Alain Robbe-Grillet, French author, an inventor of the New Novel in France, dies at 85
February 18, 2008
French author and literary theoretician Alain Robbe-Grillet, considered one of the founding fathers of the nouveau roman - the new novel—an unconventional literary style that was born in France, died in France at the age of 85. Robbe-Grillet was admitted to the Caen University Hospital in western France over the weekend for cardiac problems, officials said. He died there Monday morning.
Together with other avant-garde luminaries of France such as Claude Simon and Jacques Derrida, Robbe-Grillet was at the vanguard of a movement born in France that re-invented not only the French novel but also the experiences of writing and reading themselves.
Alain Robbe-Grillet did not start life in the literary world. He was born in Brest, Finistère, in northwestern France, to a family of scientists and engineers. He attended the Lycée de Brest, and the Lyceés Buffon before he graduated from the prestigious Lycée Saint-Louis in Paris. In 1944 he received a diploma from the National Institute of Agronomy. Between the years 1945 and 1949 he studied at the National Statistical Institute in Paris, and then in 1949-51 at the Institute of Colonial Fruits and Crops. Robbe-Grillet worked as an agronomist in Martinique, in the West Indies, where he supervised banana plantations. But along with the banana trees, the seeds of France’s newest novel and novel form would be born. In 1953, Robbe-Grillet’s first novel, The Erasers, was published in France.
Starting in 1955, Robbe-Grillet worked as a literary consultant at Les Editions de Minuit, one of the most famous publishing houses in France. This prestigious French publisher also attracted such writers as Claude Simon Nathalie Sarraut, Michel Butor, Jacques Derrida, and Pierre Bourdieu. Although these French writers each possessed a distinctive voice, they all believed that the 19th-century social novel in France was dead.
Alain Robbe-Grillet’s works purposely eschewed conventional elements such as dramatic plotting, a coherent concept of time, and psychological analysis of the character that were part and parcel of the novel before, particularly in France in the works of Balzac for example.
With a conviction perhaps born from his connection to the earth during his studies and work as an agronomist, Robbe-Grillet argued that the writer should restrict himself to the impersonal description of physical objects. He reasoned that psychological or ideological analysis was subjective and should be excluded from writing. Like other thinkers of the Semiotics movement that was born in France, he believed the reader should assign any underlying meaning to details and events. Contemporary French semioticians such as Roland Barthes frequently analyzed and referred to Alain Robbe-Grillet’s works.
True to his artistic principles, Robbe-Grillet’s novels are composed largely of recurring images, impersonally depicted physical objects and random events of everyday life. However, beginning with his first novel published in France, Les Gommes (1953, The Erasers), Robbe-Grillet used and manipulated traditional and popular literary genres – working several times with the mystery novel from. (Robbe-Grillet’s first novel, A Regicide, was not published until 1978.) The Erasers mixes a detective story with Robbe-Grillet’s signature changing perspectives and detailed descriptions of natural objects such as a tomato wedge. The book received the Fénélon Prize in France in1954. Robbe-Grillet was elected member of the prestigious Academie Francaise in 2004, the highest honor in France for a French artist, writer or intellectual. However, he never sat in any meeting of the Academie.
Some of Robbe-Grillet’s other novels include Le Voyer (1955, The Voyeur) a crime novel with multiple and shifting points of view in which the mystery is left to the reader to solve, La Jalousie (1957, Jealousy), which was set on a banana plantation and which Nabokov called one of the greatest novels of the century, and Dans Le Labyrinthe (1959, In the Labyrinth).
In 1960s France, Robbe-Grillet’s emphasis on the visual world led him to writing screenplays and directing films. Some of his novels have also been called ciné-romans (film-novels). The most famous dramatization of his literary theories is French director Alan Resnais’s film Last Year at Marienbad, for which he wrote the screenplay.
In 1963, Robbe-Grillet published “Pour Un Nouveau Roman,” (Toward a New Novel). This short work was a critical essay highly acclaimed in France that explained the theoretical foundations of the “new novel” and condemned conventional devices such as metaphors as too sentimental and subjective. The article became the credo of the Avant-Garde in France, and made Robbe-Grillet an overnight star among Paris Left Bank intellectuals. However, in the essay, Robbe-Grillet rejects any iconic status: “If in many of the passages that follow, I readily employ the term New Novel, it is not to designate a school, nor even a specific and constituted group of writers working in the same direction; the expression is merely a convenient label applicable to all those seeking new forms for the novel, form capable of expressing (or of creating) new relations between man and the world, to all those who have determined to invent the novel, in other words, to invent man.”
Robbe-Grillet was a member of the High committee for the defense and the expansion of the French language (1966-1968), after which he directed the Center of Sociology of Literature at the University of Brussels, (1980-1988). He also taught in the United States, in particular in New York, Washington and Saint Louis.
In his final novel, La Reprise (2001) a spy is sent to post-war Berlin on a mission which devolved into a sado-erotic experience. “All my novels are comic. Perhaps La Reprise more so”, Robbe-Grillet once said of his best-selling book.
“The Academie Francaise today loses one of its most illustrious members, and without a doubt its most rebellious,” mourned President of France Nicolas Sarkozy.
Despite the New Novel’s focus on objective reality swept clean of human feeling or bias, French author Robbe-Grillet always insisted that the nouveau roman is entirely subjective - its world is always perceived through the eyes of a character, not an omniscient narrator. “The true writer has nothing to say. What counts is the way he says it,” he once stated.
