Charlie Hebdo cartoon enrages French Catholics and so much the better

Happy Family snapshot

Oh dear, the Catholic Church and its followers are NOT happy bunnies today, and it's all the fault of that nasty horrid little Charlie Hebdo who has been picking on them again.

The impudent French satirical mag has been a bad boy yet again by placing a truculent cartoon on the front page of its latest issue. It depicts 'The Father' with 'The Son' euhhh, 'behind' it, and "The Holy Ghost" sticking out of bringing up the rear. The caption reads "Cardinal Vingt-Trois has Three Fathers." It has been condemned by church leaders and followers alike and France's Catholic Twitterati has been working overtime with anger.

But why has Charlie Hebdo published the cartoon? Because leading French Catholics such as bishops and cardinals have been waging a viciously homophobic campaign against the government's plans to legalise same-sex marriage, that's why.

Cardinal Vingt-Trois ('vingt-trois means 23 in English) has been at the helm of the campaign, which has seen various church leaders assimilate homosexuality and same-sex marriage to incest, pedophilia, polygamy and other crimes. Not only are they infamous and deliberately inflammatory comparisons to make, they are dangerously wrong.

Cardinal 23 has said that same-sex marriage would represent "the marriage of a few imposed upon all." He is wrong. Nobody is imposing anything on anyone, the idea is to give people the freedom to live how they wish.

Cardinal 23 says that the church respects "the sexual reality of human existence." He, and the church, are wrong. The reality of human sexuality is that homosexuality has always existed and is thus a part of human reality.

Cardinal 23 says that "to impose within marriage and the family a vision of man without recognising sexual difference would be a deceptive sham which would shake the foundations of our society and impose discrimination between children." He is wrong. Again, society does recognise the existence of sexual difference and that's precisely why same-sex marriage is being envisaged. But - and ironically - he is right about children because given his views he evidently has no difficulty in discriminating between children and adults who are not what he thinks they should be. For him and others of his ilk some are good/saved and others are bad/lost.

Cardinal 23 bemoans the absence of a national debate on the matter. Wrong again. This issue has been debated by governments, the press and the people for at least 40 years and the result is that the majority of French citizens now support same-sex marriage, which has been a long-standing demand articulated by large sections of the public.

Cardinal 23 is not only anti-homosexual and same-sex marriage, he is anti-abortion, artificial insemination, stem cell research and more and calls them pagan, sectarian and atheist practices.

His list of accusations and condemnation is long and many other church leaders support him.

There is nothing wrong with the Cardinal expressing his point of view of course, that's his right. On the other hand he and his henchmen have sparked off an ugly public debate and the Catholic Church is de facto trying to influence a secular government. There's nothing wrong with that either. After all, all is fair in love and war.

What is wrong however is to expect the rest of society to refrain from riposting. The church has deliberately picked a fight with society and it is beginning to realise that society is fighting back, hence Charlie Hebdo's cartoon. There's nothing blasphemous about it, at least not in a free country. It insults religion? So what? He and his crew have spent centuries insulting the preferences of real human beings, not just a belief.

Besides, given the well-documented history of widespread pedophelia within the Catholic Church it should not be throwing stones from it's glass house and it has no lessons to give anyone.

The fact is that the Catholic Church is getting a well-deserved dose of its own medecine. Besides, Charlie Hebdo's cartoon is a very mild, almost placebo, criticism of the church compared to the church's own putrid and degenerate slander and slurs which, may I repeat, assimilate homosexuality and same-sex marriage to incest, pedophilia and polygamy.


The Catholic Church should be grateful that Charlie Hebdo has not printed a cartoon of a priest being fellated by a choirboy. That has happened before, and the church may now consider itself warned that if its despicable stigmatisation of people's sexual preferences continues it may well find itself being reminded yet again of its age-old rank hypocrisy and double standards in the matter.

Houlala ! Ashley Madison makes extra-marital waves in France

Danielle, Bernadette, Carla and Valérie will appreciate...

