PARIS BRIEFING January 2005

News this month

Safe return

Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, two French journalists held hostage in Iraq since August 20th, were released by their captors, known as “The Islamic Army in Iraq”, and returned to France on December 22nd. No sooner had they landed, however, than a political row broke out over a renegade attempt by Didier Julia, a deputy in the ruling UMP party, to rescue the men. Mr Julia called Michel Barnier, France's foreign minister, “completely useless”, and accused him of trying to cover his own “incompetence” by concentrating on the rescue attempt. This followed Mr Barnier's statement—backed by the French intelligence service—that Mr Julia's freelance bid in September had compromised negotiations. Mr Malbrunot, a journalist for Le Figaro, said that Mr Julia had “played with our lives”.

The row did not dampen the nationwide welcome for the hostages, though questions remain about their release. The French government denies paying a ransom to the kidnappers, but some are sceptical: Libération, a left-leaning daily, said that there was “no reason to take either the hostage-takers or the government at their word.” Nonetheless, most observers agree that the release will free up French policy in the Middle East, which had been hampered by the kidnapping.

Faster to Spain

Jacques Chirac, the French president, opened the Millau Viaduct, a bridge that towers above the Tarn valley, in south-west France, on December 14th. Norman Foster, an English architect, designed the bridge. At 270 metres, it is the world's tallest, enabling drivers to speed above the clouds on their way to Spain. Construction on the €394m ($523m) bridge began three years ago; about 10,000 vehicles per day are expected to pay the €4.60 toll to cross it.

Not all cameras were focused on the structure. Mr Chirac opened the bridge with Alain Juppé, a former prime minister disgraced in a party funding scandal. Mr Juppé's ban from holding public office was recently reduced from ten years to one, putting him back into contention for the 2007 presidential race. His appearance prompted Millau's mayor to comment that the crowds at the inauguration “were not part of an Alain Juppé election campaign”.

A Christmas bonus?

France's forgotten souls were expected to breathe a sigh of relief on December 20th, when legislators endorsed a five-year “social cohesion” plan to make French society more inclusive. They adopted a raft of measures on employment, housing and equal opportunities. Jean-Louis Borloo, a “super minister” who holds several portfolios, including Employment and Social Affairs, presented the plan, which is expected to cost €15 billion ($20.3 billion), up from an initial estimate of €12.8 billion. It is meant to create 500,000 new jobs in three years, allocate individual advisors to 800,000 unemployed citizens and build 500,000 public-sector homes by 2009.

Most unions welcomed the plan, though one—the General Confederation of Labour—called it an empty shell. The opposition Socialist Party voted against the package. Meanwhile, unemployed demonstrators took to the streets to call for a winter bonus, crying, “What do we want? Five hundred euros now!”

Les nouvelles

Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the French prime minister, released €30m on December 10th to fund Chaîne d'Information Internationale (CII), a 24-hour global news channel designed to fight “Anglo-Saxon hegemony” over global news. France's CNN a la française is a public-private marriage of France Télévisions and TF1, and will be on-air by 2006. But unions at the state broadcaster have called co-operation with TF1 “out of the question”, and have reminded people of the now-infamous comment of Patrick Le Lay, TF1's chief executive, who said that his job was “to sell available brain space to Coca-Cola”. Mr Raffarin had to release the money in a budget amendment because the French foreign ministry, CII's initial chief sponsor, could not come up with the cash. While €30m may seem generous, CNN spends around $1.2 billion per year on international broadcasting.

Double-barrelled

As of January 2005, French children will be able to use the surnames of both parents. This brings France in line with a Council of Europe declaration in 1978 concerning the equality of parents. The decision ends a millennium of patrilineal nomenclature, and will result in double-hyphenated names (many French first names are compounds): Charles-Antoine Dupont and Marie-France Dupond could well have a little daughter named Anne-Sophie Dupont-Dupond. Should she marry Jean-Claude Dubois-Dutoit, however, some names will have to give: quadruple surnames remain out of the question. The legislation is retroactive: children born after September 2nd 1990 can decide to hyphenate their surnames until June 30th 2006, but teenagers will have to obtain parental consent.

Catch if you can
January 2005

Agence France-Presse: Photographs, 1944-2004

This exhibition's 200 pictures span 60 years, from the liberation of Paris to George Bush's defeat of John Kerry. Not surprisingly, a French world-view prevails; one American complained in the visitors' book that “Charles de Gaulle did not liberate France, the Americans did”, and also noted that for all of the photographs of Israeli aggression against Palestinians, there was not a single image of the damage wrought by a suicide bomber.

A dour Lance Armstrong, six-time Tour de France champion, is in the portraits section, while the sport section's single Tour photo depicts Richard Virenque, a French cyclist who has never won the race, struggling valiantly uphill. The photos themselves are everything you would expect from AFP. One of the finest, near the end of the exhibition, shows a young woman hugging Nelson Mandela during a visit to Soweto in 1990.

Bibliothèque Nationale de France, site Richelieu, 58 rue de Richelieu, 2nd arrondissement. Tel: +33 (0)1.53.79.59.59. Métro: Bourse or Palais-Royal. Open: Tues-Sat, 10am-7pm; Sun, 12pm-7pm. For more information, visit the library's website.