Student housing in France to get an upgrade from the French government starting in 2008
February 16, 2008
In France, a shortage of housing for university students has long been an issue. A leading student organization in France estimates that there are currently only 156,000 rooms in university towns for 2.2 million students. As a result, students in France have had to resort to creative arrangements, renting rooms in strangers’ homes, exchanging their services for a bed, or are compelled to remain at home with their parents, limiting both their choice of university and their lifestyles.
But on Friday, February 15, Valerie Pécresse, Minister for Higher Education in France, and French Housing Minister Christine Boutin announced at a joint press conference on student housing the government of France would commit to the construction of new housing for 5,000 students and 7,000 restorations of current student residences per year over the next four years. The government of France will invest 620 million euros between now and 2012 in the project.
The first such commitment on the construction and restoration of student housing in France at this level had already been made with great fanfare by the Raffarin government in 2004, but this commitment was not upheld. In the Ile-de-France department of France, the issue of student housing is most acute, because of the shortage of available land and the preponderance of universities in the area (Ile-de-France includes Paris and its suburbs). To address this, the two French government ministers suggested organizing a conference on housing in Ile-de-France with the participation of all the players at the city and local levels.
In the 2008 budget 155 million euros will be dedicated to the development of student housing in France, Mrs. Pécresse declared that over the next four years, that would total 620 million euros devoted to this issue. However, the level of investment in the project would always be subject to review each year vis-a-vis the total planned budget of France. Skeptics worry that student housing in France might be vulnerable in the event of any budget crisis or shortfall.
As a supplement to augmenting dedicated student housing in France, the French government voiced support for alternative housing, already an unofficial fixture in France, known as co-rental and intergenerational housing, in which French students and families or elderly people living alone in France seek each other out or are matched by a third party. Elderly French citizens and French families trade their spare rooms for help and companionship from a young French student. Intergenerational housing has begun to take off in France, though the concept originated in Spain. There are now private sector agencies in France dedicated to matching elderly French desiring company with students needing housing in France.
Considering the shortage of land in France for dedicated student housing, “It is necessary to consider new forms of student residences” like co-location and intergenerational housing” agreed the two French ministers. They proposed a new specific lease for these arrangements, giving them official status in France. A “national approval” will be soon be studied, added the French Minister for the higher education.
One third the students in France have difficulty finding housing, according to a study carried out in 2006. 42 % of these young French people live in family housing, including 37 % with their parents. 31 % of them rent in France, living alone or as a couple. Only 14 % are in collective residence s like dormitories, and 7 % in a co-renting or intergenerational housing situation in France.
In a civil action across France a few days before, the national Union of the students of France (UNEF) called for 1 billion euros to be allocated toward the building of student residences in France. “In the absence of the means or assistance to rent housing, many students in France must stay in their parents’ homes, and choose their school according to geography and not their aspirations.” The group urged the government of France to honor the original 2004 commitments on the construction and restoration of the student residences in France.
The internet in France : no place for terrorists, says Interior Minister of France
February 15, 2008
Now sites in France featuring recipes for building explosives, terrorist propaganda, racial invective and incitement to hatred and violence will soon join child pornography on the ‘blacklist” of Internet sites prohibited in France.
On a Valentine’s Day visit to France’s central crime-fighting offices in Nanterre, which have a “cyber crime” wing devoted to crimes related to communication and information technologies (OCLCTIC), Interior minister of France Michele Alliot-Marie announced the development of a best practices agreement with key internet operators to allow for the blocking and dismantling of these sites.
France will follow the example on Norway, where a similar scheme is being developed. France’s Interior Minister stipulated that the move was not meant to set up a “Big Brother” scenario which would limit freedom of expression in France. However, she did concede that with great freedom comes also “more threats to safety”.
Until now, suppliers of internet access in France balked at the idea of policing on the sites they host. Christian Aghroum, chief of the OCLCTIC said that in the beginning, the reaction of French ISP professionals was “no way”, but “their attitude has evolved,” he said. “Now we can work with them.”
Blocking the offending sites in France would mean that the pages would become inaccessible to internet surfers. The job is harder than just choosing which sites to block, however, as many of the offending web sites viewable in France are hosted not inside France but abroad, outside the jurisdiction of French authorities. Of 14,465 complaints in 2007 against questionable web sites by internet surfers (when police in France were cracking down on illegal child pornography web sites), only 308 related to sites hosted in France. 1,552 were hosted outside of France. (The remainder were repeated complaints against the same sites.) But even with heavy monitoring, prohibitions and fines, the sites in France did not disappear. “When they are closed, they are reconstituted the next following day under another domain name “, admitted Karine Beguin, of the monitoring of internet crime for the gendarmerie in France.
In the illegal internet gambling arena in France, fighting online crime has been an uphill battle for French authorities. Suppliers of internet access in France have so far refused to block any sites, so the police have hunted down offenders using their own advertising to try to stem the explosion of illegal online gambling in France. Police in France made some headway in March 2007, with the convictions of casino owner Patrick Partouche. He was given a sentence of twelve months of prison and a 40 000 euro fine for his connection to a poker site hosted in Gibraltar, but the battle against online gambling in France is far from over.
