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Keeping an eye on the French, so you don't have to.

Thursday, January 27, 2011
See, I'm not dead.  Anyway, I think a French survey round up is called for:

Humanité (the Communist Party daily, not the species) has asked the Plain People of France how they view the prospect of doing away with the maximum 35 hour working week,and the results show limited cause for faith in the youth (-ish) of France -46% of 18-24 year olds think it a good idea.  Granted, a majority oppose it,  but the pro figure is higher than for any age group bar the 50+ cohort.  This would suggest that younger folk have made the connection between the difficulties in joining the workforce and the rigid laws surrounding employment on the other side of the Channel. 

However, outbreaks of common sense in those parts are invariably matched by something that deadens the soul, like this from ifop:

'Do you think that capitalism and the free market is a system that...'

-Functions well and should be kept
-Has its problems but there is no alternative
-Functions badly and should be replaced

The French gave the first option 15%.  Yes,15%.  And 33% opt for Year Zero, with the rest hedging their bets.  Note that option one secured 65% support in the 'People's Republic' of China.  We managed 45%/45%/10%, which is also quite encouraging.

A poll on French attitudes to the SNCF provides the opportunity for a joke so obvious that as yet undiscovered civilisations in other galaxies can see  it coming:

'Do you think that SNCF are keeping to timetables better?'

We have voting demographics to hand, so place your bets for the joke...

And, yes, it is the Front National which is among the least impressed with punctuality at 14%.   Perhaps they have in mind an Italian template that could be followed.
Elsewhere, Dominique Strauss Kahn is the runaway leader among possible Socialist candidates for the presidency at 37% to 26% for my old mucker Segolene Royale, and Lille looks likely to suffer Martine Aubry longer (16%).  Perhaps Martine should hire an assassin, as a DSK-less list has her top of the tree at 32% to Sego's 31%.  Cutting to the chase, Sarko would beat anyone except DSK in round one.  Round two would see Sarko lose - badly - to DSK, Aubry or even Francois Hollande.  Sarko Vs Royal, round 2 shows as a tie at 50% each. 

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posted by Croydonian

The long overdue round up of recent odd French surveys

Tuesday, July 06, 2010
First up, who do they blame for their, ahem, World Cup debacle:

Among the French overall, the finger is pointed at the players - 35%, then the manager (32%) and then the equivalent of the FA (24%).  Nine per cent either knew not or cared not.  Among those claiming interest in le foot, the figures were 30%, 37%, 28% and 5%.

That French surveys routinely include a detailed demographic breakdown is again making me glad to be alive, as those most likely to blame the players are extreme left voters, at 42%.  Shome mishtake, shurely? What with the players being the toiling masses in this instance....  Also amusing is that Frontistes are the least likely to blame the players - 23% - nothwithstanding J-MLeP making odious comments about non-white players a few years back.  Liberals are the most likely to blame the manager.  In all of these instances, the numbers are low, not that I was ever going to let that stop me.

Geographically, easterners take most against the players, Mediterraneans against the manager and south westerners against the FFF.  The survey also asked what the Plain People of France thought of the various players, and Thierry Henry and Nicolas Anelka saw a majority wanting them to play no further role for Les Bleus.  Running true to form, Frontistes were the most anti the black players and Greens were the most likely to not know / not care.

And there's more.  Closer's French edition (which should be called 'Plus Proche', or better still, 'Fermeur') has been asking some spectacularly impertinent questions:

'Which star's body would you most like to have?'.  And among female celebs it is Angélina Jolie ahead of Scarlett Johannson.  Our own dear Ms Moss and Ms Cole / Tweedy appear in the lower reaches.  For the chaps it is Yoann Gourcuff, a footballer who appears to have a penchant for taking his shirt off, followed by Brad Pitt (who is older than me.  Hope springs etc).

It gets seedier:  'Who among the following would you dream to have as your lover?'. 

Yannick Noah (28%) leads from Ashton Kutcher (24%).  Both these chaps are married, so I imagine amorous French women would have to contend with Isabelle Camus and Demi Moore respectively.  Also in the list of 13 are Jerome Kerviel (France's Nick Leeson equivalent) at 7% and the following politicians - Dominique de Villepin (9%), Dominique Strauss-Kahn (3%), Olivier Besancenot (3%) and Sarko himself at 2%.    Rather unkindly, an equivalent list of female celebs was no polled.  Tant pis.

