A la française

Apparently, France is great for Haute Couture but speaking French is not so glamour to some American politicians… A few days ago, a video posted by a liberal political-action committee called AmericanLP, featured Mitt Romney showing off his foreign language skills in a promotional video for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. The Wall Street Journal writes: “The Republicans openly mocked Kerry because he spoke French and even looked ...

The idea may sound weird but it comes from Atos, an international information technology services company with annual 2010 pro forma revenues of EUR 8.6 billion and 74,000 employees in 42 countries. So the idea may not be weird after all. Here is what CNN wrote on the topic: To office workers everywhere struggling to stem the tide of messages filling their inbox, it probably sounds too good to be true. But a French tech company wants to make it a reality. ...

Last week, we read a great article by Amy Wilentz published on the New York Times: France Nouveau. She has done a terrific job of putting together a nuanced and lively portrait of Marseille; no cliché here (much appreciated) but real life encounters to describe the way of life in Marseille. Here are few lines from the article: In Marseille’s small airport, you buy a 1 euro cup of machine coffee and you get on a plane headed for Paris or home, your ...

Another C’est la Vie in France related to religion. After Charlie Hebdo burned out by petrol bomb attack two weeks ago, now (although it happened last month) this is about Catholic fundamentalists gathering outside a Parisian theatre, to protest against a play featuring the face of Christ allegedly covered with fake excrement. France24 writes: For the past week, throngs of Catholic fundamentalists have been brandishing crosses, chanting in Latin, ...

This news was barely mentioned in France but we read it on the website of the BBC: France has laid claim to a 17th Century painting currently being displayed by a London gallery at an art fair in Paris. We were very intrigued by this story and we wanted to read more about it… From the article on BBC website: The Carrying of the Cross by the French master Nicolas Tournier was bought last year for 400,000 euros ($550,000) by the Weiss Gallery of ...

Earlier this morning, the Paris offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo have been destroyed by fire, by a petrol bomb attack causing extensive damage. Many strong reactions followed the attack, from French authorities but also from the French press claiming the bombing of the Charlie Hebdo offices should make everyone stand up for freedom of expression. French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said: ‘Freedom of expression is an inalienable ...

This week a story caught our attention: the story of an American immigrant in France who has been in the country for six years, rent an apartment in central Paris, have always worked and paid her taxes until she was sent a deportation letter, an « obligation to leave French territory within one month »… Selected sentences from the English version of the article posted on French News website Rue89: After graduating, I was offered a position in ...

About 2.2 million of 2.7 million French primary voters have chosen François Hollande to lead the opposition Socialist Party (PS) against conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2012 presidential election. The former PS General Secretary is often described as affable and witty, but he has always been  a low key politician, he’s virtually unknown outside France and has never held a position in government. The former Socialist presidential ...

Not everyone in the Sama Team lives in Paris, on the contrary. But some of us know the city quite well or at least they think they do. Reading Lost in Paris article by Matt Gross made us realize it is very different to visit the city once in a while, and to actually live in the place. Matt Gross, the former Frugal Traveler, is writing a book about independent travel, to be published by Da Capo Press. And he loves Paris since he met his wife Jean 13 years ...

Jules Hoffmann and Bruce Beutler jointly won the 2011 Nobel Prize in Medicine with cell biologist Ralph Steinmann. Hoffmann is a French citizen native of Luxembourg, CNRS senior researcher emeritus and professor at the university of Strasbourg. The CNRS press release: Jules Hoffmann has dedicated his works to the study of genetic and molecular mechanisms responsible for innate immunity in insects. His numerous findings have provided new insights into the ...