Emma Pearson

YouTube video by Romance Agency Intermarché - Unloved

This 🇫🇷 Christmas advert for the Intermarché supermarket is so charming and also pokes gentle fun at the French image as a nation of voracious carnivores . . . Made by a Montpellier-based animation studio

Breaking: French prime minister wins first budget battle as MPs adopt social security bill France's prime minister has won the first half of the battle for the 2026 Budget, with MPs in the Assemblée nationale voting in favour on Tuesday evening.

Breaking: French prime minister wins first budget battle as MPs adopt social security bill

French grammar tips: How best to translate French swear words Of all the rich and varied parts of the French language, it is perhaps swearing that poses the biggest translation problem. Here's a look at some famous examples of translation issues and how best to ...

From 'sale conne' to 'emmerder' the Macrons sure do like to pose translation problems for us poor anglophone journalists

a guillotine made from gingerbread, decorated with white icing snow and icicles

I am brimming with holiday spirit

This policy is obviously nonsense, but in course of a wildly pointless conversation with the Home Office this year I found out that many people simply cannot conceive of the idea that people born British might subsequently gain another nationality and therefore be a dual-national

on voit des femmes qui prennent la rue, tenant de grandes affiches sur lesquelles est marqué La femme nouvelle (nom de l'association dont Louise Weiss était la présidente) / La Française doit voter Des policiers tentent de les disperser

Calendrier de l'Avent des luttes féministes pour les droits des femmes et l'égalité femmes-hommes

dans un joyeux désordre

J1 : manifestation des suffragettes de la Femme nouvelle, qui multiplièrent les actions entre 1935 et 1936 (manifestations, fausses élections, lâcher de ballons, charivaris)

What a lovely tribute to the British photographer Martin Parr, who died over the weekend

Headline reads - Will the French government fall this week? with a deadline of December 2nd, 2024

One year ago I was writing this . . . this week we have another make-or-break week in 🇫🇷 parliament with a key vote over the budget. Déja vù all over again!
www.thelocal.fr/20251208/fre...

The village I grew up in has a 'ton' ending indicating Anglo Saxon history while the neighbouring village has a Viking 'by'. When we learned this in primary school we had an Anglo Saxons v Vikings battle. And that was the last time I thought about Anglo Saxons until I moved to France!

Fascinating piece on the bizarre 🇫🇷 insistence on referring to the English-speaking world as 'Anglo Saxons'

I'm so there for this!

Dark times for my beloved Eurovision, but at least they haven't started awarding a 'peace prize' 🤦‍♀️

Eurovision finally faces its Waterloo as four nations quit in protest at Israel’s inclusion | The Observer

A crisis of legitimacy, a questionable commitment to political neutrality, performances of varying quality, a random assortment of nations and an opaque voting process... it’s not the World Cup draw – it’s the Eurovision Song Contest.

Me for this week's Observer:

observer.co.uk/news/interna...

Did you buy it? We need a French politics game night!

it might seem surprising that the people who said “look, let trans people live their lives, but i have Reasonable Concerns about sports and toilets” aren’t up in arms about this, but what you have to remember is that those people who said that are liars who were lying

🤐

Extract from the linked article, on the subject of police racism in France

www.thelocal.fr/20251206/ins...

Can't really explain why but the social media account pretending to be the British prime minister's cat doing the 12 Days of Christmas is my favourite annual festive tradition 🌲🤶🌟

I love a 'sablé anglais', even without the chocolate!

An office desktop with a computer and what appears to be a packet of Digestive biscuits

Leaving this on a colleague's desk - so they get excited that there are biscuits and then realise that it's just an empty box - should be a matter for The Hague

Maybe the mayor of Les Sables d'Olonne should propose something similar then!

Paris mayor candidate plans to seize empty apartments and ban tourist rentals One of the front-running candidates in the Paris mayoral elections has unveiled radical plans to tackle the French capital's housing shortage - including a total ban on tourist apartment and requisiti...

Sounds like this would be difficult to legally enforce - but an interesting idea to tackle the very real problem of Parisians not being able to live in their own city because so many apartments are now second homes or tourist rentals . .

Message from SNCF - you've saved 835kg of CO2 compared to travelling by car

Message from SNCF - you've travelled 5,930km by train this year

Forget Spotify Wrapped, today it's all about SNCF's 🇫🇷 train 'rétrainspective' 🚂
(and it doesn't make impertinent comments about your age)

Talking France: Are airlines scrapping 'thousands' of flights to France and can a French mayor demand silence in streets? This week we have all the latest on the budget showdown in what is a crucial week for the French government. We'll hear about a new high speed train service linking two of France's big cities, but ...

Here's the new podcast episode . . .
🇫🇷 How gender equal is French society?
🇫🇷 Why one French mayor has created a 'street of silence'
🇫🇷 Why Jordan Bardella is washing flour and eggs out of his hair . . .

French interior minister files legal complaint over 'Fachorama' board game France's interior minister has filed a legal complaint over a politically-themed board game named Fachorama.

Actually addressing the long-standing problem of racist behaviour from some (not all) 🇫🇷 police officers? ❌
Complaining about a board game that features the character 'racist cop'? ✅

Paris mayor candidate Rachida Dati's campaign is the 'Wish version of Zohran Mamdani' - brutal!
But also true, and shows how hard it is to create a campaign like his that connects and appears authentic

My take is that a woman isn't going to have sex with a man who . . . uses the term 'mating opportunities'. Shudder 🤢

Should we bury the périph like nuclear waste? Next year’s elections have reignited a debate over what to do with the monstrous Paris ringroad.

Newsletter #2 is out today. This week, the politics and psychology of the massive and gross road that encircles Paris, and why it's so hard to do anything about it

millefeuilleparis.substack.com/p/should-we-...

This is a great song! Second best Christmas song ever. The idea of people deliberately avoiding it is, to me, the most baffling thing about the world today

Bizarre and hideous AI image of Antoine Dupont in the robes of a king, Toulouse fans in the background depicted as medieval peasants. On a hilltop a castle, for some reason

Is 🇫🇷 rugby excited about the return of Antoine Dupont? Somewhat!
(Not sure how the people of Toulouse feel about being depicted as some sort of Medieval peasants)