The least believed love stories are Sarko / Bruni (40%) and Cruise / Holmes (24%).  Paris Hilton is the least liked on the list of female celebs, as well as being deemed a hypocrite.  The male equivalent is Mickael Vandetta.  He would seem to be a reality TV star, and his motto, apparently,  is "I'm Brad Pitt for the body, Napoleon for the ambition, Columbus for the conquest!".  Uh-huh. 

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A Gallic gallimaufrey

Wednesday, February 10, 2010
As ever, our French chums are up to all sorts, and I have been keeping an eye.

Firstly, they have a Presidential election on the cards for 2012, and polling suggests a bit of a conundrum for the Parti Socialiste.  The leader of the party, Martine 'daughter of Delors' Aubry, might be expected to be their candidate against the mighty Sarko, but the King over the Water, Dominique Strauss-Kahn (presently head of the IMF - nominated by the ever wily Sarko) is rather more popular.  In fact, if Sarko went head to head with Aubry in the second round, he would win, but DSK would get the keys to the Elysee if he was the candidate.

Here are the figures charted:

   
An Aubry candidature cuts the vote for the Trots and the Greens and boosts it for both Sarko and Bayrou's liberals, with the reverse applying to a DSK candidature.  The vote for Le Pen (Martine, not J-M) and De Villepin proves less mutable.  I for one would be less than surprised if our old friend Segolene Royal opted for an independent bid, always supposing the PS tells her where to go.  The margin for Sarko over either Aubry or DSK is widest among the 75+ age cohort nd Aubry's widest among public sector workers.  Fancy that....

Sticking with French elections, they have regionals coming up, and TNS-Sofres has been kind enough to publish polling for the Languedoc-Roussillon region.    And the likely winner in those parts is neither a Gaullist nor a PS candidate, but rather one Georges Frêche, who was expelled by the PS a while back.  To call him a maverick would be a bit of an understatement.  He is an equal opportunities insulter, having said this of the new Pope - "I hope he does better than the other idiot", this of the French national football team - "On [the French national football team], there are 9 Blacks out of 11. The normal number would be three or four. This would reflect [French] society. But if there are so many, it is because Whites are lame. I'm ashamed for this country. Soon, there will be eleven blacks. When I see certain football teams, it makes me sad", this of the Harkis (Arab loyalists who fought for France in the Algerian war) - "you are sub-humans...you are without honour, you are not able to defend yourselves".


And finally, a bit of polling on drug testing:


"In your opinion, when a new drug is being developed, at which point will it be tested?"

A rather alarming 15% think it is tested after it comes to market.

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posted by Croydonian

An 1860 Hansard nugget, featuring duplicitous Gauls and one of the great typos of our time

Wednesday, January 27, 2010
From 27/1/1860

"THE MARQUESS OF NORMANBY inquired of Her Majesty's Government, pursuant to notice, whether they have received any Information as to the Negotiation stated by the Ministerial Journals in Paris to exist between France and Sardinia for the Annexation of the Duchy of Savoy and the County of Nice to the Dominions of the Emperor of the French?...The statements to which he had alluded had appeared in the two principal and habitual organs of the French Government. It was first published in Le Pays, the most careful and prudent of the Ministerial journals; but what had chiefly attracted the attention of Europe was its circulation in the columns of L'Indépendance Beige (sic), a Brussels paper in the enjoyment of Imperial favour, and possessing, perhaps, the most general circulation of any European journal".

See, I'm not making this up:



 (OK, it is an OCR error rather than a typo, but my point stands)

Anyway, enough of the flippancy and on to the more interesting bit:

This [in L'Indépendance Belge] article said that France was now determined by counsel, by her soldiers, and by sacrifices of every kind to substitute for the hereditary arrangements of Vienna the truthful policy of nationalities; and the writer went on to say that it was evident the day was drawing nigh when the superstructure raised by diplomatists must disappear before the power of logic and the course of events.

 Which takes us back to the First Empire and a France that looked like this:




  So, pretty alarming for France's neighbours, it must be said.