You would have thought that an Internet site which sells offers of adultery would be surplus to requirements in France given the long-standing reputation of the French for indulging in extra-marital affairs, but Noel Biderman, CEO of adultery hookup site Ashley Madison thinks otherwise, which is why he recently launched a French language version and has invested in a controversial publicity campaign in France to help it get off the ground.

Described by Wikipedia as 'an online dating service and social network service marketed primarily to people who are already in a relationship', the site's English language pages for the French market go further, proudly claiming that Ashley Madison 'is the most successful website for finding an affair and cheating partners. Have an Affair today on Ashley Madison. Thousands of cheating wives and cheating husbands signup everyday looking for an affair.'

Biderman opened his American site in 2001 but hesitated for a long time before investing in France, reasoning that whereas America offered fertile ground for his services given the relatively strict adherence to faithfulness which makes having an affair difficult there, the French had no such qualms and as such didn't want or need him. 

He changed his mind however after he became aware that there had been 850,000 hits on the U.S. site by people living in France in just 12 months. It was time for him to swing into action.

So he put the French site online at the end of last month and embarked on a boisterous publicity campaign. But the campaign soon stalled because his first ad poster - which depicted the last four French presidents with adultery-betraying lipstick marks on their faces - was boycotted by poster advertising companies who presumably feared the possibility of a legal backlash for slander, even though all four men are or were known to be notorious womanisers. It was only put up on two hoardings in Paris.

But those two hoardings were enough to earn Biderman's outfit a massive boost from the French press when they got wind of the story, whereupon they splashed it all over their front pages. 

Even better news followed when he launched, or tried to launch, his promotional TV video. It showed a man and a woman exchanging languorous and lascivious regards and kissing each other while a voice-off announces softly that "this woman has a husband, but it isn't him."

French publicity watchdogs went ballistic and instantly banned it on the grounds that "the explicit reference to marital links contained in the allegation 'this woman has a husband but it isn't him' is of a nature to shock the religious and philosophical convictions of television viewers."

This is a very curious (hypocritical?) reason for banning an ad in France given the country's professedly strong secular beliefs, and Biderman was quick to point that out, but his were only crocodile tears as he knew full well that the authorities - like the press - had done his job for him and put him back on the front pages. Mission accomplished and the site is now said to be ticking over quite nicely thank you ker-ching ker-ching.

It is too soon to say whether or not Ashley Madison France will become a major money-spinner for Biderman, and much depends on whether or not he can persuade the French that his site offers advantages over more traditional, and unique, ways of organising an extra-marital affair.

The market certainly does exist though, and a 2009 survey found that 18% of French men and 10% of French women declared themselves to be of an unfaithful nature. Biderman can also take heart from the fact that gleeden.com, a larger competitor, declared that its French clientèle were "the world champions of infidelity." The French press was only too pleased to hear it and proudly published the good news.

At the end of the day though, I'll never know how good or bad the Ashley Madison site is because as an unmarried man I am not in a position to be able to 'profit' from the site's offer.

Mind you, Biderman isn't a likely client either, or at least that's what he says. He is happily married with two children and he is also on the record as saying that not only would he "not cheat on his wife"*, he would be horrified to learn that she had used his site for the same reason....

(* But he would say that. Now wouldn't he...)

'Le piston' - or 'using your contacts to help you get what you need'

No Fripouille, not THIS kind of piston, you silly boy *sigh...*

Jobs for the boys, string-pulling, immoral, a useful networking tool, call it what you will but 'le piston' - using one's connections to find a job, an education, or help in other areas - is a reality here in France. Have I used it? Of course I have. After all, 'I am not more Royalist than the King' as the French say, and it can be very helpful when living in France, a country which doesn't always make life as easy for foreign residents as it does for French citizens, and in which most people use le piston when they feel they need to. Here are a few examples of how I have used it and how it has helped me even without me trying to exploit it.

For example, it can be very useful when dealing with France's notoriously complex labyrinth of civil service administration departments and formalities, as I found out about 20 years ago when it helped me to get out of a hopeless Catch 22-style fix.

