SALON DE L'AGRICULTURE; CALAIS JUNGLE; BATTLE OF THE CIRCUMFLEX

SALON DE L'AGRICULTURE

Yesterday, one hour before its official opening, President François Hollande visited the Salon de l'Agriculture in Paris, where all farm-produced riches of France − live as well as transformed − will be on display for nine days on the vast grounds of this annual fair at the Porte de Versailles. Just returned from a visit to South America and to French Polynesia, where he was wreathed in flower garlands, he found quite a different reception at the Salon where his arrival was booed amid cries for his resignation. The angry farmers, who have been marching and disrupting traffic everywhere for over a month, claim that Hollande has not kept his promises and that they are hanging on by their fingernails, facing bankruptcy if immediate relief is not forthcoming. Worst off are the dairy farmers and pork producers who cannot compete with lower-priced products from Germany or Eastern Europe sold at French supermarkets.

Hollande in difficulty at the Salon

Last summer Minister of Agriculture Stéphane Le Foll acknowledged that French farmers pay more social charges and face stiffer environmental regulations than other European farmers who can offer their products at lower prices (see blog 8/23/15).  He promised to take up the issue with the European Commission in Brussels and to request that supermarkets show solidarity by reducing their profit margins on certain French farm products. In January of this year the government granted the farmers a 10 percent reduction of their charges but it was not enough and the demonstrations continued. At yesterday's Salon opening a beleaguered President Hollande said that negotiations with the supermarket chains are continuing and that he would discuss the problems caused by the EU's sanctions on Russia (big export market for French farmers) with the European Council at their meeting of March 7th. For the farmers it was a song and dance they had heard before, and they responded by tearing down the Salon's stand of the Ministry of Agriculture.

Stand of Ministry of Agriculture destroyed

The small family farm, so beloved by the tradition-bound French, is facing an uphill battle against mechanized, industrial-size farms elsewhere and their ultimate failure looms large. Bankruptcies are likely to reduce their numbers in the coming years, and perhaps some survivors may want to reinvent themselves as exporters of a high-priced luxurious niche product targeted at the deep pockets of the ultra-rich, a segment that seems to suffer no slowdown. Like fine French wines, champagne and perfumes, high-end artisanal truffel-studded French sausage?

CALAIS JUNGLE

After a court last Thursday gave the Calais prefecture the go-ahead to dismantle the notorious Jungle camp outside Calais (blog 2/5/16), local officials have begun telling refugees that they will have to move out. No deadline was set, but after transfering some 3000 migrants to other shelters in Northwest France in recent months, authorities have already razed the crowded southern section of the camp and brought in a large number of converted shipping containers equipped with heating and plumbing to house some 1300 migrants while their asylum applications are being treated. They also tried to convince the other refugees to give up their attempts to reach England and apply for asylum in France.

Jungle before

However, Clare Moseley of British volunteer aid organization Care4Calais said that several aid groups have been opposing the dismantlement in court and that a new legal appeal against Thursday's ruling has been filed. Volunteers, aided by French students, toured the camp and explained to the migrants that they were allowed to stay while the appeal is pending. It appears that most have no intention to move anyway, like the Afghan man who said "It took me two years to get here and I have been here for three months now. I have tried lots of times to go to England. I have family there; it's the only place I want to go." Similarly, a Pakistani man (no-one gives his name here) said: "I'm staying here. It's either here or England."

Calais Jungle after

Some of the camp's residents have moved into the heated containers, others leave daily in small groups on official buses that take them to other refugee centers. But most prefer to stay in the improved camp that contains a refugee-built church, a mosque, a language school for French and English classes, and several shops. Among them are more than three hundred unaccompanied children who have family in the UK and who could have their claims considered here, according to Rachel Robinson of the human rights group Liberty. British actor Jude Law, who visited the camp last week, called on David Cameron to allow unaccompanied children in the camp entry into the UK if they have family there.

The clean-up and eventual destruction of The Jungle has begun but is not likely to be finished anytime soon. Furthermore, the appalling lack of a coordinated European response to the migrant crisis and growing nationalism in eastern Europe bode ill for the refugees in the short term and for the very survival of the European Union in the long term.