As the Marquess reckoned:

He was not aware that there had been any diplomatic declaration to this effect, but the dangers contingent upon the adoption of such a principle by the powerful Government of a great nation were much greater than any which could arise from the annexation of the Duchy of Savoy. Could it for a moment be imgined that England had no interest in the assertion of such a doctrine? Why, let us look at our own possessions, scattered over the face of the globe, and then see how far we could recognize the principle of nationality. How could England stand this test? How would it apply in the Mediterranean, or the Ionian Islands? How affect Gibraltar? How might it be brought to bear on Aden or the Empire of India, or our dependencies in another hemisphere? Why, if such were to be admitted as a valid ground there would not be a single country in Europe the foundation of whose title would not be shaken".

And there's more:

Such a doctrine would be quite subversive of those treaties and of that order and regularity which forty years' peace had brought about. Russia, indeed, prided herself upon her nationality. Nor, as regarded Poland, did he think they could collect the scattered remnants of a national existence. The restoration of Poland to nationality would almost remind one of Mr. Canning's expression regarding the repeal of the legislative union with Ireland: "Repeal the union—restore the heptarchy." Well, then, as to Prussia and this doctrine of nationality—sec how it worked from Posen to Aix-la-Chapelle. Again, witness its application to Austria. And here he must say that he looked upon the stability of Austria as one of the main elements of European security; and he wished that some one who had the same conviction, and had more opportunity of making his opinion known in the proper quarter, would urge how important it was to grant what was just and reasonable in the demands of Hungary. He hoped and believed that, as regarded her Hungarian dominions, the loyalty of the Hungarian people was not yet shaken.

Not a quote I have encountered before, but quite amusing.

France did indeed get Savoy, plus Nice, or Nizza - as a lot of the inhabitants called it  including a VERY peeved Garibaldi - after a rather dodgy referendum later in 1860.  Fans of nemesis might note that the national principle rather bit France with the outcome of the 1870 Franco-Prussian war..... 

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posted by Croydonian

A quick French survey round up

Monday, January 11, 2010
Bad news for Arsenal, good news for Arsenal haters?

83.7% of those responding to a website poll think Wenger would make a good next manager of the French national team. 13.9% think otherwise, and 2.5% thought it worth voting 'don't know'.  One does wonder what more the man would have to do to convince the nay sayers. Courtesy of someone who knows, Arsène is grace and charm personified, apparently.


Elsewhere, scientific research is judged the most prestigious career in France, while quacks and nurses are reckoned the most useful to society.  At the other end of the scale, bank cashiers are reckoned to be the least prestigious, and financial market traders etc and TV presenters the least useful to society.  Doubtless both will find their wage slips a comfort as they digest the findings and cry into their pastis this evening.


The limited political demographic detail has right wingers deeming CEOs of multinationals and cops under-rated relative to the national average while lefties opt for teachers.

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Surveys o' the day

Tuesday, December 08, 2009
Yes, they are French.

First up, do not ring a 15-17 year old boy on his mobile, as a rather loathsome 22% admit to using it in the loo.  Compared to 8% of the wider public.    Equally, 32% of girls 12-17% are looking for trouble as they use their mobiles in the bathroom.  4% of the Plain People of France use their mobiles in the cellar.  Presumably the rest cannot get a signal.   41% of Gauls use their mobiles as torches, which is odd.

Elsewhere, 16% consider mobiles bad for French society.  91% of adolescents think that mobiles are good for adolescents, whereas only 32% of the 40+ cohort agree.  Probably because they are paying for them....

Sticking with our Gallic chums, just 29% of them can, unprompted, name their regional president. My old friend Ségolène Royal does rather better, with 83% naming her as the head honchette of Poitou-Charentes.  The Prexies of Centre and Nord Pas de Calais muster a laughable 7% and 8% respectively.  Proving that stupidity is indeed the basic building block of the universe, fewer than two-thirds can name the political colour of their home region.   

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French sportsmanship

Tuesday, November 24, 2009
No, it isn't an oxymoron. The French, being the French, had to survey the Plain People of France on 'the hand of Henry'.

Are you proud of the French national team qualifying for the World Cup?


And by age:


So, our Gallic chums are pretty shamefaced about the whole exercise.  Further, a simple majority by each age and gender think Thierry Henry should have 'fessed up, and all demographics bar the morally nihilistic 25-34 year old age cohort want a replay.