This story happened when I was living in a small village with my then girlfriend, and I needed a document called a 'fiche d'état civil' to enable me to change my driving licence. It was a document containing details of your marital state, births and deaths. I say 'was' because it was abandoned in 2000.

Anyway, I needed one and off I went to the local Mairie to obtain it. I produced my passport to identify myself even though I was well known there seeing as my girlfriend's family had lived in the village for literally centuries. "Sorry" said the lady, "I'll need to see your birth certificate as well." "No problem" said I and drove back home, picked up my birth certificate, went back to the Mairie, and proudly placed it in front of her. There ensued the following conversation.

"But it hasn't been updated since you were born."
"Yes I know, and that's because British birth certificates only contain details of birth and the identity of parents and it isn't used to record subsequent deaths and births as is the case for its French equivalent. So it can't be updated and even if I renewed it it would contain exactly the same information as it does now."
"Well in that case I can't give you a fiche d'état civil, not now, and not in the future either."
"But how can I update my driving licence without one?"
"You can't. Sorry, but the law is the law."
"But you know who I am! I've been popping in for one thing or another for years!"
"Sorry."

And that was that. I related this story at dinner that evening to my girlfriend's family and they found a solution to my problem within seconds. "Phone Chantal" said someone, "she'll look after that for you."

'Chantal' was a family relative who just happened to be the Mayor of a large village of about 5000 inhabitants about 20 kilometres away. I phoned her the next day and she told me to pop round to her Mairie where she would personally give me a fiche d'état civil. And she did. Job sorted. Le piston oblige.

Le piston also helps when you get into trouble with the law for minor road offences, on the condition that you are friends with a gendarme. I, like most other people, have had to pay fines for speeding, illegal parking and similar offences over the years. And I always paid on the spot because I knew I was guilty and it would have been churlish to argue that I wasn't.

One day though I was booked and recieved a hefty fine for failing to stop fully on a white line at a stop junction. I didn't agree with that as I was convinced that I had stopped, if only briefly, but nor did I argue and I took my ticket politely but didn't pay on the spot. Then I telephoned a gendarme friend and explained my situation. He believed my version of events and told me not to worry. Two days later he called me back to say "I've had your fine cancelled", and that was the end of it. (As a footnote to that, I hear that this particular use of the police piston - to get fines cancelled - is harder to do these days, so don't count on it working like it used to.)

Another story involving le piston happened a long time ago when I asked an estate agent friend to help me find an apartment. My problem was that I wasn't earning much at the time and didn't have enough money for the deposit. So he found me an apartment within days and I didn't have to pay a deposit, an expensive obligation which is very difficult to get around.

Then there's the world of work. I am a translator who works within a fairly narrow range of what could be called 'niche' markets. There are few opportunities for work there but on the other hand those in this sector who need translators all know each other and I have often found business by being introduced to new clients by existing ones who recommend me. In fact this has worked so well that I don't even need to go out and prospect for new clients any more

So much for my experiences, but there are many other areas in which it works. One of them is education. If you have children and know well-placed people in local education authorities or headmasters/mistresses it is relatively easy to circumvent laws which oblige parents to send their children to schools in their catchment area, particularly in cities. So if you live in a more modest area but have high hopes for your children it is possible to to place them in better schools in better areas of a city by using your connections. That may cost more travel time for the children, but many people think it's worth it. It's the same for the better universities. Your child will still need to take an entrance exam even if you use le piston, but at least they are guaranteed to be pre-selected and to be able take it.

Graduates with well-connected parents find it easier to get good jobs, and even in less exalted jobs le piston can work wonders if you are friends with, say, the owner of a local business who has a job on offer which may suit your son or daughter's needs.

In other words, le piston is everywhere, whether we like it or not. As to the French themselves and their attitudes towards it, 88% of them thought that le piston takes priority over talent in a survey carried out 2 years ago and whereas 75% of them would use it, only 20% said they would never use it out of principle, although I suspect that many of the 20% may well have been telling little fibs.

Is it immoral? I don't intend to take firm a stance in this blog, which is just here to explain how and when it can work and has done for me, although I am inclined to think that it isn't a uniquely French phenomenon and I am convinced that it is no more prevalent here than Britain or elsewhere.