THE BATTLE OF THE CIRCUMFLEX

In the shadow of furious farmers and suffering refugees, another battle is quietly brewing in France: the recent circumflex-and-simplified-spelling issue has turned into an open confrontation between the Académie Française and the Minister of Education (blog 2/5/16). In an interview published on February 13 in the daily Le Figaro Hélène Carrère d'Encausse, Perpetual Secretary of the Académie Française, re-stated the position of the Académie: "A total opposition to any spelling reform but a conditional agreement on a limited number of simplifications that shall not be imposed by any authority and shall have to withstand the test of time." She insisted that the "limited simplifications" were proposed in 1990 by the Conseil Supérieur de la Langue Française and not by the Académie Française, "as the Ministry of Education has us believe."  The fine distinction between the Council and the Académie might have escaped mere mortals, but Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, Minister of Education, was not taken in and called on Mrs. Carrère d'Encausse to explain herself. The hair splitting that followed added little light to the situation but gave Mme Carrère the opportunity to slip in the fact that international studies have shown that the educational level in France has decreased over the years in comparison with other countries and that in 2016 we have one out of every five French students leaving school without proper reading skills. Ouch!

If the fine points appear rather immaterial and both the old and new spelling rules are accepted (so where's the problem?), one thing is clear:  nothing unleashes French passions like touching their language.

New spelling? Oh Nooooooooo!

TAUBIRA RESIGNS; CALAIS JUNGLE; STRIKES

TA-RA TAUBIRA!

On January 27th, outspoken French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira resigned and left the Socialist government of President François Hollande in a clash over the proposed law on stripping French-born dual nationals convicted of terrorism in France of their French citizenship. Taubira had refused to support a law that she considers discriminatory because it would create two different levels of citizenship, contrary to the principle of Egalité embedded in the French Constitution. Prime Minister Manuel Valls then presented the bill himself to the National Assembly without any mention of dual citizenship, ostensibly because in practice one cannot leave an individual stateless and the law could therefore only apply to dual nationals.

The bill requires an amendment of the French Constitution and will be deliberated in parliament together with the government's request to extend the state of emergency for another three months after its expiration on February 26. Although both issues have raised reservations on the left, they are widely supported on the right and by a majority of the French people. It is now up to Taubira's successor, Jean-Jacques Urvoas, a Deputy and law professor from Brittany and a close ally of Prime Minister Valls, to defend the measures in Parliament.

Although Taubira's resignation came as a shock it was not really a surprise. Best known for her role in legislating same-sex marriage in 2013, she had had earlier run-ins with the President and Prime Minister Valls on policy issues. In August 2014 three government ministers resigned in protest against Hollande's economic policies, and the President had to intervene in a public dispute between Valls and Taubira to avoid her departure as well. Despite her 4ft. 11in. height she cast a long shadow as a feisty defender of leftist causes, and as a black woman with a background of socialist militancy her symbolic value to Hollande was undeniable.

Their break was inevitable but the parting on the steps of the Elysée Palace seemed cordial. After the President had thanked her for her significant contributions, Taubira hopped on her bike and pedaled away to loud applause of her supporters. Only to be on everybody's lips again a few days later with the publication of her well-timed book "Murmures à la Jeunesse" − a detailed defense of her opposition to the revocation of citizenship. By then, Taubira was in New York where she gave a rousing speech to a packed audience at NYU and to accept an honorary doctorate degree in law and human rights from the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.

Taubira is only the latest in a string of ministers to leave the current government. Of the 34 ministers François Hollande appointed upon his election in May 2012, only 13 remain today. All others were either fired or resigned, mostly over policy disagreements with a president they felt was betraying the socialist principles on which he was elected and had become too accommodating to the right.

This move to the right can be explained in the context of France's weak economy and continued high unemployment where Hollande's various remedies have had little or no effect so far, and the November terrorist attacks in Paris that called for a strong response such as a state of emergency, with increased house arrests and police raids without warrants. The President's anti-terrorism actions at home were perceived as strong and decisive, and raised his approval rating right after the attacks by 22 points to 50%, as shown in a December IFOP poll. A jittery nation responded well to a strong hand at the helm.

Unfortunately, all was lost again when 2015 year-end figures confirmed a near stagnant economy and yet another increase in the unemployment level. A January 7 poll by Elabe showed that only 26% of French voters approved of Hollande's leadership and that his New Year's message had failed to provide reassurance. Echos of "It's the economy, stupid" ?