The government of France is promises new measures against all forms in internet crime in France. The first will be the doubling of the number of “cyber-investigators”. In September 2008, there will be systems in place for anyone in France to report many different types of online criminal activity, including all kinds of scams. And the rules for closing a web site in France will be streamlined, simplified and sped up. Until now, long legal procedures following exhaustive investigations were necessary to close a site in France. But from now on, explains François Jaspart, general of the national police force in France and superintendent of the fight again internet crime in France, intervention will be possible as soon as anyone as soon as there is any observation of possible illegal activity.
Also, with a relaxing of legal strictures, authorities in France will be able to pinpoint the geographic location of Internet users. Also, internet crimes will carry new and heftier penalties in France: identity theft over the Internet will soon make offenders in France liable to a year’s imprisonment and a fine of 15 000 euros. France intends to go further demand international agreements to allow France to obtain data remotely from servers in other countries, without it being necessary to first get permission from the country where the internet server is located.
The move has been coming for a while. In a meeting last October in Lisbon, European Union interior ministers, including Alliot-Marie of France, debated proposals to sanction or shut down Internet sites spreading “terrorist propaganda” and bomb-making instructions.
At the time, EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini urged the ministers to make punishable activities that misused the Internet, citing terrorism specifically. He exhorted the countries to introduce sanctions against those who disseminate terrorist propaganda or instruct on websites how to make a bomb. “This has nothing to do with freedom of expression,” he asserted.
That same month, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, long known for its Nazi-hunting roots but now fighting Islamic terrorism, released a report. The report concluded that radical Muslims and other extremists worldwide had mastered the use of the Internet as a tool for propaganda, organizing and education. The report elaborated, saying that websites were being used to stir young Muslims to violence, not only in the Middle East but also in Western countries, including France, and that they amount to a “virtual university of terror,” promoting the creation of “terror cells” all over the world.
Frattini said that existing EU legislation could not deal with the alarming and growing phenomenon. “We have to modernize the legal framework,” he said. “The world, unfortunately, is changing. Five years ago, there wasn’t a need to consider incitement, and now there is.”
The announcement February 14 suggests that Interior Minster of France Alliot-Marie took the EU Commissioner’s suggestions very much to heart. And while the task may be daunting to much of the EU, France certainly knows how to run an efficient crackdown on internet crime. That same month, October 2007, French police arrested more than 300 people accused of trading child pornography on the Internet during a nationwide crackdown on suspected pedophiles.
During a four-day operation French police and paramilitary gendarmes identified 310 people in France thought to be swapping pornographic images and videos of pre-teen children online, French police claimed.
More than 1,4 million photos and 27 000 videos were seized in France, and more than a dozen judicial enquiries opened, dubbed “Rainbow,” which made use of about 330 officers in 78 French departments.
The Picardy region of France : site of world wars, now offers peaceful visits along La Somme
February 15, 2008
The Picardy region of France, whose administrative capital is Amiens, is home to 1,837,834 inhabitants and covers 19,311 km2. Located in the north of France, Picardy is composed of three departments or districts of France: Aisne (02), Oise (60) and La Somme (80). This chalky area joins the North and Normandy, at the same time near to the Capital and to the area that formed the border of France until 1659.
Over history, Picardy was often traversed by troops of invaders, such as the Romans, the Huns, the Franks, the Normans and the Flemish. You can still find traces of each civilization there, starting from prehistoric times through Roman rule, then that of the Carolingians. This region of France underwent many conflicts, which explains the great number of castles and fortified churches such as the castle of Péronne, feudal city and stronghold during the Middle Ages in France. Several Picardy cities still preserve many signs of medieval times, such as Chateau-Thierry and its Saint-Peter and Saint-John doors, the Balhan tower and its castle, and Ham, an old medieval site, and Senlis, dominated by the ruins of its royal castle dating from the 12th century. Compiegne was the setting for the capture of Joan of Arc, a touchstone moment in the history of France, and preserves from this time a remarkable medieval section, as well as a magnificent half-Roman, half-Gothic cathedral.
Certain events were responsible for massive destruction of the historical heritage of Picardy; for example, the Hundred Years War (1337-1435), which destroyed many villages, and the religious wars (1562-1598) which set French Catholics against French Protestants in extremely bloody and savage conflicts. Finally the two world wars left many sad memories in Picardy, such as the famous, bloody battle of La Somme. The town of Abbeville, for example, suffered greatly and therefore shows much recent architecture due to necessary massive rebuilding. Several memorials and historic sites recall this painful moment in the history of France and the Picardy region, such as in Longueval, Thiepval and Albert. Lastly, Picardy also possesses a significant religious heritage, since it joins together a great part of the gothic architecture of France. Among these monuments the Cathedral of Notre-Dame d’Amiens, classified as a UNESCO World Heritage site, as well as the Cathedral of Noyon, built between 1200 and 1400, or that of Beauvais, built in the “Flamboyant Gothic” style.
The landscapes of Picardy are as rich and varied as its history. Each department is characterized by a specific look and its own unique natural assets. La Somme, the scene of bloody battles in two World Wars, crosses a fertile country of plains which benefits from a beautiful opening onto the English Channel. Oise is characterized by its plateaus and its vast wildernesses covered in forests. Lastly, Aisne presents an ore-rich landscape. All combine to form ground favorable to agriculture, which remains the principal economy of Picardy. Mixed-farming is practiced here, and one will find sugar beet, grains, flaxseed and potatoes sharing farmland.