One thing's for sure though, and that is that without it I would have had a hell of a job getting my driving licence changed, I would have had to pay a heavy fine I didn't deserve, I may have ended up homeless at one time, and without it my professional life would be much more difficult than it is.

Have you had any experiences involving le piston? Is it a natural reflex or should it be condemned? My jury's out on that. What about yours?

Coffee and Cognac in Paris

I had an hour to kill before catching the TGV back to Lyon from Paris, so I sat down on a café terrace opposite the Gare de Lyon and ordered a coffee and a cognac. Bliss. It's as if they were created to be drunk together.....
A votre santé !

"Sport is the apprenticeship of fascism"

Gestapo headqua...euhh, a French school

I suppose I'd rather read that than be blind but those are the most depressing words I have read for weeks. They were spoken by a young woman who was describing her schooling, they and other, similar, opinions are from this article in online French daily Rue89, and they are symptomatic of the massive failure of the archaic self-contradictions of the French education system.

"For me, the word 'shame' is synonymous with the swimming pool." "I couldn't give a damn about sport. I thought it was stupid." "They didn't let me play rugby because I was too useless." "The sordid universe of the changing rooms at 8 in the morning."

That is the tragic reality of how the majority of French kids see sport, but it isn't the kids' fault in any way. There are always going to be some children who do not like sport of course, but the generalised loathing it inspires today is extremely worrying because it is the direct reflection of shortcomings in the way French schools are run and, on a broader scale, the pressures that society places on children.

The grand paradox of the French educational system in modern times is that it is still rooted in outdated philosophical approaches and methods of thought which were abandoned many years ago in more progressive countries. The great irony is that the teaching profession here is majoritarily left-leaning, which means that egalitarianism is theoretically espoused and the very idea of competition is an anathema, yet in practice the system is solidly structured around the very principles of soulless abnegation, the fear of failure and achievement-at-all-costs which the profession ostensibly despises. The word 'capitalism' was banned from French school books for many years because it was thought to embody a dog-eat-dog philosophy, yet at the same time teachers would (and still do) spend half their time establishing hierarchies amongst their pupils via the daily use of grades, marks out of 20, and the humiliation of those who are not 'up to standard.'

Probably the most used and abused word in French schools is 'nul' - 'useless.' 'You're useless' is thrown around like confetti by exasperated teachers who use it as a form of discipline and punishment. Children are deliberately ridiculised in front of their classmates by teachers who somehow manage to delude themselves that it will inspire them to perform better. But it doesn't, and they don't. French children are taught to keep quiet, they do not have the right to express themselves or their individuality (in the name of 'equality' maybe?) the professor is God, and woe betide any child who dares to question what he or she is being told.

And so it is with sport. Largely frowned upon by a profession which considers that it promotes unhealthily competitive must-win attitudes, it is at the same time organised in a highly competitive manner. Children are given marks for their performances, these marks count towards end-of-year results, and coming last is often seen as a sign that the child is lazy.What happens if you don't get the desired grades at the end of the year? You have to do that year again, which means your classmates move onwards and upwards while you have to stay behind and study with children a year younger than yourself. The feeling of humiliation and failure that this almost always leads to can easily be imagined. It is well-documented moreover.

It is this fundamental hypocrisy which has led to the rise of a €2 billion a year legal market for coffee tablets and other stimulants to help children keep up with the frantic pace of homework, tests, exams and studies. Depression due to the pressures of school life is rife amongst French schoolchildren, many of whom go to school with a heavy heart.

And it's not as if the pressure and hierarchical approach gets results. Contrary to what many foreigners may think or believe, the French education system and the results it obtains are regularly criticised by OECD and E.U. studies and France is either in or just above the bottom third of results obtained in crucial subjects such as French and maths. Creativity is almost non-existant and both teacher and pupil absenteeism are abnormally high.

All that said, it's not just the education system which needs a shake-up, it's society's expectations of children. They learn early on that if your breasts are too large - or too small - or if you are overweight, in other words if you don't look like the skinny models used to sell clothes in childrens' magazines you are just one notch away from being considered as a freak.