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The politics of TV stars, as seen by some random French internauts (and YT)

Monday, November 23, 2009
The promised results are now in:

Said random French internauts think that Homer Simpson, Richie 'Happy Days' Cunningham, two blokes from Friends and Jack Shephard from 'Lost' (inter alia) would vote for the Socialists.

Tony Soprano, Jack '24' Bauer, Vic 'The Shield' Mackey and Bobby 'Dallas' Ewing are Gaullists.

Phoebe from 'Friends', Papa Smurf and McGyver are judged Greens, and the Fonz a trot.  Crikey.

Gargamel from the Smurfs is reckoned a Frontiste, and Charles 'Little House on the Prairie' Ingalls a Chasse, Nature, Tradition voter.

The Liberals (MoDem) did rather badly, apparently.    

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Frenchman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine"">"It is never difficult to distinguish between a Frenchman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine"

Thursday, November 19, 2009
(Granted, it is our Hibernian neighbours who have more to feel aggreived about at the mo'.  And apologies to the Master for the quote).

Anyway, TNS Sofres asked the following:

"Of the following qualifiers, which best characterise your current frame of mind?" 

And the results, by party, are in:


I'm quite impressed that so many Gaullists are feeling serene, frankly.  Equally intriguing is that Greens, who are forever telling us the end is nigh are the least likely to be fearful.  Also, a round of applause for the Liberals in that they supply none of the 'don't knows'. 

Elsewhere, the voters of all parties think the worst is yet to come, recession-wise, with 72% of the Left, and 54% of both Libs and the Right thinking so.   44% of the Left think recovery will come later than 2011.

The French right appears to be less than wholly convinced by capitalism and the free market, as a mere 5% think that it should be left alone, with 50% wanting some reform and 36% wanting in depth reform.  Oh dear...  Mind you, one has to be amused by the one in 50 of Socialist voters who also want it left alone. 


Sticking with France, a survey by Conde Nast suggests that French women spend an average of €196 on a pair of shoes.  That's £175, sterling fans.   Given that the average French woman of 25+ has, get this, 34 pairs on average, that's €6664, or £5945.  Crikey.

Back on planet reality, it would look as though the survey only addressed readers of two Conde Nast mags, so cum grano salis, as the ancients had it.   

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Survey o' the day

Thursday, November 12, 2009
Yes, it is another French one.  Only over there do newspapers think it worth forking out the readies to pollsters to find out what the Plain People of France think about the chances of Les Bleus qualifying for the World Cup. And hurrah, there's demographic detail.

Anyway, the big one - 63% think they can beat our Hibernian neighbours.  Having checked my favourite bookmaker, France are 6/4 and the RoI 9/4.  So, there is a fairly pessimistic 23%, plus 14 don't knows / don't cares.  (Given the odious fix that FIFA cooked up in seeding countries, I am a bit torn between our two neighbours, as the Irish have been shafted, but then again my Gallic connections are stronger).  

However, onwards:

25-29 year olds are the most optimistic at 78%, with the next age cohort up (30-39) the gloomiest  - 35% think France will stuff it.  Roughly speaking, the higher the respondent's level of ediucation, the more pessimistic they are.  As to politics, it is the Trots who /believe/ - 81%.  Gaullists take the opposite approach - 25% think that Irish eyes will be smiling.  But the really odd bit is the geographical breakdown, based on some spectacularly misshapen, ill-named and ahistoric regions used by pollsters.  Which look like this:


   
The South East and South West regions have 70% thinking France can do it, compared to 48% in the Western Paris Basin. I told you the names were hateful, didn't I?.  WPB could also be described as the regions of Normandy and Centre.  Maine/Touraine is my preference for the latter.  Elsewhere, 20% of those in the West don't know / don't care, compared to 5% in Gtr Paris.

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Some French odds and ends

Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Our French chums are chafing at the latest price hikes for cigarettes - base line for a pack of 20 is €5.10, and €5.60 for a packet of Marlboros.  If memory serves, the average smoking Briton would think a fiver for a packet of Phillip Morris's finest quite the bargain, and doubtless the tabacs and grand surfaces of Calais and thereabouts prove that.  Anyway, estimates from BAT have some 22% of all fags smoked yonder hailing from neighbouring countries or over the internet.  

