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 Jeff Steiner's Americans in France.Resource for people that would like to live or travel in France. |
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NewsletterJuly 2009
Americana in the French Alps
Photo taken on June 21st in La Clusaz (See below)
Fête de la Musique
In my last newsletter I forgot to mention that June 21st* was Fête de la Musique in France. If you are ever in France on June 21st this is an event you don’t want to (or can’t) miss. As just about all villages, towns and cities will have free concerts. I heard on the news Paris had over 400 free concerts of different sizes, from professional musicians to weekend stars, as anyone has the right to jam just about anywhere during Fête de la Musique.In La Roche there was a main stage in front of the Mairie (Town Hall). The music started early evening and was still going strong when I left at about 11pm. I’m guessing there were at least 1000 people passed through the town square during Fête de la Musique.
I along with my wife, were doing a fundraiser for my son’s school. During Fête de la Musique we sold over 300 pounds of French Fries, 150 hotdogs and too many crêpes to count. We could have sold even more French Fries, but we ran out!
* Fête de la Musique is on June 21st but that’s a flexible date, as was the case this year when many localities had it on June 20th, a Saturday.
Viva La Clusaz
The photo for this month’s newsletter was taken in La Clusaz during ‘Viva La Clusaz’ - as in Viva Las Vegas. Viva La Clusaz is a three day get-together by car/motorcycles enthusiasts. You can see a poster for Viva La Clusaz or read more about it on a friend's blog, as she lives in La Clusaz.
You can see more photos I took of American cars, including a Pontiac Bonneville. Bonneville is the name of a local town. As I’m not into cars I don’t know many of makes. Except of course for the one Hummer I saw!
La Clusaz II
La Clusaz is a mountain village that looks sleepy mountain but really isn’t. During the winter it’s the center of the biggest ski resort in the Aravis Mountain Range. La Clusaz is also well located as it isn’t far from Annecy and Geneva or for that matter where I live La Roche sur Foron.
Even in the summer there are things to do, as Viva La Clusaz can attest, contrary to what you read in La Clusaz’s Wikipedia entry. There is Luge d'été, hiking, mountain biking, children’s activities and of course great food. It’s France after all!
There are also things to do in nearby towns. Le Grand-Bornand not far from La Clusaz will have the Tour de France this year. The Tour de France last came to Le Grand-Bornand in 2007 and before that 2004. Le Grand-Bornand also has a yearly children’s festival ‘Au bonheur des mômes’ that organizers hope will have up to 70,000 people this year.
Politics
As I said last month France had an election on June 7th for the European Parliament. Wikipedia has a nice summary of the election. The election was quiet with few people taking interest until the Thursday before the vote when there was a nationally televised debate.
It really wasn’t much of a debate, more like a shouting match as there were representatives of I believe seven political parties all trying to be heard. The debate would have quickly fallen from memory if not for the exchange between Daniel Cohn-Bendit and François Bayrou.
Bayrou hinted that Cohn-Bendit was a pedophile and close to rightwing president Nicolas Sarkozy. Cohn-Bendit is a 68er and Green Party leader, ie on the left. Cohn-Bendit shot back with "Ce genre de jeu, devant les citoyens, eh bien, mon pote, je te dis, jamais tu ne seras président de la République, parce que t'es trop minable." ("Playing this kind of game before the citizens, I'm telling you, chum: You'll never be president, because you're pathetic.") François Bayrou has run for president of France twice coming in third in 2007 with 18% of the vote.
This could go down as the ‘You're no Jack Kennedy’ of French politics.
You can read more about the debate and see the exchange:
Gloves off in French campaign
Green and centrist exchange insults
Campaign fired up by contentious exchange
Apathy is biggest threat in French EU elections (News Feature)
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