You may say that things have always been like that and you would be right, but the onus placed on French children today to succeed is far greater than anything experienced in the past, and failure, unlike before when you could, say, get an apprenticeship or lower your sights, often means long-term unemployment in a country where unemployment rates for young people are higher than in almost any other major western country except Spain.

Some children are more competitive in nature than others. There is nothing wrong with that of course, but sport, like any discipline, should not just be about winning and getting good marks. Sport should be about doing one's best and trying to improve, whatever one's level of ability. It should be about fun and cameraderie and children should be encouraged and praised, whatever the results obtained.

That's how it was for me and for me to see the very idea of sport and intellectual endeavour reduced to the point where it's only the grades which count is a damning indictment of our times. If we can no longer teach children how to play sport without it being a source of pressure, dread and depression the teaching profession and society in general are guilty of depriving children of their basic rights.

'Marie Clairegate', or how some restaurant reviewers want their meal and eat it

Photo courtesy of Aude Baron/Resto-de-Paris.com

Restaurant reviewers are like politicians in a way. We all 'know' that some of them are dishonest but it's not very often that we actually see proof of it. And that is why I was most pleased to come across this very revealing article in the Le Plus section of the Nouvel Observateur a few days ago. Written by Aude Baron, the section's Editor-in-Chief, it offers a few insider insights into how some French restaurant reviewers, including those from the well-known French women's monthly magazine Marie Claire, consider that blackmail and punishment are acceptable tools when it comes to getting a free meal in return for a good review.

But Marie Claire's strong-arm tactics were revealed for all to see when details of an email exchange earlier this month between Jean-Paul Lubot, the delegate general director of the Marie Claire press group, and Parisian restaurant owner Pierre Jancou found their way onto the 'Food Intelligence' blog.

Lubot loftily announced via his staff in his initial contact email that Jancou's restaurant, 'Vivant', had been "selected" to be featured in Marie Claire's 'Le Paris de Jean-Paul Lubot' column, and he asked if Jancou would "invite him to dinner", adding that he would be "accompanied."

He soon learned that he had bitten off more than he could chew. Jancou was having none of it and he replied in bitingly terse terms to say that never in his 24-year career in the restaurant business had he ever invited a journalist to one of his restaurants, and that he considered Lubot's way of going about his business to be "shady and fraudulent."

Lobot refused to take no for an answer however, and declared in his next email that for a restaurant reviewer to get invited by the patron to a restaurant he was reviewing was "extremely common practice."

Not chez Jancou it isn't. He refused again. Lubot's reaction?

He quite simply made sure that 'Vivant' was taken off Marie Claire's recommended restaurant list and he sent a petulantly temper tantrum email in which he asserted that "you've got no idea have you, and all you have done is to confirm the stinginess for which you are well known in the business." Charming n'est-ce pas?

Baron also writes that some reviewers openly identify themselves as such when they get to a restaurant, which of course often earns them special attention and, who knows, maybe a free meal too. She has even seen amply wined-and-dined reviewers strike a deal with restaurant owners after their meal by using the arm-twisting "if you don't make me pay I'll write about you, and if you do make me pay I'll forget you forever" tactic.

Yet another scam is that of reviewers making restaurants pay for the privilege of placing the much-sought-after (by some less scrupulous restaurant owners) 'Recommended by such-and-such a magazine/restaurant guide" stickers in their front windows, next to those of the 'we accept American Express cards' ilk.

All of these 'reviewing' methods are, of course, scandalous, and I know that a well-known review booklet here in Lyon also uses dubious methods in its restaurant ratings.

This kind of news casts a shadow over the whole of the restaurant review business in Paris and elsewhere (and yes, it is a business.) After all, who, in the light of all this, can be sure, if ever they were before, that they are reading an honest review which will help them choose where to eat? Who are the honest reviewers and who are the bad guys? And who are those restaurant owners who pay the meals of their reviewers? We won't know of course, unless their dealings become public knowledge.