CALAIS JUNGLE

Meanwhile, the refugee crisis is looming large in several EU countries, nowhere more so than in the French port city of Calais where things are coming to a boil. As I reported earlier, some 6000 refugees seeking to enter the U.K. are stuck in and around Calais where they try every day to board a ferry or stow away on a truck bound for England. The local authorities grouped them together on a vacant lot outside the city where it sheltered 1500 of them in tents with access to food and showers nearby. Soon, however, the continued flow of new arrivals overwhelmed these facilities, makeshift tents sprouted up everywhere, living conditions worsened and tensions rose. The camp became known as The Jungle, a slum made increasingly unlivable with its unsanitary conditions and the onset of winter. About half of the refugees have been transferred to other centers, but some 3000 remain today in The Jungle which heavy rains have turned into one vast field of mud.

In response the local authorities are installing heated living containers in the camp to replace the flimsy tents which are poor protection against rain and mud. They have also moved some 120 women with young children to the neighboring Jules Ferry open-air center where they are well housed in a building behind a gate that is locked at night to keep them safe from male aggressors. [Médecins Sans Frontières has noted many unwanted pregnancies, venereal disease and signs of abuse among the 200-300 women who live in the camp.]

The authorities have also begun to clear a 100 m security zone around the camp's perimeter, demolishing in the process a makeshift church and a mosque built by the refugees. Construction of the converted containers, bolted onto a cement foundation, continues but will not replace all the tents before the end of winter. This does not seem to disturb some of the diehards who still hope to get to England and will keep trying in spite of the tightened security, razor-wire-topped fences, unscalable walls and guard dogs on both sides of the border. "The biggest problem" says one of the migrants, "is that this transit, this temporary wait in Calais, could become permanent with better housing. We are at the mercy of your goodwill and benevolence, which we are very grateful for, but as able-bodied men we want to work, we want to keep hoping, we want to rebuild our lives and join our family members in England. It is hard to keep your dignity, whether you live in a leaky tent or in a comfortable box."

Church in The Jungle, before

The mayor of Calais and the Prefect of the region, both women, have repeatedly appealed to the government for help, most recently in the form of army personnel to help clear out the human traffickers in the area as well as anarchists from groups such as No Borders, who incite the migrants to riot and supply them with truncheons to fight the police.
The women met in Paris this week with Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve and the newly appointed Minister of Justice, Jean-Jacques Urvoas. At stake is not only the lot of the migrants but also the image of the City of Calais and the proper functioning of the port. Meanwhile, a number of NGOs, associations and volunteers are doing their best to keep things together in the camps.

Elsewhere in Europe, refugees are facing other battles.

The New Year's Eve wave of sexual assaults on German women in Cologne that police attributed to migrants from North Africa has put severe pressure on Angela Merkel's open-door refugee policy. Although nothing has changed for war refugees from Syria and Afghanistan, the German government has now decided to put migrants from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia on a "safe country of origin" list, which means they cannot obtain asylum.

Alarm bells are ringing in Scandinavia as well, resulting in tightened immigration policies.

Sweden announced that it may reject up to half of the 163,000 asylum applications it received in 2015 and that the failed asylum seekers will be deported over several years.

Neighboring Finland, which like Sweden has received the highest number of migrants per capita in the EU, announced similar measures and may deny up to two-thirds of the 32,000 asylum requests it is currently considering.

In Denmark parliament approved a new law that allows the confiscation of valuables over 10,000 Kroner (1,340 Euros; 1,450 dollars) from refugees and a delay in family reunification. The tough new law is meant to reduce the influx of refugees and was explained as "no different from what we ask our Danish citizens before they receive state benefits."

Switzerland and Germany have also begun to confiscate valuables and ask refugees to help pay for their upkeep "to ensure that they are not better off than our own people on welfare."

As the mood is turning, the need for a united European response to this crisis has never been more urgent.

  

OTHER UNREST

The world may be changing, but nothing seems more permanent than strikes in France. In the past two months we have seen strikes by farmers, teachers, airlines, taxis (the regular kind as well as the independent Uber kind they were striking against), and yesterday we had a strike in support of strikers. Thousands of members of the largest French union, the CGT, answered a call to strike to protest against prison sentences meted out against eight workers at a Goodyear plant who held two managers hostage for thirty hours in January 2014. They want the charges dropped.

