News

'Da Vinci Code' chateau has real-life tangled past

Set on a sprawling, 185-acre estate northwest of Paris, the 17th-century chateau was once home to the noble French Marshal Gen. Emmanuel de Grouchy, exiled to Philadelphia after leading Napoleon’s troops to defeat in the Battle of Waterloo.

Nearly two centuries and a host of aristocratic French owners later, American real estate mogul Olivia Hsu Decker bought the property in 1999 — four years before “The Da Vinci Code” — the book — hit the shelves.

Today, “People come with the book in hand and they literally go through each paragraph,” she said, adding that some even go so far as to recite the dialogue. Those visitors, Decker said, “don’t like being reminded” of the thin line that separates fact from fiction.

Will 'Clearstream' drown the French government?

“Watergate a la francaise,” one opposition leader calls the Clearstream affair. Named after a Luxembourg-based clearinghouse, it has all the ingredients of a political thriller: a master spy, anonymous denunciations, defence kickbacks, a smear campaign and fratricidal rivalry.

This imbroglio, which touches the heights of the French state, hints at the flavour of politics over the next 12 months, in the run-up to the presidential election.

The story originates in a judicial investigation, launched in 2001, into kickbacks, linked to the 1991 sale of six French frigates to Taiwan, that were allegedly channelled through Clearstream accounts.

Carnival of blogs # 9

Napoleon is out ? – Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the greatest Frenchmen of them all? A TV series asks the question in an ongoing series that has French people vote for the most important Frenchman or French woman. According to Joe Hanley from the Guardian, the series is based on a British series and the results are quite baffling. Who would have thoiught Napoleon, of all Frenchmen would be one of the first to get the boot?

France scraps youth job law, bowing to mass unrest

PARIS (Reuters) – French In a televised statement, Villepin said he regretted that weeks of strikes and protests showed the CPE could not be applied but gave no details about his own political future, on the line over his handling of the dispute.

President Jacques Chirac on Monday scrapped a planned youth job law that provoked weeks of protests, in a climbdown opponents celebrated as an unqualified victory.

The move was a personal blow to Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, who had championed the First Job Contract (CPE) and seen his popularity slump with the mass opposition and unrest.

Chirac to sign France's job law

But in an address to the nation, Mr Chirac promised to modify two of the law’s most controversial clauses.

He pledged to shorten from two years to one the period in which youths could be fired – and said employers would have to give a reason for the dismissal.

The law, known as the CPE, makes it easier for employers to hire and fire people under the age of 26.

It is not clear if Mr Chirac’s decision will stop the protests, says the BBC’s Caroline Wyatt in Paris.

French job law 'constitutional'

Students and trade unions have called for another one-day strike next Tuesday in a drive to get the law scrapped.

If the Constitutional Council rules the law valid, it could be put into effect at once by President Jacques Chirac.

The president is expected to address the nation soon – possibly as early as Thursday evening, correspondents say.

Universities across the country have been disrupted for weeks by protests over the First Employment Contract (CPE), which would make it easier for employers to fire workers aged under 26.

More Than a Million French Protest Law

Scattered violence erupted in Paris, and riot police used water cannons and tear gas to disperse several thousand youths who pelted them with stones and bottles after an otherwise peaceful march. More than 240 people were arrested.

Unions and the leftist opposition joined in solidarity with the angry students for the one-day strike, increasing the pressure on Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin to withdraw the measure that makes it easier to fire young workers.

Although Villepin held firm, cracks opened in his conservative government. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, in a clear break with Villepin, suggested suspending the law to allow for negotiations.

Marching backward toward the future?

THERE IS in France an honorable, romantic tradition of going into the street to protest against the government. Much of the honor and romance, however, was earned in principled stands against a colonialist war or in solidarity with the wretched of the earth. But recent demonstrations against a new law meant to open up jobs for the 22 percent of young people in France who are unemployed has little in common with the French tradition of street protest for progressive causes.

France set for strikes over jobs scheme

It will be the latest round in a battle of wills over economic reforms before next year’s presidential elections.

Businessesand commuters were warned of disruption and traffic chaos as student and union leaders said Tuesday’s show of force would at least match thev1.5m people they claim backed the last national “day of action” againstthe New Job Contract.

The crisis over the CPE, as it is known in France, has already sapped the prime minister’s popularity and started to raise concerns over the economy.

Crowds gather for France protests

Organisers say they expect up to one million people to demonstrate in 160 cities across the country.

The government says the new law will help bring down high youth unemployment levels, but opponents say it will entrench job insecurity.

Protests against the law earlier in the week resulted in hundreds of arrests.

University sit-ins

In Toulouse, in southwest France, up to 33,000 people took to the streets, while between 10,000 and 25,000 people demonstrated in Lyon.