Congratulations!

Just a short post to say congratulations to Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni! They now have a baby daughter called Dahlia (well, according to Twitter, so I've heard). The President wasn't actually present at the birth, though, as he was in Germany, attending talks on the eurozone crisis. Apparently the girl is the first child to be born to a serving French president, which I thought was quite interesting. From what I've read, no photos are going to be released, and it's all going to remain quite private. 

Caitlin


P.S. Post on French dialects coming up over the weekend :) 

French Friday #2

French Friday number 2. It's not in a video this week because I have no energy and if I tried to talk, I wouldn't make any sense.

So, what have I been up to this week?

Obviously, there was the film course on Monday. This week we talked about historical films; we watched Molière, Joyeux Noël and Laissez-Passer, all very good (the bits we watched anyway!). I've see Molière before, but not the other two. Watching the clip made me want to watch the entire film again, although I have two reviews to write up already so I might not watch it just yet. Joyeux Noël was also good; it looked like a very uplifting film, but I think I'll save that one for Christmas, and Laissez-Passer was interesting as well.

Last weekend, I downloaded the Le Monde app onto my phone. It's so useful because it doesn't use the Internet so if I have nothing to do at lunchtime at school, I can just read an article or two. And it sends me notifications when there's a new article, which is great. So far I've read about Greece, Steve Jobs (R.I.P. :( ) and a bit about the presidential elections in France. I've finally got my laptop sorted out too, and because I had to wipe everything off the computer, I decided to make my new home page Le Monde.fr.

I watched La Vie en Rose again last Saturday. I won't write too much about it right now, as I'm just writing a review right now, which should be up this weekend. It's one of my favourite films, so expect it to be hyper (if you can describe a film review as hyper).

I also just watched Priceless (or Hors de Prix in French). That review will hopefully be up this weekend as well, but I'm not 100% sure, depends how long my maths homework takes me on Sunday!

The only other thing I can think of is Fry's Planet Word. It's a TV program, I think it's on BBC1 at 8pm on Sunday, and it's about language. It's not really to do with French culture, or French, but it's really good, and really interesting.

That's all this week, I'll try and have those two reviews up asap! :)

(this post has been so picture-less, so I'm finishing with a happy picture)

Have a happy weekend :)

Caitlin

Catherine Deneuve on Woman's Hour, and the IMF Scandal

Last Thursday, the French actress Catherine Deneuve was interviewed for Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4. I'm going to see her new film "Potiche" next Monday with my mum, so I thought I'd listen to the interview. The film is about a "trophy" wife, who becomes a successful businesswoman when forced to take over the family business after her husband falls ill.

Here's the interview

What I found particularly interesting in the interview was her reaction to the IMF scandal (Dominique Srauss-Kahn, the managing director of IMF was arrested in New York after he allegedly sexually assaulted a maid in his hotel). From what I've read, the reaction to this scandal in France is very different to the reaction in America.

I watched a few videos about the scandal, and I found this one particularly interesting.

Let me know your opinions!

From
Caitlin