Auvergne

Three chefs in France gain prized Michelin 3-star label

Three restaurants have joined the Hall of Fame of French gastronomy by winning three stars in the latest Michelin Red Guide — a reward one chef found easy to describe: “This is joy.”

Jean-Michel Lorain, 45, said Thursday he regards his three stars as a vindication for his family-owned restaurant on the edge of the Burgundy region southeast of Paris.

The restaurant, La Cote Saint Jacques, was demoted to two-star status in 2001 during a major renovation program that forced the chef to spend too many hours out of the kitchen.

The other two restaurants to move into the three-star club are L’Esperance in Saint Pere-sous-Vezelay and Loges de l’Augergade in southwestern Puymerol.

Effort to ban head scarves in France sets off culture clash

On the surface, the new law is aimed at protecting France’s secular culture and the strict division between church and state. But the public debate has spread to much broader issues including immigration, women’s rights, education and concerns about Islamic fundamentalism. “This issue over the veil has become a flash point for so many tensions,” said Sharon Gracen, head of the Office of the Congregation at the American Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Paris.

France draws EU's ire

In an effort to crack down on governments that hand lucrative contracts to domestic companies, the European Commission is about to take France to the European Court of Justice for failing to apply EU laws ensuring transparency and fair competition for all government contracts.

According to a copy of a statement due for release on Wednesday, the commission will also formally warn Italy that it may face similar legal action unless it stops handing helicopter contracts to the local manufacturer Agusta without inviting competitors to bid.

Why France values its religious neutrality

With France on the verge of passing a law that would prevent Muslim girls from wearing their head scarves in class, Americans are asking why the French are so attached to secularism.

I always want to respond to this question by asking another, a version of one asked by Montesquieu nearly three centuries ago: How can one be French?

Our uneasiness about head scarves and other religious symbols in schools is a result of our long, often painful history. If we bow to demands to allow the practice of religion in state institutions, we will put France’s identity in peril.

Chirac sinks deeper into mire of scandal

President Jacques Chirac was fighting last night to regain control of a fast unravelling scandal encircling his political power base.

M Chirac seized charge of an inquiry into alleged telephone taps, break-ins and violent threats against judges investigating Alain Juppé, the former prime minister and his heir apparent, convicted on Friday of organising illegal party funding.

The extraordinary intervention came the day after the justice ministry announced it would investigate the allegations.

His gazumping of his own ministry indicates the seriousness with which he is taking the insinuation that he or his allies tried to pressure the judges in the Juppé case.

Fallout from Juppe's conviction

Following Friday’s guilty verdict against former French Prime Minister Alain Juppe, France’s Le Monde has no doubt about the ruling’s wider political implications.

The paper concedes that Juppe was sentenced for his own role in the illegal funding of the RPR party in the 1980s and 1990s.

“But beyond the man,” it says, “it is a system that was condemned. A system from which Jacques Chirac – then RPR president and mayor of Paris – benefited.”

Metro Launches Fifth Edition in France

The new edition in Lille follows the launch two weeks ago of the 30th edition of Metro in the French city of Toulouse and further consolidates Metro’s position as the second largest national newspaper in France. 500,000 copies of Metro are now distributed each morning in France’s 5 largest cities – Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse and Lille, which have a combined population of 14 million. The French advertising market is the third largest in Europe and is estimated to have generated net newspaper advertising spend of US$ 1.4 billion in 2003. Metro France will now attract over 1.6 million daily readers.