France

Gideon Rachman Restocking the Elysée’s wine cellar

May 1, 2013 3:36 pm by Gideon Rachman
(Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP/Getty)

(Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP/Getty)

About ten years ago I visited Chateau Margaux in Bordeaux. Paul Pontallier, the chief winemaker there, told me that prices for the most sought-after red Bordeauxs had already reached such stratospheric levels that it had become almost embarrassing. “My friends can’t afford to buy Margaux,” he lamented. Since then, it’s got even worse. Now it seems that even the president of France cannot afford to drink the top clarets. The Elysée has just announced that it will sell off about 10% of the presidential wine collection – and restock the cellars with cheaper wines.

It is an understandable decision. I don’t know if there will be any Margaux sold at auction, but I see that a bottle of Margaux 2000 now goes for about £700 (€825). The auction will also apparently include some Petrus 1990, which the FT this morning reckoned would go for €2,200 a bottle. (Actually my research suggests that would be a bargain and that the market price is now closer to €3,000).

But it is important that the restocking exercise should be carried out carefully. That is because a stellar cellar can be a genuine diplomatic asset. There are diplomats who attribute Britain’s success, in persuading France to make the fatal decision to reverse its opposition to British membership of the European Economic Community (now the EU), back in the 1970s, to the magnificence of the wines that Sir Christopher Soames – the then British ambassador to Paris – poured down the throats of key French decision-makers. Read more

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Posted in France |
From FT.com January 1, 1970

By Gideon Rachman

Is France on the brink of revolution? Is President François Hollande in danger of being dragged to the guillotine? These sound like silly questions. In fact, they are silly questions. Yet talk of a new revolution is surprisingly common in France these days. This week’s edition of Le Point, a leading news weekly, asks on its cover, “Are we in 1789?”, and illustrates the question with a picture of Mr Hollande, dressed up as Louis XVI, the hapless monarch executed by the revolutionaries. Even academics are making the comparison. Dominique Moïsi, a visiting professor at the University of London, has argued that the president “looks ever more like a modern Louis XVI” and that France is in the grip of a “regime crisis”. Read more

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Posted in Europe, France, French politics |

Esther Bintliff Revealed: the wealth of France’s socialists and their secret love of Renaults

April 16, 2013 2:47 pm by Esther Bintliff

Liberty Leading the People, Eugène Delacroix [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

There’s nowhere left to hide! The champagne socialists have been outed, their secret extravagance and hypocritical lives of luxury exposed once and for all!

At least, that’s what critics of François Hollande’s government must have been hoping.

What actually emerged from the enforced declaration of assets by French cabinet ministers on Monday was somewhat less exciting.

Ok, so there are a few millionaires – foreign minister Laurent Fabius is officially the cabinet’s richest member, with assets of around €6m; minister for the elderly Michèle Delaunay has about €5.4m, including two houses and €15,000 in jewellery.

And yes, Arnaud Montebourg, that famous leftwing fireband, owns an Eames chair that he bought for €4,300. But who said socialists weren’t allowed to covet icons of modern design?

You can peruse the documents yourself, minister by minister, on a special website courtesy of the French government. We found the section marked: “Véhicules terrestres à moteur, bateaux, avions, etc.” of particular interest. From it, we have learned the following.

Clio Expression Eco - 94g/km CO2 (image courtesy Renault)

This is the most popular car in the French cabinet

1) This is not a cabinet of petrolheads or luxury car enthusiasts. With a few exceptions, these ministers like cars that are French-made, sensible, easy to park, and inexpensive. Thus, the most popular car in the French cabinet is the Renault Clio, a vehicle described by WhatCar magazine as a “chic supermini [that] offers low running costs”.

2) Most, though not all, are patriotic in their car-buying. We counted 4 Citroens, 9 Peugeots, and no fewer than 19 Renaults. Of the Renaults, after the Clio, the Twingo and the Megane were particularly favoured. Only a few ministers broke from French brand names – including minister of defence, Jean Yves Le Drian, whose cars include a Suzuki Wagon R from July 2004 and a Lancia Ypsilon from 2012. Read more

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Posted in France, French politics |

Gideon Rachman What Thatcher got right about the euro

April 14, 2013 8:49 pm by Gideon Rachman

In the week of Margaret Thatcher’s funeral – and with the euro-crisis bubbling along – it is interesting to take a look back at what Thatcher had to say about the single currency. Much of the commentary since her death has portrayed Thatcher’s views on Europe as irrational and backward-looking. For example, Anne-Marie Slaughter in the FT, wrote that “her attitude to Europe was a throwback to the 19th century”. For good measure, Prof Slaughter adds that Thatcher’s views were “deeply anachronistic and dangerous”. Of course, there was a strong element of emotion in Thatcher’s views of Europe. So what? It is more interesting to note that she also made some quite precise criticisms of the European single currency that look increasingly prescient, as time wears on. Read more

Posted in Britain, Europe, Financial crisis, France, Germany, Greece, Italy |

Hollande’s camel: one hump or two?