The sentence by a court in Amiens of nine months in prison with a further 15 suspended was considered too harsh by many, but may have been exemplary in view of a pattern of increased hostage-taking and violence at plant closings over the past years. Though strikers often resort to violence and destruction, they are hardly ever punished by the courts because this usually occurs in the context of plant closings and loss of jobs.

This latest strike took place in many cities throughout France but was most keenly felt in Paris where service on the busy RER A and B lines was reduced to half, thus stranding many of the two million daily commuters. As usual, most French people supported the strikers.

ALSO IN THE NEWS...

this item in Le Monde of yesterday attempting to shed light on various press reports of the previous day on the status of the accent circonflexe. Will we lose it? Will the spelling reforms kill it off? Will it disappear at the start of the new school year? Social networks were quick to respond. The Department of Education less so, stating they had issued nothing on the subject. The rumor had started when on February 3rd the TF1 website announced that the spelling reform of 1990 would become effective at the start of the new school year in September 2016.
Here is a summary of the long article in Le Monde:

Seat of the Académie Française

In 1990 the Académie Française had proposed a simplification of spelling and accentuation of the French language, resulting in fierce opposition, passionate debate and silence…until 2008, when an official Bulletin of the Department of Education made reference to the "revised spelling" rules. Nobody seems to have noticed until in late 2015 another reference was made to "rectified spelling, as approved by the Académie Française and published in the Journal Officiel of 6 December 1990" in connection with the upcoming school year.

So where do we stand in 2016? A textbook publisher replies: "This time we all decided to incorporate the new spelling in our manuals, which was only done sporadically before. However, this remains a choice and not an obligation." And our circumflex accent? Does it stay? Well, let's say it comes and goes, depending. I'll skip the rules and their exceptions, which end with this statement of the Académie Française: "All those who already have a good comprehension of the old spelling do not have to adopt this new norm." And this conclusion of Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, French Minister of Education: "The new rules are a reference but cannot be imposed. Therefore, both the old and new spelling are correct."
Just so you know and don't get impatient about impending change.

Sir Michael Edwards

I wonder if Sir Michael Edwards had anything to do with this. Who he? The first Englishman to enter the Académie Française! London-born Edwards is a poet, translator, author and literary critic specializing in French language and literature, who was elected to join the 40 Immortals of the Académie Française in February 2013 where he took the seat of Jean Dutourd who had died in 2011. Married to a Frenchwoman, he has dual citizenship and was knighted in 2014 for  his services to Franco-British cultural relations.

The doors of the most exclusive French institution have opened just a crack to let in UN ROSBIF !
Who would have thought it?

SUBDUED NEW YEAR'S EVE; CHAOS IN COLOGNE; DISCORD IN FRANCE

NEW YEAR'S CELEBRATIONS LACK SPARKLE

As Parisians were glad to leave behind the annus horribilis of 2015 when terrorism exploded in their midst, there was little midnight joy in welcoming in the new year, and 2016 tiptoed in on slippered feet as if not wanting to disturb. 

Paris: Arc de Triomphe video

No fireworks in Brussels and Paris where the state of emergency continues and the official celebrations were cancelled or curtailed on fears of a terrorist attack. In Paris the traditional New Year's Eve fireworks were replaced by a five-minute video display on the Arc de Triomphe, while other European cities celebrated in rather subdued fashion amid tightened security. In Munich two railroad stations were closed on busy New Year's Eve following a credible tip of a planned terrorist attack and in Berlin bags and backpacks were searched as crowds gathered for the fireworks at the Brandenburg Gate.

Berlin Brandenburg fireworks

The November 13 attacks in Paris revealed a network of Belgian- and French-born jihadists operating from Brussels with direct links to Syria. Like the French security forces, Belgian police remain on high alert and have arrested a number of suspects. In a recent raid on an apartment in the Brussels neighborhood of Schaerbeek, they found man-made suicide vests, various weapons, traces of TATP (the explosive used in the Paris attacks), and a fingerprint of Salah Abdeslam, the fugitive Brussels-based jihadist who participated in the Paris massacre but managed to get away. He remains at large today.