La Somme river is the major element that forms the Picardy landscape, from its mouth in the English Channel to Saint-Quentin. The Valley first of all, is ideal for fishing and offers interesting backdrops along its canals, with many small private farms called “hardines”, in particular between Péronne and Ham. A few steps from the center of Amiens one can find the unusual Les Hortillonages, or Market Gardens, gardens surrounded by water from marshes from Gallo-Roman times, covering nearly 300 hectares. One circulates among these land parcels in flat-bottomed boats. This site, unique in France, is registered with the National Inventory of Historic Sites, as well as being classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Between Amiens and Saint-Quentin, La Somme becomes sinuous and disperses into a number of ponds. Created by the river or man-made, these bodies of water shelter a remarkable range of fauna and flora. These wetlands of Haute-Somme cover approximately 6000 hectares of water and are clothed in generous vegetation and woodlands. A fisherman’s paradise with an abundance of eels, this unusual natural site is also a beautiful reserve for many species of birds.
Lastly, in emptying into the English Channel, La Somme forms a basin of more than 70 km2: the Bay of Somme. Classified as a Natural reserve, this exceptional territory is a privileged spot for the observation of plants and wildlife. It indeed shelters the largest colony of sea-cows in France and hundreds of species of birds stop there during their migrations. The Ornithological Park of Marquenterre, located in the northern part of the Natural Reserve, makes it possible for visitors to discover the fauna and the flora of coastal Picardy, in a preserved and well-presented environment, over 250 hectares of dunes, forests and marshlands.
The coastal area offers a mosaic of landscapes over 70 km of coasts. From the regional border shared with the Seine-Maritime region until the town of Ault, the area offers the last chalk cliffs of the Pays de Caux, remarkable for their white color. Moving towards Cayeux-sur-mer and Hourdel, beaches of smooth stones give way to the mouth of La Somme. After this, the largest dune area in the north of France extends until bay Fort-Mahon-Beach in the bay of Authie.
Moving inland, the interior of the country is just as wild and interesting. such as the ore-rich landscapes of Thiérache, a patchwork of fields and orchards, which shelters fascinating animal life, and the forests of Compiegne, Chantilly, Saint-Gobain and Crécy. With its 320,000 hectares, the Picardy forests constitute the greatest assembly of this type in France and even all of Europe. It serves as a fabulous backdrop for towns of art and history, Chantilly and Compiegne.
Untamed and unexpected, Picardy’s nature and landscapes with all its luxuriant vegetation punctuated by remarkable historic buildings and a long and dramatic history make Picardy a fabulous region of France to walk in and explore.
The Pays de La Loire Region of France : rich in rivers, nature and culture
February 14, 2008
The Pays de la Loire region is in the west of France, between the Armorial solid mass, the Parisian basin and the Aquitaine basin. This region of France is home to 3,222,061 inhabitants and stretches over 32,082 km2. The area, whose chief town is Nantes, shares borders with Poitou-Charente in the south, the Limousin region and the Centre region in the east; Basse-Normandy and Brittany in north. It is composed of 5 departments, or districts: Loire-Atlantique (44), Maine-et-Loire (49), Mayenne (53), la Sarthe (72) and Vendée (85). The region bears the name of the Loire, which crosses two of its departments before emptying into the Atlantic Ocean.
Bordered on 368 km by ocean coastline, coastal landscapes are some of the Pays de la Loire’s major assets. In the north of the Loire’s mouth is the still-wild coastal area whose principal points are Baule, Pouliguen and Pornichet. The pale sand beaches are among most beautiful of Europe, and world-renowned seaside resorts sit side by side with the authentic fishing ports of the guérandaise peninsula, such as Piriac-sur-Mer and Croisic. Lower down, between the Loire and Noirmoutier is the Jade Coast, thus named because of the color of its waters. The sandy beaches invite the practice of various nautical activities such as kayaking and water skiing, and small inlets hide treasures like the fishing port of Pornic. The island of Noirmoutier, characterized by its beautiful nature and its salt-water marshes, offers a landscape of beaches, ports and marshes, all gaily decorated with mimosa flowers.
Finally the Vendean coast, known as the “coast of light”, combines the pleasure of long fine sand beaches and cool pine forests, as with Sables d’Olonnes, the most famous beach of the coast and a capital of sailing thanks to the Vendée Globe race. The seaside resorts of Jard-sur-Mer, la Faute-sur-Mer and l’Aiguillon present a landscape of beaches and dunes, with the additional interest of its excellent reserves of marine birds. Across from Saint-Jean-de-Monts, the Ile d’Yeu offers visitors wild, well-preserved natural surroundings great for bike tours, and is also among the most ideal spots in France for fishing and deep-sea diving.
Besides its marine landscapes, the Pays de la Loire region of France has a significant system of rivers: more than 180,000 km. The Loire and its feeders irrigate the entire area. The last truly wild river left in Europe, the Loire flows past meadows and slopes, wooded islands and sandy banks. Rich in varied fauna and flora and an exceptional cultural and historical heritage, the Loire Valley is a registered UNESCO world heritage site. The Loire valley traverses captivating cities such as Saumur, built of “tuffeau,” the local calcareous rock, dominated by its castle and more than 50 classified historic buildings. There is also the city of Angers at the doorway of the Loire, where the Sarthe, Mayenne and the Dormouse gather to form the mighty Maine river. At the mouth of the river, Nantes recalls its past as a prestigious seaport and river port where one can still see the typical residences of 18th century ship-owners.