Showing the usual governmental disdain for free trade when it interferes with an ability to act as the casino's rake, the French do to internet imported cigarettes what ours does.  Why, I wonder, does the EU not do something about this stark violation of the principles of the single market?

Meanwhile, what do our Gallic chums think about taxation without representation, or as the pollster puts it, should non-EU nationals be allowed to vote in French local and Euro elections?

Overall, the split is a tolerably creditable 50 pro, 48 anti.  The greatest recorded pro high was 57% in 2003, and the highest anti high 69% in 1996.

As ever, the real fun is in the demographic detail, with the younger, better educated and better off more likely to be pro.  Socialists, Liberals and the section-worthy left are the most pro, and the FN (fancy..) the most anti.  However, one has to note that 36% of the far left, 28% of Socialists and 40% of Greens are anti.  So much for workers of all lands uniting, brotherhood etc etc. 

Sticking with the Gauche, IMF head honcho Dominique Strauss-Kahn gets the nod as the favoured leftist candidate for the Presidency next time round, with 49% of left voters thinking he's be a good  president.  Not the most ringing of endorsements, frankly.  Mayor of Paris Bertrand Delanoë follows at 46%, Martine Aubry at 40% and Sego at 39%.  And then the terrifying bit - 31% think that Trotskyite Olivier Besancenot would be a good president, ahead of 31% for Liberal leader François Bayrou.

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posted by Croydonian

Did Sarko help knock down the Berlin Wall?

Monday, November 09, 2009
That, at least, is the claim, and here's a pic from those lovely people at Le Parisien offering apparent proof positive:


It also appears on Sarko's facebook page.

Sarko claims to have gone to Berlin on the 9th with Alain Juppé, whose 'memory is unclear on the exact date'.  A French journo blogger thinks Sarko is telling pâtés en croûte de porc, so to speak.  If he is, he'll swing for this, otherwise - because being a trusting soul, I'm prepared to believe him - go Sarko for great timing and being on the right side of history.


I will be raising a glass or two to our German friends later, in commemoration of that great day 20 years back.  Should anyone be interested, I got a bit tired and emotional about it while in a pub with a germanophile friend that evening.  Anyway, take comfort from the fact that all the other Babylons (Beijing, Pyongyang, Havana, Tehran, Riyadh etc) will fall, because they always do. 

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Stunning poll finding o' the day. And a curious poll about cereals

Wednesday, November 04, 2009
The Plain people of France have been asked whether they think the various pre-Sarko presidents of the Fifth Republic were 'good presidents'.

Guess who scored highest, at a knockout 87%?

Here's a hint (1):



Next up is Pompidou, he of the Centre, at 74%.  Given that both he and Le Général died before maybe half the current French population were born, either history is taught well Transmanche, or France is a nation of liars for venturing opinions.  The unspeakably odious Mitterand manages 67%, so presumably ignoring the phone calls of his suicidal PM and friend Bérégovoy does not count as making a bad president.  Chirac rates 60% approval, and everyone's favourite fantasist - Giscard - manages 54%.

Sticking with presidents, the Mighty Sarko is looking well placed for 2012, as of those polled, 72% of his 2006 voters are sticking with him, whereas only 57% of Royal-istes will vote Aubry.  10% have sheared off to support the new wave Trot candidate Besancenot, and 9% right winger De Villepin, if he runs.  bayrou has blown it, with only 52% of his 2006 voters still prepared to vote for him  

And since the French media is awash with polls, here's another one: 80% of Gauls want schoolchildren to learn la Marseillaise.  (Maybe they have some furrows they need watering with impure blood).  18-24 year olds are the least keen (67%) and oldsters the most (89%).  That 77% of Trots agree is rather amusing, and that 36% of Greens are anti is no great surprise.

And final survey of the day, the all important questions on attitudes to cereals.  As God is my witness, I am not making this up. 41% think they taste good, and 23% think they taste bad.  Really.  Gauls cook cereals with meat (85%), fish (62%) and with salad (57%).  33% think they make a lousy substitute for vegetables, and 60% fear they lack recipes for it.  Apparently 97% Gauls know nothing of corn beyond the name, likewise 95% for maize.    