On January 7th, exactly one year after the Charlie Hebdo attack, a man wielding a butcher knife and shouting Allahu Akbar! tried to storm a police station in northern Paris. Ignoring orders to stop, he was shot and killed by the police standing guard outside. A fake explosive device was found on his body, as well as a printed image of the ISIS flag and a handwritten note in Arabic claiming responsibility for the attack. His identity was not immediately established, but the mobile phone found on him contained a German SIM card which led investigators to a refugee shelter in West Germany where he had been living for several months as an asylum seeker until he disappeared in December 2015. He had apparently been using different aliases while in Europe. French media reported that his fingerprints matched those of a homeless man convicted of theft in southern France in 2013 who gave his name as Sallah Ali, a Moroccan. However, people claiming to be relatives have identified him as a 30-year-old Tunisian named Tarek Belgacem.

His status as asylum seeker in Germany has sparked a renewed debate about the 1.1 million refugees Germany has welcomed this past year and attacks against Chancellor Angela Merkel's open-border policy have sharply increased.

CHAOS IN COLOGNE

On New Year's Eve, as many as 1000 drunk and aggressive men "of North African appearance" gathered around the main railroad station in Cologne and began harrassing women as they came out of the station to join celebrations in the city. As the evening progressed and the crowds grew thicker, this turned into a mob attack of muggings and sexual assaults that quickly overwhelmed the nearby police who did little or nothing to interfere. About 60 complaints were filed that night for robbery and assault, including two for rape. Thirty-one men were subsequently arrested, among them 18 asylum seekers. A leaked police report, obtained by the magazine Bild, says that women were forced to "run a gauntlet ... beyond description" to enter or leave the station, and that the perpetrators were "almost exclusively of migration backgrounds."

No Violence Against Women, in front of Cologne cathedral

On Monday, officials reported that 553 criminal complaints had been filed, nearly half of them for sexual offenses, including eyewitness reports of coordinated attacks and lack of police response. In the wake of the incidents, the city's police chief was fired and Minister of Justice Heiko Maas announced that new laws are being drafted that will make it easier to extradite foreign criminals and strip them of their refugee status.

The scale of the crime wave in Cologne, and to a lesser extent in Hamburg and several other German cities, has heated up the public debate on immigrants and sharply divided the country. Far-right groups were quick to blame the attacks on the influx of refugees. As the anti-immigration extreme-right PEGIDA movement drew thousands of participants in rallies in Cologne and Leipzig, pro-immigration groups countered with anti-PEGIDA marches. Police responded to occasional violence with tear gas and water cannons.

PEGIDA with imperial war flags

German media, including the public-service broadcaster ZDF, did not report the Cologne incidents until four days after they occurred, feeding the perception of a "lying press." In the face of turmoil and mounting mistrust, Angela Merkel has had to revisit her refugee policy. Maintaining her position that Germany must remain open to refugees from war and civil strife, Merkel said nevertheless that "something has to change."

"Where there is crime, there will be consequences," she warned, saying she will support tougher laws to deport migrants convicted of criminal conduct. It is worth noting that at least 3000 migrants still arrive in Germany every day.

DISCORD IN FRANCE

The subject of expulsion is currently a hot topic in France as well. In the days following the November 13 terrorist attacks in Paris that left 130 dead and hundreds more wounded, President François Hollande first spoke of the possibility of revoking French citizenship from convicted terrorists with dual nationality - a subject he brought up again during his traditional New Year's Eve address. In the interval, a heated debate had developed around the issue, which requires a change in the constitution, with many on the right (including former president Sarkozy) supporting it while several prominent Socialists, such as former prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, and Justice Minister Christiane Taubira oppose it. Public opinion seems strongly in favor, with polls indicating that some 80 percent of the French support the measure.

Currently, citizenship can only be revoked from those who were naturalized, not from those who were born in France. The proposed new rules would extend it to all dual nationals. Opponents point out that revoking citizenship from dual nationals would create two unequal categories of citizenship, in conflict with the principle of Egalité under the constitution.

Best enemies Valls and Taubira

France has the largest Muslim community in Western Europe, including many French-born with Moroccan, Algerian and Tunisian origins who have both citizenships. Some see the proposed measure as targeted specifically against this community; others recall the collaborationist Vichy regime during World War II that revoked the citizenship of Jews and members of the French Resistance, including General de Gaulle as well as St. John Perse who later won the Nobel Prize for literature.

