EVIL CLOWNS
This year the Halloween fun in France was overshadowed by
the bizarre phenomenon of "evil clowns". In recent street attacks,
one man had his hand slashed by a knife-wielding clown, another person was
beaten by a clown with an iron rod in a robbery attempt, in a Paris metro
station a clown pursued a passenger with an axe, and clowns have jumped out of
dark doorways to scare pedestrians, causing panic. In the southern city of Agde
police arrested a group of youngsters in clown costumes, armed with knives, a
baseball bat and a pistol. Following these incidents, anti-clown vigilante
groups have sprung up across France, and the mayor of Vendargues, a small town
near Montpellier, decided to ban clown costumes for a month starting on
Halloween. Some of the clowns turned out to be teenagers who wanted to post a
YouTube video of their prank but had no intention to harm. Even so, the Police Nationale has issued a formal
warning that anyone in a clown costume carrying a weapon will be arrested.
DOMINIQUE STRAUSS-KAHN
Dominique Strauss-Kahn reappeared in the news when his
Franco-Israeli business associate
Thierry Leyne, 49, committed suicide in Tel
Aviv on October 23rd. In September 2013 Strauss-Kahn and Leyne jointly formed a
Luxembourg-based finance firm named LSK & Partners, to be run by Leyne as
President. Strauss-Kahn, who bought a 20% stake in the firm, took on the
chairmanship. Under Leyne's management, the firm ran into financial
difficulties and Leyne started borrowing heavily, something Strauss-Kahn became
aware of in early October of this year. On October 20th, DSK resigned from the
firm and three days later, Leyne jumped to his death from a Tel Aviv
skyscraper.
 |
| Thierry Leyne with DSK |
In an interview with Le
Parisien DSK expressed his sorrow at the human tragedy behind Leyne's death
(Leyne's wife had committed suicide in 2011) and admitted that he left the
partnership in disagreement over some of Leyne's business decisions. He is
likely to lose his entire investment, which he says is "a lot of
money." He will now re-focus his full attention on his private consulting
firm, Paris-based Parnassus, which specializes in economic advice to
governments.
This financial setback comes at a time when DSK is still
facing another trial in Lille in February on charges of "aggravated
pimping".
ARNAUD MONTEBOURG
Former Economics Minister Arnaud Montebourg announced in an
interview on October 7th that he is leaving professional politics in order to
go into private business. He has enrolled in a four-week Advanced Management
Programme at INSEAD, a prestigious business school in Fontainebleau. The cost
of this high-level management course is €34,500 and he is said to have applied
for a scholarship.
Having worked for the current socialist government first as
Minister of Productive Reconstruction and subsequently as Economics Minister,
Montebourg was fired by President Hollande in late August after he publicly
voiced severe criticism of Hollande's economic policies (blog 8/27/14). Friend
of the trade unions, Montebourg is known for his anti-globalization stance, his
protectionism of French industry, and his confrontational style.
In preparation of the English-language INSEAD course,
Montebourg is taking two hours of English every day before the start of his
management program in November, after which he plans to start his own business,
together with a few associates, in the field of medical imaging. "In the
past two years I have come to realize that running a business is a real
profession," he said of his new calling. But then our newly converted
businessman lets it slip that he may yet run for the presidency in 2017. "We'll see in 2016." He never stops
surprising us.
FETE DU LIVRE
 |
| Mario Vargas Llosa |
Every year in October Aix-en-Provence invites a major writer
to its Fête du Livre and this year
our guest of honor was Mario Vargas Llosa who won the Nobel Prize for
Literature in 2010. He was the tenth Nobel Laureate to come to Aix (the first
was Octavio Paz) which has also hosted such greats as Philip Roth, Salman
Rushdie, Alberto Moravia, Michael Ondaatje, Carlos Fuentes, Antonio Tabucchi
and dozens of others.
 |
| Annie Terrier |
We have one person to thank for all of this: Annie Terrier, the founder and driving force
behind this exceptional three-day literary event, who 30 years ago created the
program "Ecritures Croisées" − for the introduction and
cross-pollination of foreign literature in France − of which La Fête du Livre is the annual highlight. With a limited budget and
an even smaller staff, she has managed to draw literary giants from all over
the world to the small town of Aix-en-Provence. Now 71 years old, Terrier has
no plans to retire which, in this land of early retirement, makes her a true exception française.
LITERARY PRIZES
At this time of the year France awards its literary prizes,
of which the Prix Goncourt is the most important one among the "big
six" that also include the Prix Renaudot, the Prix Femina, the Prix
Médicis, the Prix Interallié, and the Grand Prix du Roman de l'Académie
Française. Tradition has it that the winner of the Prix Goncourt, first awarded
in 1903, is announced at a lunch at restaurant Drouant near the Opéra Garnier
where its 10-member jury has been meeting once a month since 1914. Marcel
Proust, Simone de Beauvoir, Marguerite Duras, Romain Gary and André Malraux are
among its winners. The Goncourt awards only a token €10 because of its
tremendous effect on sales which makes a Goncourt winner an instant
millionaire. Those readers in France who only buy one book per year will always
choose the Goncourt.
 |
| Lydie Salvayre |
This year's winner was former psychiatrist Lydie Salvayre
for her novel Pas Pleurer (Don't Cry)
which is partly based on her mother's experiences in the Spanish Civil War.
Salvayre was born in 1948 near Toulouse where her parents, Republican Spanish
refugees, had settled at the end of the Spanish Civil War and where she learned
to speak French in elementary school. She published her first book in 1990
while working as a practicing child psychiatrist which she continued to do for
many years. She has published 21 books, some of them adapted for the
theatre.
The well-known English-language Man-Booker Prize for Fiction
was awarded this year to Australian Richard Flanagan for his novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North, about
a Japanese POW camp on the infamous Burma Railroad of which Flanagan's father
was a survivor.
But also...
 |
| Nobel Laureate Jean Tirole |
Last month, the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to
Frenchman Patrick Modiano, and shortly thereafter a second Nobel prize, this
one for Economics, went to another Frenchman, economist Jean Tirole, 61,
professor at the Toulouse School of Economics. The Nobel Committee rewarded Tirole
for his "attempts to tame powerful firms" and finding ways to curb
the dominance of major companies, often privatized former public monopolies
such as water, electricity, and telecoms. His work has been adopted by
competition regulators around the world.
These Nobel prizes may help to boost national pride and
pierce the dark cloud of pessimism hanging over France. At least for a while.