April 9, 2013 6:28 pm by Hugh Carnegy

A camel (Abid Katib/Getty)

Some good news at last for François Hollande, mired in a furious scandal over a former minister’s secret Swiss bank account: a new camel is on the way from Mali.

In a dispatch worthy of Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop, Reuters reported from Bamako on Tuesday that Malian authorities planned to send a replacement to Paris for the camel presented to Mr Hollande in grateful thanks for France’s military intervention in Mali when he visited the country in February.

The first animal, defence minister Yves Le Drian reported earlier in the week, was killed and eaten by the family Mr Hollande had left it with in Timbuktu.

The president, who before winning the Elysée Palace liked to buzz around Paris on his three-wheeled scooter, joked at the time that the camel would come in handy for getting about the congested capital. But the complicated logistics of shipping the beast back to France apparently led to the decision to entrust it instead to a local family – who promptly made it into stew.

Reuters reported that an official in northern Mali said:

“As soon as we heard of this, we quickly replaced it with a bigger and better-looking camel.

“The new camel will be sent to Paris. We are ashamed of what happened to the camel. It was a present and it did not deserve this fate.”

 Read more

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Posted in Foreign affairs, France |

Gideon Rachman Hollande and anti-austerity rhetoric

February 21, 2013 6:40 pm by Gideon Rachman
French President Francois Hollande after a press conference with Greece's Prime Minister Antonis Samaras on February 19 (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis, Pool)

(AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis, Pool)

Listening to François Hollande’s comments on his flying visit to Greece earlier this week was like hearing a reprise of his electoral campaign, in which he promised to lead a European-wide fight against austerity.

In Athens, Hollande praised the Greek government and said that, for Greece – “The next phase is one of growth and creating jobs, not more sacrifices.” Sadly, although there are signs that private-sector investment in Greece is picking up, there is also certainly more austerity and more job cuts to come, in the public sector.

President Hollande was only in Athens briefly, and so is hardly likely to be held to account for his remarks in Greece. What is more problematic is that the latest figures suggest that he will be unable to hold off the drive for more austerity back home in France. Economic growth is down and the French economy may even shrink in 2013 – compared to the Hollande administration’s initial projection of growth of 0.8%. Partly as a result, France is going to miss its target of getting the country’s deficit below the EU-mandated 3%. Read more

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Posted in France, Greece |

James Blitz Was France right to intervene in Mali?

January 17, 2013 10:57 am by James Blitz
A French army officer stands guard on January 16, 2013 while Malian president welcomes service at the military airbase in Bamako (ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP/Getty Images)

A French army officer stands guard on January 16, 2013 at the military airbase in Bamako (ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP/Getty Images)

How justified was France’s decision to intervene in Mali and seek to thwart the advance of the Islamist militants inside the country?

Nearly one week after President François Hollande ordered military action, the question is one which is beginning to reverberate in media commentary. The French have been clear that they need to go into Mali to stop the spread of an al-Qaeda linked movement that has a significant foothold in the country and might ultimately threaten the west. But some figures in the US administration clearly have doubts about the wisdom of the move.

The biggest concerns have been raised in an article in Thursday’s New York Times. The NYT says US officials have only an “impressionistic understanding” of the militant groups that have established a safe haven in Mali. It suggests that some US officials wonder how much of an external threat they pose. The NYT quotes Johnnie Carson, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, who last June played down the terrorist threat to the United States from Mali. He said that the al-Qaeda affiliate operating there “has not demonstrated the capability to threaten U.S. interests outside of West or North Africa, and it has not threatened to attack the U.S. homeland.” Read more

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Posted in Africa, France, Mali |

FT podcast: World Weekly with Gideon Rachman

January 16, 2013 10:45 pm by Financial Times

The French intervention in Mali

Why has France intervened militarily in Mali and what is at stake? William Wallis, Africa editor; Hugh Carnegy, Paris bureau chief, and Xan Rice, FT correspondent in west Africa, join Gideon Rachman. Read more

Posted in Africa, France, Mali |

Gideon Rachman The threat of a quagmire in Mali

January 16, 2013 9:09 pm by Gideon Rachman

Getty images

I just did a quick Google search to see if the French are already talking of Mali as a potential quagmire and – yes indeed – there are several pages worth of references to “le bourbier Malien” (bourbier being the evocative French word for quagmire.)

It is easy to see why they are worried. The early air strikes have already given way to military action on the ground. As Hugh Carnegy, our Paris bureau chief explained to me for my World Weekly podcast, the French have a three-stage strategy. First, stop the rebel advance. Second, re-take the north of the country. Third, leave behind a stable country. Read more

Posted in Africa, France, Mali |
From FT.com December 17, 2012

By Gideon Rachman

Everybody agrees that economic and political power is moving east. Barack Obama has constructed a whole new foreign policy around this theory – the “pivot to Asia”. But, as I assemble my annual list of the five most important events of the year, it is striking how events in Europe and the Middle East still dominate. Read more

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Posted in Asia, China, Europe, Financial crisis, France, French politics, Middle East, Syria, US election, World affairs |
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