The constitutional change will be debated in Parliament in February where it needs a three-fifths majority vote. To date, the left remains divided. Prime Minister Valls defends the measure as "a strong symbolic act that punishes those who excluded themselves from the national community" while Justice Minister Taubira expressed her disagreement and called the proposed change "completely useless."

The strong-willed Mrs. Taubira may be remembered for earlier clashes with Mr. Valls and Mr. Hollande but has always managed to survive calls for her resignation. One reason may be that President Hollande, who is increasingly drifting to the right, needs the very visible Mrs. Taubira as proof that he still runs a socialist government.

Whichever way the vote goes, the dissension within the Socialist ranks comes at a bad time for a president who is expected to run for re-election in early 2017 but so far has been incapable of bringing down unemployment or even of keeping his ministers in line.

REGIONAL ELECTIONS; CLIMATE CONFERENCE; TAPIE TO PAY, LAGARDE TO STAND TRIAL

REGIONAL ELECTIONS

On Sunday, December 13th, a collective sigh of relief could be heard in France as the results of the second round of voting in the regional elections was announced. Just one week earlier, the extreme-right Front National party of Marine Le Pen had scored a stunning victory over its two main rivals, the conservative Les Républicains party of former president Nicolas Sarkozy and the Socialist party of President Hollande. Bolstered by the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, Le Pen's anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-European Union rhetoric found a new audience with nervous or undecided voters disappointed by their own parties and disheartened by continued high unemployment and a stalled economy. Suddenly, it was no longer unthinkable that Le Pen would be a serious presidential candidate in 2017, an unpalatable scenario for the mainstream.

From its weak third-place position, the Socialist party leadership then took the decision to withdraw its candidates in several key regions and urged voters there to massively support the conservative Republican party against the far right. The tactic worked and Les Républicains, with heavy socialist backing, won the second round. Moreover, the Front National, which had captured six of the thirteen metropolitan regions of France in the first round, lost all of them in the second round.

An angry Marine Le Pen called this tactical voting scheme "intellectual terrorism by the political mafia" and vowed to be back, recalling her party's strong score in the first round and the more than six million votes it had gathered. Relieved by the final outcome, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls nevertheless cautioned against triumphalism and warned that "the danger of the extreme right is not averted," yet expressing confidence that next time voters could again vote FOR a party, not against one. 

CONFERENCE ON CLIMATE CHANGE

This 'happy ending' came on the heels of the jubilant conclusion of the UN Conference on Climate Change in Paris, where nearly 200 governments had just reached a landmark agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions and limit global warming, spelling the end of the fossil fuel era. It took thirteen days (one more than planned) of tough negotiations, sleepless nights, a nail-biting finale and all the diplomatic skills of conference president Laurent Fabius, France's foreign minister, to get the agreement adopted.

In 20 years of UN climate meetings, the COP21 had set the most ambitious goals and succeeded beyond expectation: to limit global warming to "well below 2° C" and, in a concession to the most vulnerable countries, to pursue efforts to keep temperatures to 1.5° C above pre-industrial levels − with an ultimate goal of bringing the temperature rise down to zero by mid-century. It also included demands for regular five-year reviews of emissions reductions, and agreed on a fund of $100 billion a year by 2020 from public and private sources to help developing countries in their transition to a clean-energy economy. Although the agreement is legally binding, the matter of funding is not.

Last-minute objections to the text involved details of translation, typos, and a demand from the United States to replace the word "shall" by "should," thereby weakening the text but avoiding the need for approval from the US Congress where it would likely have been rejected. The masterful management and shuttle diplomacy of Laurent Fabius kept the final discussions from derailing and as soon as consensus was reached and his gavel came down, there followed an explosion of joy with shouts, hugs, fist pumping, and a few tears. The tension was finally broken and even the leaders on the dais, including Ban Ki-moon, let loose with a volley of whoops and hugs.