While we're waiting for a more reliable system to be devised and adhered to (and that's going to be difficult) we at least know that Aude Baron has had the honest courage to denounce Marie Claire's dubious practices, and she kindly sent me some recommendations of her own of restaurant reviewers, journalists, blogs and other sources she trusts. She also runs a well-read blog on restaurants in Paris herself, Resto-de-Paris.com.

Here's her selection.

Coup de Fourchette
Chroniques du Plaisir
Chrisoscope
MrLung
and
Presque Moi

She also recommends Figaro's 'Sortir à Paris' section and their journalists Emmanuel Rubin and François Simon as well as l'Express' 'Et Toque' and 'La Soif du Miam' with their articles by Anne-Laure Pham and François Regis Gaudry.

And I have a recommendation of my own too. I haven't ever eaten there but I'll gladly visit Pierre Jancou's 'Vivant' the next time I'm up in Paris, because any owner who has the guts to resist press behemoths like Marie Claire and their 'free meal ticket' approach to reviewing deserves support and a healthy clientèle. 'Vivant', 43, rue des Petites-Écuries, Paris 10th. 0142464355.

Bon appetit !

Rockers never retire - The Gig

They say that rockers never retire, and if recent events and the photos below are anything to go by that's very true.

Music has been a major element of my life ever since I was a boy and over the years I developed into a singer-songwriter-guitarist. Today, aged 59, I can look back on hundreds of gigs, some good, some bad, as well as a few albums, and although I still do concerts very occasionally, it's just me with an acoustic, singing quieter and more reflective songs instead of the in-your-face power Britpop I used to sing with my bands.

Anyway, an old friend of mine has a son and I bought him a drum kit for his 10th birthday. That was 12 years ago, when he would come round to my place and watch my band rehearse. He loved it!

Now 22, he plays in an amateur three-piece dark metal band. Charmingly enough, he still uses some elements of the kit I bought him - toms and floor tom essentially - because he likes their rather crude sound. He says it suits their music. A couple of months ago he came round to my apartment with his guitarist who, upon seeing my guitars lying around, suggested that we sing a couple of acoustic numbers together. Sure. Beers, jamming and good fun all round.

To cut a long story short they invited me to guest for them at a private party they were giving for about 6-7 songs of my choice. I accepted, we did one six-hour rehearsal, and the evening went very well. Then they asked me to play at a gig they were doing at one of Lyon's better-known venues, so I accepted that too, although I insisted that we didn't rehearse too much because a) they are too inexperienced to stick to tight arrangements on blues-rock music, which they don't know very well, and b) because I wanted to keep the rough 'jam' edge to proceedings.

There were a lot of people at this gig and, surprisingly enough, the set went down extremely well! So well in fact that a couple of other venues whose owners were there asked us to play for them too. Good grief! They invited a near-old age pensioner?! What was supposed to be a one-off bit of fun had taken on another signfication. Wo'ever, as we say in Britain, it was a lot of fun and we were asked to stay on stage and play with some other musicians with me singing as they were doing Anglo-Saxon rock covers. Great fun it was, although I had no voice left at the end.

Here are some pix of that evening, taken by a photographer girlfriend of theirs. Enjoy.
(Please note that all her photos are copyright so please email me if you wish to use them for any reason.)

Old rocker meets young granny-eating bass player

Eat yer heart out Motorhead!

Guitarists hangin' out an' havin' fun

Bassist falls asleep on the job

"Hey sound guy, what happened to my foldback monitor!?"

Taking the worl.. euhh, Franc.. umm, I mean a rock venue by storm

Can someone tell him that you sing INTO a mike, and not next to it?

Even cleaned my shoes for the occasion

Hardly the dynamism of Aerosmith but we ARE havin' fun, honest

So there we have it. There's a kind of poetic and wheel-turns-full-circle element to this story. I mean, I offer an instrument to a kid who used to love watching me play and pestered me to let him strum my guitar strings, that inspires him to become a musician, and he ends up years later inviting the old 'un to play for him. Heartwarming stuff indeed.

Oh, and did we accept the gig offers? Yup, we did. Seems old rockers never retire.....

Have a good day everyone.