18% to the National Front… Sarkozy’s evil strategy of making eyes at the extreme right all the way through his campaign seems to have backfired. In vain did people in his party warn him to stop banging on about immigration and halal meat every five minutes and try to talk about policy. This morning you [...]
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Playing with Fire
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Charles Maurras, Marine Le Pen, Patrick Buisson, Sarko's Svengali on April 23, 2012 | 6 Comments »
Notes from a Rebel Island
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Corsica, Dorothy Carrington, FLNC, Tralonca on September 5, 2011 | 6 Comments »
Many of us fall in love with Corsica but it rarely lasts. The French call her l’Ile de Beauté, which helps mask their unease about a place of perpetual insurgency, unrest and superstition. I was smitten on sight, for its beauty, of course but also for its atmosphere – the foreignness, the impenetrability – and [...]
The DSK case and the Sisterhood
Posted in Uncategorized on September 3, 2011 | 13 Comments »
Although I have always called myself a feminist, I was, in the days following Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s arrest, unable to join the sisterhood in condemning a man — albeit of dubious moral record — for the crime of attempted rape before he had actually been found guilty. Having written a piece (that was never published) attempting [...]
DSK
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged French patriarchy, Madmen, Pascale Clark, Sami Ameziane, unreconstructed on May 19, 2011 | 23 Comments »
Why do so many French women – and not just powerful women in politics and the media – see DSK as the victim? Listening to the French equivalent of BBC Radio 4 this morning (France Inter) brought it home to me: France is one of the last great patriarchies. I could hardly believe my ears. [...]
Banning the Burqa
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged a visage decouvert, banning the burqa, Islam in France on April 8, 2011 | 6 Comments »
This month, a bill making the wearing of the burqa* illegal in public will become law in France. Predictably, as an Englishwoman I have mixed feelings about this law. On the one hand I agree with Sarkozy’s former minister, Fadela Amara, who like the majority of her fellow French Muslims, objects to the burqa as [...]
Bad Politics
Posted in Uncategorized on January 26, 2011 | 6 Comments »
Racial prejudice in France, each time it manifests, is generally expressed under guise of secularism or laïcité. We’ve got nothing against Muslims – runs the argument, which can come from the left or the right – we just don’t believe that religion has a place in the identity of the French nation. The public debate [...]
The heady whiff of the street.
Posted in Uncategorized on October 19, 2010 | 8 Comments »
Once again and for the sixth time since my two boys went back to school in September, there is a general strike, a day of “interprofessional mobilisation.” Today, however, both of my sons’ teachers have decided to work. It would not be seemly for me to ask them why, but I suspect the reason is [...]
Good Things
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cevennes, les bonnes choses, Luton, Nimes, stansted on July 6, 2010 | 22 Comments »
I wish I didn’t but I do. I find Britain hard work these days. I went to London last week to promote the release of my book in paperback. Here is a small vignette from my journey: Nimes airport. A car park within sight of the departures hall. A walkway lined with lavender. The hiss [...]
French football hits rock bottom
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged les bleus, rockbottom, world cup on June 29, 2010 | 4 Comments »
To the outside world, the behaviour of the French football team in South Africa was shocking, outrageous, unfathomable… Anelka’s outburst, the team’s strike, Domenech’s toe-curling indecision – all of it has contributed to the vision of France as a broken society, prone to infantilism and mindless rebellion; a nation whose once glorious revolutionary heritage is [...]
You’ll take the high road and I’ll take the low road…
Posted in Uncategorized on April 25, 2010 | 4 Comments »
This is where I live. As you can imagine, it’s a place that deposits little hooks in your heart. You go away and they snag. Soon I’ll be back. Landscapes exercise a strange power over you. As if each of us has an internal landscape, embedded in us during childhood and which lies in wait [...]
Culture Envy
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged canal saint martin, paris in the spring on March 29, 2010 | 6 Comments »
Last week I came back to Paris having ‘wintered’, like some grande dame, in East Anglia. I left behind the vast and impressive gunmetal skies and the wide, muddy fields to find a city that was bursting, somewhat indecently, into Spring. As I crossed the rotating bridge over the Canal Saint Martin, a part of [...]
Gender War Fails to Make Good TV
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Libbers, Mothers, Vanessa Engle on March 18, 2010 | 1 Comment »
The other night I watched the second part of a three part BBC documentary by someone called Vanessa Engle about the legacy of feminism on sexual politics in the UK. The one I missed, “Libbers” was about the pioneers of the women’s movement. The one I watched was about mothers today and the purported goal [...]
The Secret Garden: the beginning of the end…
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged jardin secret, monogamy bores me on March 11, 2010 | 3 Comments »
About six weeks ago I had an email from a Canadian journalist friend, based in Paris, asking me if I’d heard: Nicolas and Carla had separated. Even though I now live far, far away from the Parisian chattering classes, I had indeed heard the rumour. I was not very surprised or very interested and I [...]
Hiatus
Posted in Uncategorized on September 25, 2009 | 16 Comments »
Please forgive me for not posting over the next few weeks. I shall be in the bosom of that miraculous nebula that is the French healthcare service but hope to return to work soon. I would like to thank everyone who visits this blog, for their readership and/or comments and their participation in a conversation [...]
Sacrées Françaises
Posted in Uncategorized on September 7, 2009 | 19 Comments »
I had a call the other night from Jon Henley of The Guardian, who had reviewed my book and wanted to talk about a piece he was writing about French women. It seems there has been a sudden onslaught of books on the subject, some of them written by Anglo-Saxon women driven by the question: [...]
Lucy Wadham
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- Notes from a rebel island secretlifeoffrance.com/?p=705&preview… #secretfrance 8 months ago
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