All in all, several rivers share the irrigation of the five departments, each one bordered by small, peaceful villages and charming bucolic landscapes. Mayenne, for example, is one of the most beautiful inland waterways of the west of France. It crosses Laval, whose castle, medieval lanes and religious past constitute a historical heritage of great interest. Sèvre Nantes and its wooded valley and cliff sides prove to be very pleasant surroundings for all kinds of hikes and treks. Erdre, whose banks are also wooded, completes its journey in Nantes and is strewn with elegant manors and various sailing and rowing schools. The Loir, unlike its neighbors, traverses a mosaic of landscapes alternating between grain fields, green meadows, sloping vineyards and forests. This valley of the Loir which passes by Vendôme and La Fleche, shows off its originality with its troglodytes houses, dug in cliffs of tuffeau rock. The Sarthe also waters this area of France, flowing past ore-rich mountains, forests and steep hills as it traverses cities such as Sablé-sur-Sarthe and Le Mans. Le Mans, known the whole world over for its 24 hour car race, is also a place of cultural interest in France with monuments like its Roman cistern dating from the 3rd century, cobblestone lanes and half-timbered houses, and its grand homes dating from the Renaissance.
Last but not least, la Sevre is set apart by its canal system which forms a preserved natural site: the Poitevin Marsh. A veritable water labyrinth, it is known as “Green Venice” and is home to an extremely rich variety of wildlife and plants. In a similar vein, the Regional Natural reserve of Brière, near Saint-Nazaire, is the second largest marsh in France, after the Camargue. While its bodies of water are not large, they possess an astonishing ecological richness made up of wet meadows, hills, rose hedges and canals.
With all this diversity of landscapes and a different culture in each department, the area has found its unity in its industrial and food economy. It is the cradle of a number of the most famous and best-loved food manufacturers of France, including the Saint-Michel, BN (biscuiterie Nantaise) and LU cookie factories, and also of several dairies making the products of Bel and Yoplait and canneries of Fleury Michon and Saupiquet.
Drunk drivers in France lose their cars in new French road safety laws
February 14, 2008
Prime minister of France Francois Fillon confirmed the installation on the roads of France of 2500 new radar detectors starting now. The program will continue until 2012 at the rate of 500 new machines per year. Fillon also announced a series of measures designed to reinforce the fight against drunk driving in France. Repeat offenders in France would face harsher penalties and could now see their vehicles confiscated. The announcements came after an interdepartmental committee meeting held in Matignon about road safety in France.
In 2007, 4,615 people were killed on the roads in France. This is a drop of 2% compared to 2006 and constitutes the sixth consecutive annual reduction for road fatalities in France. But the ambitious objective set by Fillon and Sarkozy, who mentioned it during his campaign to become president of France, is to pass under a symbolic bar of 3,000 road fatalities in France per year by the year 2012.
More precisely, the French government wants to cut the number of alcohol-related accidents in half, and to do likewise the number of motorcyclists killed on French roads. And the government wants to cut by a third the number of young people who die on the road in France. Alcohol-related accidents are the number one cause or death on the roads in France. It took 1,241 lives on French roads in 2007.
According to the Prime Minister, any motorist caught driving without a valid French license, repeat speeding offenders and those driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics will have his or her vehicle confiscated. In addition, a car ignition that tests drivers for alcohol and will not allow drivers to start their cars if they are over the limit will be imposed on drivers who have already been found guilty of DUI in France who are stopped for excessive blood-alcohol content at the wheel. The same system will be also installed in the school buses in France starting now and until the resumption of classes in September 2009. Electronic alcohol tests will also be installed at the exit of night clubs in France.
Francois Fillon also promised the prohibition of the alcohol sales in service stations in France and the automatic confiscation of the license in the event of vehicular homicide in France. He also said that driving while watching a television or playing a video game in France would be severely punished.
Last crooner of France, Henri Salvador, dead in Paris at 90
February 13, 2008
Henri Salvador, the last of his generation of crooners in France, declared numerous times that he would never retire, and he was true to his word. The French singer, credited with inventing the bossa-nova, may have put an end his stage career with a farewell concert in December, but at the time of his death in Paris at his home of a ruptured aneurysm, Salvador was preparing to record yet another album, according to his associates at Polydor records, his recording label.
President of France Nicolas Sarkozy expressed sadness at the passing of one of France’s greatest music icons. He placed Salvador’s music “at the crossroads of jazz, song and bossa nova, of Europe and the Americas” “For more than a half-century, Henri Salvador was the incarnation of the art of song ‘a la francaise,’” Sarkozy said in a statement.
This luminary of song in France was both French and something of an import, which would later add dimension to his music. And his life was as colorful as his French songs. Born in French Guyana in 1917 to a Hispanic father and a Carib Indian mother, Salvador arrived in Paris seven years later. A cousin introduced him to jazz when Salvador was 12 years old, and he taught himself the guitar listening to Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. He learned fast: at 15 he was already playing in the Paris bars of Pigalle and touring France with the American violinist Eddy South. His big break came shortly afterwards.
When top jazz guitarist’s Django Reinhardt’s piano accompanist was drafted into the French army in 1935, Salvador, too young to be soldier, got to take his place. Salvador told stories of his days with Reinhard, remembering how after they had finished playing cabarets, they would head for an all-night bar and play with visiting American musicians. “Only later did I find out they were Ellington, Lester Young, Benny Carter,” said the French musician. “Imagine – I played with my heroes and never knew.”
