biologique’, since they both translate as ‘organic’ in English. What’s confused me is that I’ve always used the word ‘biologique’ when describing organic food, e.g légumes biologiques. However, I was given some organic chocs for Christmas, and as you can see in the image, they’re described as ‘organique’.

So, do the French also use the word ‘organique’ when describing organic produce? Does ‘biologique’ sound so bad in English that nobody would buy products labelled this way (it does remind me of biological washing powder, so doesn’t sound terribly appetising!), or has it just been wrongly labelled?

I think what’s confused me (and please tell me if I’m wrong) is that the French have 2 words for ‘organic’ where as we only have one. ‘Biologique’ being used to describe organic produce, but ‘organique’ being used as a scientific term or to describe architecture, design etc. If anyone can shed light on this, I’d be happy to hear your thoughts!

The Citroën 2CV recently celebrated its 60th birthday! I have great childhood memories of this iconic car travelling around the French countryside with my aunt and uncle in their old Citroën Diane. I remember it being quite tinny and rather rattly, but it’s the classic French car everyone thinks of (along with the DS and its moving headlights). My uncle’s car was very similar to this one, except it was blue.

Compared to modern cars, which quite frankly, mostly look the same, I still turn my head when I see one, much like us Brits do when seeing an old Morris Minor going down the road. I expect most of them have ended up as a pile of rust, but those that keep going can probably be kept going for years owing to their simplicity, making them easy to repair.

 Wikipedia has a lengthy article on the 2CV if you’re keen to read more about this trusty old car.

It must be that time of year when we’re all getting fed up with the British weather and thoughts going to sunnier climes and a bit of long awaited ’soleil’. Yesterday’s Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2 had a phone in about moving to France, which is definitely worth listening to if it’s something you’re thinking about. (the re-run of the show will probably only be on the BBC site for about a week). You can also read comments from some ex-pats who have made the move.

The Guardian also had an article about moving to France last weekend, again worth reading if you want to know more about moving there, the cost of living and most importantly, finding employment which isn’t easy:

Why France still has that ‘Je ne sais quoi’

Some of you may know that the journalist Miles Kington, recently died. But did you know he was also king of Franglais? This article on the BBC is a great read about how the English are so keen on using Franglais as more often than not, language skills are somewhat lacking! I think many of us have slipped in the odd English word into whichever language we’re trying to speak even when we’re desperately trying to communicate in the local language. Although I speak French, there are many times when I forget words and throw the English in, in the hope of being understood. I even use a mix of French and pidgin Spanish when holidaying in Spain, and that can work a treat!

So, vive le Franglais, Franish and any other combination de mots that gets you understood!

This is our first post and we’d like to welcome you to this brand new blog site! The idea behind ‘TouteFrance’ is anything and pretty much everything to do with France, so you’ll find posts on ‘toutes’ sorts of subjects.

So why have I set up a website about France? Well, I used to visit France a lot as ‘une petite fille’ as my uncle lived there as well as on family camping holidays (sadly my uncle died when I was 17). However, I kept my interest and studied French at university and had a couple of jobs out there afterwards. I still keep it up with weekly conversation classes and speaking to my French friends when I can, and decided it was about time I set up a website about it.

Enjoy it, read it & comment on it!

A TouteFrance!