(1 - I've seen the cross at Colombey-les-Deux-Églises from afar - it is very impressive, as it should be at 164ft tall ) 

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Navel gazing under a bank of klieg lights

Monday, November 02, 2009
Only in France, I think, would a government website called debatidentitenationale.fr be set up.  Or with a bit of spacing and a few accents, 'Grand débat sur l'identité nationale'.  I would imagine that even those with no French at all can work out what that means.

It goes on to ask, 'For you, what is it to be French today?'  And then gives the most awesome laundry list of possibilities for the elements that make it up.  For example:

Like this:

Quelles sont les valeurs de l’identité nationale ?
- Les droits de l’Homme ?
- La démocratie ?
- La République ?
- La liberté ?
- L’égalité ?
- La fraternité ?
- La laïcité ?
- L’égalité homme-femme ?
- La solidarité nationale ?
- Les services publics ?
- L’entreprise ?
- Etc ? 

The site look like this, and doubtless the questionnaire is open to being pranked by Belgians, Quebecois, Swiss or anyone else with some facility with the French language.



It puts me in mind of a Private Eye cover from 1967:





We had out own outbreak of navel gazing a few years back with the 'Icons of Englishness' insanity, which I took to task thus in April 2006 (Crikey, how time flies):

"This just embarrassing. It is the kind of nonsense you might expect to see cooked up in a completely artificial state. Like Belgium. I have always been led to believe that we who have won first prize in life's lottery do not need to have our identity explained to us, still less do we need crib sheets. Meanwhile, shame on whoever cooked this up, and still more odium for those who contributed to it".


Where the French have a head start, if they have to engage in this tomfoolery, is that Frenchness is an idea of potentially universal application to all of its citizens, in much the same way that American-ness is. 

Anway, whisper it low, this is all down to the realisation that nowadays there are rather a lot of people in France who could not refer to 'our ancestors the Gauls' with straight faces.

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Interesting map o' the day

Thursday, October 29, 2009
France's Protestants:


Taken from an Ifop poll.  Ther headline finding is that Protestants make up 2.2% of the French population, including former prime ministers Lionel Jospin and Michel Rocard  No idea why the map has ignored Corsica....  The land of my Huguenot forebears is pretty well protestantrein, so to speak.

Politically French Protestants are more likely than the norm to shun the extreme left, apart from the Greens, and lean towards the wet right / MoDem and Gaullism.

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*Shock* poll finding o' the day

Wednesday, October 28, 2009
From across the channel, naturellement.

The nice people at IFOP have been polling French farmers as to their political leanings.  Go on, have a guess which way they swing.  Or at least how they swung in 2007:




Being a helpful sort of chap I have ringed the far left's candidates in red.  So, with the exception of the Asterix-moustached Bove - admittedly a farmer, of sorts - and the Green's Voynet, all of the far left fared far worse with the fermiers than with the French overall. Royal's showing was dismal - 10% of famers compared to a quarter of the overall population.  As for the second round, that went 73% Sarko, 27% Sego.  The French went 53/47.

Jaws up from the floor yet?

Dairy farmers were wonderfully sound - 82% / 18% for Sarko.  However, the laurels go to farmers with 100 hectares or more - 88/12.  Meanwhile, back at the present day, Sarko attracts the support of 56% of farmers compared to 39% of Gauls overall.  Elsewhere, 38% want the death penalty back, compared to 40% overall  

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What women want. Apparently.

Thursday, October 22, 2009
In what might be a handy aide memoire for all we confused chaps out there, TNS-Sofres has polled women on what they want.  Granted, it is French women, and those 20-29 (a bit young for a greybeard like me, but quand meme).

So, here goes:


Note less than a third opt for shopping as one of their top five activities, and going to the hairdresser, manicurist etc appeals to less than a quarter.

Self-image is a bit of a problem, in that none of the panel answered 'very beautiful' to the question, 'when you look in the mirror, how do you look most of the time?'  11% managed 'beautiful', 52% 'really not too bad', 31% 'not terrible', 3% 'ugly' and 3% shun mirrors all together.