Later enlisting in the French Army in 1937, Salvador was stationed east of Paris, but went AWOL every night to keep playing in the cafés. He managed to cross to the Free Zone in 1941, when he joined Ray Ventura’s orchestra. Ventura, a Jew, managed to get his musicians passports out of Vichy France, and they spent the rest of the war in Brazil.
Back in France after the war, Salvador was among the biggest names in chanson français, or The French Song, and traveled to New York to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show, where later, a group called The Beatles was introduced to America. Salvador returned to France in 1956 bearing news of a musical earthquake. “No, please don’t say I introduced rock and roll to France,” he is known for protesting. “Blame Michel Legrand and Boris Vian.” Those two songwriters wrote for Salvador, who recorded what is known as the very first French rock song, Rock and Roll-Mops.
Salvador gave world music an even more far-reaching gift two years later when Salvador’s song Dans Mon île was heard on the soundtrack of an Italian film. In Brazil, Antonio Carlos Jobim was so inspired by its intricate rhythms and soft vocals that he created bossa nova. Years later, the Minister for Culture of Brazil arranged for the French Henri Salvador to be given the honorary title of ambassador for Brazilian music in France. “When I recorded that little tune, Dans Mon île, holed up in my apartment in Paris, I could never have imagined it would change musical history,” said Salvador, who always credited Jobim rather than himself with inventing Bossa Nova. “For me, it was an extraordinary stroke of luck - and a great honor.”
From the time he struck out on his own after World War II, Henri Salvador began a long and prolific career that would make history in France, both for its sheer volume as well as for the pungent mix of influences from France and its former French and African colonies He introduced the rhythms of French Guyana and Martinique to the French song.
In 1947, Henri Salvador released his first single, Maladie d’Amour(Love sick), a traditional Creole song. In 1949, he received the Great Prize of the Academy Charles Cros & played at the ABC, a Parisian music-hall. There he met Jacqueline, his first wife & agent, who would prove instrumental to Salvador’s career. The same year, he released Une Chanson Douce (A sweet song) that became a classic in France and all over Europe. Helped by his close friend and French songwriter Boris Vian, with whom he teamed up in the early ‘50s Henri Salvador wrote 400 popular French songs such as “Le Blouse Du Dentiste” (the dentist’s coat) and “Faut Rigoler” (You Gotta Laugh), a West Indian beguine. In 1964, he created his own label Rigolo, with songs like Zorro Est Arrivé, Syracuse, (his best-known International song), Le Travail C’est La Sante (Work is good health) and Juanita Banana. In 1988, he was made Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, highest honor in France (comparable to knighthood), at the hand then President of France François Mitterrand.
Starting in the 1960s Salvador concentrated on television work. The French singer, previously more frequently heard than seen, quickly realized the power that visual accompaniment added to a song. His inspiration was not at first television but a French jukebox. In a 2005 interview, Salvador reminisced: “There was a company, Scopitone, who put machines in every bar. For a franc you could watch a video. You’ve just had a hard day at work, you want a drink, you want to be entertained. So I made 17 films to make people laugh.” . In the 1960s Salvador had a series of novelty chart-toppers such as “Juanita Banana”, “Twist SNCF” and “Minnie Petite Souris” (Minnie the little mouse), all of them accompanied by humorous film-clips and are now easy to view on the Internet. Told that the video for Juanita Banana was now on YouTube, Salvador was delighted and said he’d watch it as soon as he got home.
The Scopitone was a “Film Jukebox” invented in France in the early 1960’s made from surplus World War II airplane parts. The films that played on, known also by the name Scopitone, as considered by many to be the precursors of today’s music videos. That is why some people credit Henri Salvador to be the father of the music video, not only in France but all over the world as the form caught on.
In the 1970s another Salvador song would sweep the planet without the French singer’s participation and introduced to the American pre-K generation to a very popular French song. Salvador’s 1968 hit Mais non mais non was chanted by the Muppets on Sesame Street as Mahna Mahna. The 70s also saw Frenchman Salvador expand his fan base in France with a spate of children’s albums, including the French-language soundtracks of Disney’s “The Aristocats” and “Robin Hood.”
Henri Salvador never quit, and his popularity in France elsewhere never waned. Chambre Avec Vu (Room with a View), his album released in France in 2001 (when Salvador was 84) after a writing hiatus of six years, featured all-new material and dominated the Victories de la Musique award ceremonies, winning an award as “best variety album of the year” and earning Salvador the title of “best male artist of the year.” The Brazilian-influenced album, full of Salvador’s signature bossa-nova rhythms, was released in North America in 2005 and introduced many new listeners to Henri Salvador and his songs of France.
In 2006, Salvador came back again with another album, Révérence. Salvador left France to make this album, which would be his last, in Brazil, with songs recorded in Rio with Brazilian legends Caetano Veloso & Gilberto Gil.
Salvador was deeply influenced by the women in his life. His first wife, Jacqueline, who was also his manager, died of cancer in 1976. She played an essential role in his education. “When we got married, I didn’t know anything about anything,” he said. “I had no education. She taught me everything. She knew all about French literature. She showed me what books to read.” Salvador married for the third time, in December 2001, to TV producer Catherine Costa, who survives him.
