I Heard the (French) News Today
The recently elected Président Emmanuel Macron has vowed to reform French institutions. In his sights are the Cheminots, railway workers. For a number of years, the SNCF, the French railway network was the envy of Europe, and everybody was happy, workers and passengers. It seems that things have been going downhill lately though. Macron is using this as the reason for confronting the CGT, the powerful union of rail-workers, in a move
reminiscent of the Thatcher vs The Miners of the seventies. Thatcher won, but will it be Macron’s Waterloo? The workers from many sectors are on strike, or plan to be, but it is the cheminots who are striking two days a week until June who will have the greatest impact. Trains are hardly running, and when they
do, they often run empty. Macron’s friends are pleased because yesterday there was a 33.9% of strikers and today this figure has fallen to 29.7. They are banking g on the momentum fizzling out.
The other big story in France is the death of its national treasure, its own Elvis, Johnny Halliday, and the fight over his inheritance. He was once
married to Sylvie Vartan, and some years ago he married one Laeticia. Boudou. He has two grown up children, Laura Smet, whose mother is Nathalie Baye, and David Halliday. His latest union produced two more offsprings. According to guesstimates, he left an estate worth about $100 million. The Press and Media in France have presented Laeticia as some kind of Lady Macbeth. When Halliday’s will was read, it was found that he left not one centime to his older children, Laura and David, and everything to Laeticia. According to French law, this is not admissible, and Halliday was French. But the “Clan Boudou”, as her father and siblings are referred to, have pointed out that he had houses in the US, so US laws should apply. But again, the case is being heard in French courts.
No story about France can be complete without a mention to the best thing they gave to the world: la baguette. In a Carrefour supermarket, a shopper
caught some cute little rodents on the bread racks, blithely testing the
products of the bakery before being put on sale.
Allons enfants de la patrieeeeee…