Much of the credit for the success of COP21 went to Laurent Fabius, but equal kudos should go to the City of Paris where Mayor Anne Hidalgo and her team faced the daunting challenge of protecting numerous heads of state, government ministers and VIP's as well as thousands of international delegates during several weeks. And that, less than a month after the terrorist attacks in Paris that left 130 people dead and hundreds more wounded. France was still on maximum alert, but only full cooperation between city management and all the security forces involved could guarantee safety. Paris rose to the challenge and delivered beautifully. Bravo!

TAPIE TO PAY; LAGARDE TO STAND TRIAL

The long-playing saga of colorful French businessman Bernard Tapie may finally have run its course when on December 3rd the Paris court of appeals rejected Tapie's arguments and ordered him to repay his arbitration award of 403 million euros to the State. In 1994, Tapie had filed suit against the partly State-owned Crédit Lyonnais bank for fraudulently undervaluing his Adidas sportswear company when he had to divest himself in order to be named a government minister (see blog of 2/28/2015). The decades-old case has tainted several members of the Sarkozy government and may yet claim another victim today: Christine Lagarde, presently head of the International Monetary Fund.

In 2007, after nearly fourteen years of litigation against CL, Bernard Tapie approached Christine Lagarde, then Finance Minister under President Sarkozy, requesting that his case be settled by arbitration to speed up the outcome. She accepted and three private arbitrators were selected by the parties involved. This arbitration panel judged in favor of Tapie and awarded him €403 million in damages and interest. Christine Lagarde accepted the decision and signed off on the payment, made with public funds (the CL having gone bankrupt) and causing a public outcry.

Among rumors of manipulation of the arbitration, Jean-Marc Ayrault, leader of the opposition and later prime minister of Socialist president François Hollande, claimed the arbitration was rigged as a reward for Tapie's support of candidate Sarkozy in his presidential campaign. The Socialists demanded a formal investigation.

In May 2013 Christine Lagarde was questioned by prosecutors about her role in the matter of the Tapie arbitration. She was cleared of any charges but was placed under the status of témoin assisté, an obligation to remain available for further questioning if needed. Her chief of staff at the time of the arbitration, Stéphane Richard, was placed under formal investigation on suspicion of organized fraud.

In February 2015 the Paris appeals court annulled the arbitration panel's ruling and in early December 2015 a court ruled that the Crédit Lyonnais had not undervalued Adidas which it sold at the then market value, based on information that was available to both CL and Mr. Tapie. Tapie should therefore not be compensated for the sale and is ordered to repay the arbitration award of €403 million plus interest.

Days later, the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR), which handles criminal cases involving government officials, charged Ms. Lagarde with "negligence by a person in a position of public authority" in connection with the arbitration. If convicted, she could be sentenced to one year in prison. Her lawyer called the court's decision "incomprehensible" and will recommend that she appeal.

While the IMF spokesman said that the organization "continues to have confidence in the managing director's ability to effectively carry out her duties," the court's decision to have her stand trial comes at a bad time for Lagarde, 59, whose term as IMF's managing director ends in July 2016. It was widely expected that she would run for a second term.

In a final twist, Bernard Tapie, 72, who two weeks ago said he was ruined by the court's decision and unable to pay back the arbitration award, made a surprise announcement in yesterday's Journal de Dimanche: he is returning to politics. To stop the rise of the Front National, he says, and to deal with youth unemployment. He wants to make youth unemployment illegal and promised to have a proposal ready before the end of January 2016 to "get all unemployed 18- to 25-year-olds into work."

With his roller-coaster career, his bigger-than-life personality and matching lifestyle, his rock star looks, his gutsy gambles, he has succeeded and failed in almost equal measure but has always managed to bounce back. His been-there-done-that resumé (former singer, actor, TV producer, football club owner, government minister, jailbird, tycoon) suggests he won't stop there.

Can he make it back this time? Why politics? A diversionary tactic while he tries to save what he can? We'll have to wait and see as he strings us along like voyeuristic spectators at a slightly off-color show. Watch for the sequel.

... And suddenly, it's nearly Christmas and more important things are claiming our attention. What are we going to EAT? Food talk is in the air, not to mention on TV and in newspapers and magazines. Exotic recipes, sumptuous desserts, once-a-year luxuries are the new standard. Home decoration is way down the list, and Christmas cards have disappeared from the French landscape.

As I slowly shift into year-end gear, I wish all of you the Christmas of your dreams and

PEACE FOR ALL IN THE NEW YEAR.