Salvador put his longevity down to an innately sunny temperament. “When you are a little baby, everything is beautiful. Luckily with me that never changed,” Henri Salvador’s last farewell concert took place in December 2007 at Paris’ Palais Des Congrès. “We must know how to leave” he said. Many in the audience did not believe him, as Salvador had already announced his final concert at Paris’ Palais Des Congrès once before…in autumn 1985.
This time, however, the velvet voice of France was true to his word. His passing is being mourned all over France and the French-speaking world, not only by those who make music, but those who loved the music of Henri Salvador over more than 70 years.
France still leads Europe in cinema attendance but ticket sales slide in 2007
February 12, 2008
The US box office is not alone in taking hits to its theater attendance. In a report released on February 11, movie theater attendance in France and the European Union dipped 2.2% last year, with 910 million total tickets sold, compared with 931 million in 2006.
Admissions were higher than the 899 million recorded in 2005, but down sharply from 2004, which was a very good year for movies in France and in Europe, with total of 1 billion viewers, according to data released by l’Observatoire European de l’audiovisuel (the European Audiovisual Observatory).
Movie ticket sales suffered malaise in France, where they were down 5.6%. However, France, a pioneer of the industry since the early days of cinema, still leads the rest of Europe in movie attendance, bringing 178 million viewers into its theatres. And the 2007 decline in film attendance France was not as steep as that reported for other European countries.
Among the other major territories whose movie admissions slumped in 2007 were Germany (down 8.2%) and Spain (down 7.7%) Some new EU states also took hits in movie attendance, such as Hungary (down 13.8%) and Slovakia (down 19.9%).
However, other territories mitigated the overall average. For example, Italy saw its admissions rise 12.3%, the biggest growth in 20 years, and in the U.K., admissions were up 3.7%. A few new EU countries also saw a boost in attendance, most spectacularly in Lithuania, where admissions shot up 34% from 2.4 million to 3.2 million.
While overall ticket sales shrunk in 2007, domestic production performed well in many of the markets. However, France, long admired both at home and abroad for its films, was left out of this love-fest with local movies. Market share for French-produced movies dropped 8.1 % in France in 2007. Local films also tanked in Germany (down 6.9%), Hungary (down 5.8%). All of these countries saw overall admissions declines.
Other countries in Europe fared better. Compared with 2006, market share for local films grew in 11 of the 17 EU countries for which data is available. Local fare performed especially well in the U.K., Italy, the Czech Republic and Poland in 2007, where market share for local films climbed 8%, 7.2%, 5.1% and 8.8%, respectively. All four territories saw overall admissions rise, and observers say that local films’ popularity was largely responsible for this.
Just outside the European Union, results were mixed. The Russian market grew 16 % (107 million admissions). But attendance was down in Norway (-10.4%), Switzerland(-12.5%) and Turkey (-10.7%).
In a separate study, Belgian cinema operator Kinepolis reported last month that ticket sales at its theaters fell 3.4 percent in 2007 because of a warm spring and fewer international blockbusters.
Visitor numbers to Kinepolis theaters across Europe dropped to 22 million last year as sunny spring weather and what it called a less attractive range of films until May failed to draw customers.
The company reported that November turned out much worse than expected, notably in France, citing a lack of obvious blockbusters in December.
Kinepolis, which operates cinemas in Belgium, France, Spain and Switzerland, said in November that ticket sales in the first 10 months of last year were down 1.9 % and that in the disastrous last quarter of 2007, visitor numbers dropped 7.7 %. Ticket sales in French-speaking Belgium and France were well below year-ago levels when popular movies such as “Casino Royale” and “Happy Feet” came out.
However, the company expressed some optimism about the next few months of 2008 in France and its other markets, citing the release of “Asterix and Obelix”, “10,000 BC”, “Indiana Jones 4″, “Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian”, “The Mummy 3″, the next Bond movie and the sixth installment of Harry Potter. However, it should be noted that only one of these films is produced in France, or indeed, anywhere in Europe.
According to a global survey of consumers in France and two other European cities as well as in the US, the global decline in movie theater attendance is not a result of unappealing content, as is often assumed, but rather reflects a dissatisfaction with the movie-going experience and increasing competition for the consumer’s share of time and money. The survey, conducted by PA Consulting Group and the Motion Picture Association of America, also revealed that while consumer-spending habits will not undergo any fundamental changes over the next five years, movie attendance and home entertainment sales, including the sales of DVDs, will decline as entertainment options increase.
Court in France to Ryanair: Pay Sarkozy and Bruni
February 12, 2008
President Nicolas Sarkozy and his new wife, Carla Bruni, have won their lawsuit against low-cost airline Ryanair. A court in France ordered the Irish airline, known for its outrageous and irreverent advertising, to pay slightly less than $90,000 in damages over a French newspaper ad for the airline showing a photo of Sarkozy and Bruni.
Sarkozy and Bruni filed separate lawsuits that were heard together in a court session in Paris, seeking damages for the airline’s unauthorized use of the image for commercial purposes. The image was one that had already been seen all over France in magazines and newspapers, all of which had been breathlessly reporting on the courtship of the recently-divorced President of France and the beautiful Italian, Carla Bruni.
Bruni, a former model turned singer, was awarded nearly $89,000 by the French court. She had demanded that Ryanair pay more than $741,000 in damages. Sarkozy asked for a symbolic one euro, which the French court granted.