I'm not going to blog the contents of P12 as it is a long way from being PG, but answers to impertinent questions on la vie amoureuse are there.  Given that 4% of pollees refused to answer the questions as to what they thought their contemporaries got up to, judge quite how SFW or otherwise it is.

Should a reade be seeking to employ a Frenchwoman, pay is the key thing (60%), followed by working environment (58%), followed by 'interesting work' (38%).  And only 35% will sacrifice their personal lives for business success.  So, not so many Faustettes out there.

Elsewhere, three cheers for the 24% who regard spending money on going out as the leading spending priority.  And 22% think that fashion is 'idiotic'.  Take that Coco Chanel.

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Our French chums get something right

Wednesday, October 21, 2009
This is on the outside wall of the Mayor's Office in my Ma's village in France:



I have not been able to find a full translation (1) anywhere, and lack the energy to do one myself, but if I say it is the equivalent of 'We will fight them on the beaches' that will convey the idea.  Does anyone think there is a municipality in these parts that would greet visitors with our equivalent?


(1) It does not look to follow the exact text of either the 18/6 address or the 22/6 address.

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Those self-hating Parisians

Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Last year I had a good old moan about the decline of the classic French number plate, noting:

"As anyone who has spent time in France will know, Parisian cars carry the Mark of the Beast - by way of the number 75 on their numberplates.

However, the simple pleasure of identifying (and hissing at?) Parigots when in La France Profonde is about to be taken away from the French people.

However, what ended up happening was that departmental identifiers became elective, and the figures for number plate sales etc are in: 


"The number of new vehicles registered with the number 75 has tumbled from 4.4% to 1.74%...the 92 for Hauts-de-Seine (Western 'burbs of Paris beyond the Peripherique) ...has fallen from 8,39 % to 1,86 %, the 93 for Seine-Saint-Denis (NE 'burbs) has fallen from 4,4 % to 1 %".

Ho ho ho.   They are not so proud of La Ville-Lumière after all.

And for every action and equal and opposite reaction.  So where are they all pretending they live/hail from, or where do they holiday and want to avoid bricks through their windscreens?


"The Morbihan sees its rate of registrations rise from 0,85 % to 1,16 %, Corse-du-Sud from 0,27 to 0,57 %, and Haute-Corse from 0,31 % to 0,70 %".

All very attractive parts of France, as I can confirm.  I suspect that the French have been utter spoil sports and denied mainlanders the joys of pretending to hail from the Dom-Toms, which is rather mean.  I would have opted for whatever the number is for Kerguelen.


Sticking with France, but going in another direction, behold the hideous indignity that has been inflicted on the lovely Ms Dati.  She has been, so to speak, libelled in wax, and attended the unveiling of the defamation:



Perhaps unsurprisingly,  the leading result on an unrestricted google images search is a rather poor photoshop mock up of the woman as a dominatrix.  Work safe, but you might have some explaining to do.
 

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posted by Croydonian

Downright odd French survey of the day

Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Well, not the subject so much - premature births and so forth - but the oddities in the demographic data.

Asked 'Would you say that you feel very concerned, somewhat concerned, not very concerened or not at all concerned by premature births, i.e. a childbirth before eight month of pregnancy, whether impacting you directly or not?'




And this is how it breaks down by party affiliation.  CSA has a tendency to cluster the Trot parties together as the 'extreme left', while classing the equally extreme Greens, Communists and Left Party as just 'Left'.  The FN is not tracked for some reason.





CSA gives a health warning for the PC and PdG figures owing to limited numbers.  Even ignoring those two parties, why are the Trot voters so sanguine, relatively speaking?  One would expect them to fear that The Man was going to do them wrong.  Greens and Liberals fret the most, unsurprisingly.      


Elsewhere, Greens are the likeliest to think smoking & drinking hike the risk of a premature birth, and MoDem voters the least.  Blimey.  Trots are the least likely to think that working conditions contribute and Greens - bar the PdG - the least.  The Left Party voters polled would appear to have an awful lot of planks represented, as nearly a quarter could not answer the smokin' and drinkin question, so I'm ignoring them, bunch of mouth breathers that they clearly are.  As to being over 40, Greens are most likely to think this a factor (69%) and Trots (53%) the least.  And finally, the Left parties are all more likely to think using public transport frequently risks things than do Gaullists.  Well, well, well....  

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posted by Croydonian