Centralized what?

Vacations!

Two Saturdays mornings ago, as I was headed to my local market, the bus to Orly airport passed by, completely packed at noon – no point in it making the next stop, there was no way that even one more traveler could be squeezed in! And, for an instant, I wondered why it was so packed.

And then I realized what was going on! France is a republic with a very centralized administration - many things are decided in Paris for the entire county, far from our federal system where every state is free to control many things – schools, school calendars, voting systems, open hours of polling places, etc. – including school vacations (up through high school though some universities follow this as well). There’s a 10 day vacation at the end of October for Toussaint and that Saturday morning was the beginning of that vacation – so students, teachers, families were heading out of town in large numbers. The Toussaint and Christmas vacations are the same for all of France but for the winter and spring vacations France is divided into 3 zones and the start of these 2-week vacations is staggered by a week – for the winter vacation it means a longer season for the ski resorts and less crowding than if the entire country tried to go on vacation at once!


So, depending on the purpose and season of your next trip to France, you should possibly consult the school vacation calendar before booking

http://www.education.gouv.fr/cid3002/calendrier-scolaire-2007-2010.html

Isn’t life simple when there aren’t 50 variations?

Post-Election

Yesterday’s headline in Le Monde (the French equivalent of the NY Times) – 84% of the French Approve of Obama!

The day after the election, virtually every newspaper and magazine published that day featured a full-page color picture of Obama on the cover (I've included a photo of just one)! And Wednesday morning I received an e-mail or text message of congratulations from virtually every French friend I have. Not to mention that yesterday it was what I was greeted with at my exercise class and at my French class. Many of my French friends said it gave them goose bumps when they heard the news, one shared with me that for her it was like the emotion she felt when Mitterand was elected. They were happy for me (because they knew I had been sweating it) but also for the message it sent, the hope and possibility the results created as well as for the world. And at the gym I go to in my neighborhood several of the French spent lots of time dissecting the election and what comes next.

I’ve continued to wear my Obama button and, where before the election it generated lots of random (positive) comments and conversations with strangers, now it’s eliciting smiles.

Now back to real life and the hard work ahead!

Obama-mania - 2nd installment

One more post on this subject before the upcoming election:
The French have a convention for counting down to an event – they use the lettre J (for ‘jour’ meaning day) minus the number of days left. So since Friday I’ve been getting e-mails from the Comité français de soutien à Barack Obama with titles like J-4, J-3….
But aside from that the media coverage here has been plentiful and not just on the campaign itself but on American issues (of course that’s issues seen by the French or issues as seen by the French). A month ago there was a 5-part series on TV about the US, each segment on a different region. Last week Telerama, a weekly TV Guide on steroids (it’s way more than a TV guide, it includes topical articles as well as reviews of movies, books, theatre, art and music) dedicated this issue to analysis of the US (the cover read ‘Numéro special USA) and included articles on Howard Zinn interviewed re: his historical perspective, an article about the series ‘West Wing’ and ‘24’ (non-white presidents) and whether art was imitating life (or was it the other way around) and another about segregated campuses in Georgia (Tuskegee vs Auburn). Since Friday there’s hardly a news report that doesn’t feature the race plus several longer, more in depth TV news magazine reports. All this interest gives you some sense of how other parts of the world believe they will be affected by our choice, and it’s not only that this particular election is momentous because of the color of Obama’s skin…

And of course, there will be plenty of election coverage here, certainly not rivaling that in the US but, on the other hand, it’s not like I’ll have to work hard to stay informed either!