A lawyer for the couple, who said his side was satisfied with the ruling, revealed that model and singer Bruni would donate her court awarded money damages to Restos du Coeur — a well-known network of restaurants and soup kitchens that help feed the homeless in France.
A spokesman for Ryanair agreed that the case had been “settled satisfactorily,” and that his company offered to match the award of the French court and donate another $89,000 to a charity of Sarkozy’s choice. He said the company was willing to make this gesture because of all the extra free publicity in France and the rest of Europe prompted by the advertisement and the ensuing legal wrangling.
The ad ran in the French daily Le Parisien newspaper, seen all over France, on Jan. 28. The couple’s sense-of-humor deficit over the ad may have had a lot to do with timing: it came out about a week before the couple’s “secret” wedding in France and when they were still keeping mum about any wedding plans. The ad shows a romantic photo of Sarkozy and Bruni gazing dreamily into space, with a thought balloon over Bruni’s head that reads, “With Ryanair, my whole family will be able to attend my wedding.” Ryanair is a low-cost airline known for its extreme promotions, such as 1-euro fares to and from France and elsewhere in Europe. Other cut-rate airlines with a similar business model such as EasyJet also use “in-your-face” ads to get attention.
Ryanair’s spokesman revealed that the company had sent a written apology in late January to the president of France, vowing not to re-run the ad, with an offer to donate about $7,400 to his favorite charity. The airline’s spokesman said Ryanair had made Bruni similar offer. But while the company agreed that it owed the couple something, especially in view of all the free publicity it has received, it rejected Bruni’s demand for more than $741,000 as over the top. Apparently the court in France agreed.
While the Sarkozy-Bruni romance may have been good for the image of Ryanair, it has not done much for the president of France, whose poll numbers have slipped to an all-time low. Many in France believe his fall from his pedestal is in large part due to the view in France that Sarkozy is more interested in his love life with Italian-born singer Bruni than in fulfilling his campaign promises to the people of France.
Air travelers in France suffer another strike this week
February 11, 2008
They may help the planes keep moving in and out of France, but many air traffic controllers in Paris don’t want to move themselves. This is the dispute behind the latest Paris air traffic controllers’ action this week. The Paris airport workers a began a pre-planned five-day strike on Monday, causing flight delays, cancellations, and the usual round of human misery, accusations and disgruntlement that are part and parcel of recurring transport strikes in France.
About half of flights at Orly, Paris’ southern airport were canceled, France’s civil aviation authority said. They specified that only flights inside France were called off entirely. International flights and trips to France’s overseas territories still took off, with delays of about one hour. Such delays are usual in France, so many international travelers in and out of Paris on Monday probably did not notice much of a difference.
Things were slightly better for travelers at Charles de Gaulle airport, the bigger and busier of the two Paris airports and the main entry point into France. Travelers here faced delays but no cancellations. This, however, seems due to change tomorrow.
Both airports are owned and operated by Aeroports de Paris.
Air traffic controllers at Charles de Gaulle, also known as Roissy, were probably more sanguine as the issue over which the strike was called affects them less, at least right now, than the workers at Orly. The dispute is over a plan to move Orly controllers to Roissy before regrouping all Paris air traffic controllers on one site near Paris in 2015.
The CGT union, which represents a majority of air traffic controllers in the Paris airports, plans to continue the strike through Friday, saying that up to 50 percent of flights could be cancelled between Monday and Friday at Orly airport while 20-40 percent could be cancelled between Tuesday and Wednesday at Roissy. The more moderate CFDT union withdrew plans for similar
action after talks with the DGAC.
“The conflict is really about security, from moving Orly to Roissy before doing better afterwards,” said Philippe Lohat, national secretary of the CGT’s air traffic branch. “The air control authorities are trying to change the way air traffic control works but no-one believes in it. The biggest ever European study invalidates it,” said Jean-Paul Armango, a member of CGT’s air traffic branch.
The sentiment does not extend to controllers all over France. For its part, the SNCTA, majority trade union of the controllers at the national level in France, did not join the movement and supports “the necessary reorganization of air control in Paris area”. The trade union also considers “that the call to block the air traffic during school holidays for the specified reasons is a disproportionate and incomprehensible action”. The DGAC says it’s ready to discuss the methods of the reorganization and its practical consequences for Paris controllers and travelers in France.
The CGT denounced in particular the methods of reorganization of air traffic controllers in Paris area over the next seven years, which would see the eventual regrouping of all Orly, Roissy and Athis-Mons controllers at the latter site, in Essonne, a suburb of Paris. The CGT took particular umbrage over the conditions under which the Civil Aviation Authority of France wishes to test this regrouping during off-peak traffic periods.
In an official statement diffused Monday, the national Federation of Merchant Aviation (FNAM, principal employers’ organization of the air sector) declared that this strike generates “intolerable nuisances for the customers of the airline companies whose voyages are delayed or even cancelled”. FNAM considers this conflict “disproportionate, with regard to the consequences for customers, the airlines’ business and employment, in particular for those based with Orly”, and called for the resumption of dialogue between the parties.
This strike is only the latest in a series of industrial actions to hit Paris air traffic.
In October, Air France cabin crew went on strike for five days over pay and conditions, stranding thousands of travelers during a French public holiday and school holidays in France. In December and January, more strikes by Air France ground crew forced some flights to be cancelled.