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| NEWS |
| Dujardin in movie poster scandal |
| There are fears actor’s Oscar hopes could be at risk after controversy over posters for Les Infidèles |
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BAD publicity over movie posters deemed to be in poor taste could harm actor Jean Dujardin’s Oscar hopes, French pundits say.
Two posters for Les Infidèles - a forthcoming comedy about adultery, have come under fire by ARPP, the French advertising standards authority.
It has advised JC Decaux, the firm responsible for displaying the posters, to remove them, and t |
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| MONEY |
| No wealth tax for less than €1.3m |
| June declarations may be delayed until
September for reforms to be passed |
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PEOPLE whose total fortunes are less than €1.3m will escape paying wealth tax from this year, the government has said.
The change will be a relief to about 300,000 people who pay Impôt de Solidarité sur la Fortune (ISF) largely due to the rising value of their house.
It will also save about 200,000 who were “about to” become ISF payers in the next few years, the government says.
However the reforms announced by Budget Minister François Baroin fall short of claims by President Nicolas |
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| HEALTHCARE |
| €3.5k in landmark smoking case |
| Court recognises link between passive smoking and lung cancer for first time |
A WOMAN has won damages after a court recognised – for the first time in France – a link between passive smoking at work and lung cancer.
A court in Toulouse ordered the Ecole d’Architecture de Toulouse to pay €3,525 to a former employee who had part of a lung removed after being exposed to smoke at work between 1992, when the anti-smoking Evin Law came into force, and 2002.
The court said passive smoking meant she “lost her chance of not getting cancer”.
The Droits des Non-Fumeurs (D |
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| PRACTICAL |
| Caring for an injured animal |
| Keeping a wild animal is forbidden in France, but the law has some flexibility to help injured creatures |
Remember that the keeping and transport of wild animals, whether they are game animals or protected, living or dead, is forbidden in France without an autorisation de détention of the prefect.
Some allowance is made to give time for people to take an animal quickly to a sanctuary or animal welfare group (see the addresses above), but the law was created to avoid problems where people, through benign or malicious reasons, would keep animals in bad conditions.
It is wisest to contact the pro |
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| PROPERTY |
| Buying en viager can help expats |
| Life annuities can also help hard-up senior citizens obtain extra value out of their homes |
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One intriguing peculiarity of the property market is the strong trade in “en viager” purchases, where you buy a house but the seller continues to live there until they die, receiving a lump sum and a monthly payment, called a rent, while they do so.
Often done as a way of boosting someone’s pension pot, the viager sale means basically gambling on the life expectancy of the former crédirentier or owner: how much you pay depends on how long they live.
The advantage for a buyer or débirentier |
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| POLITICS |
| French way of life can't be measured |
| "A focus on GDP is like a motorist driving a car just looking at the speedometer" |
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THE NOBEL-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz warns that the gap between statistics and actual experience of people in their daily lives threatens the very safety of democracy.
Stiglitz, who last year handed in a report recommending new ways of documenting economic and social wellbeing to President Nicolas Sarkozy, says continuous references to statistics that do not resemble people’s daily lives will eventually create such a level of disbelief and distrust that it could threaten not only |
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| LETTERS |
| Austerity budget: your comments |
| Connexion readers share their responses to the austerity measures proposed by François Fillon on August 25 |
CIGARETTE and alcohol price rises and a new tax on France's richest residents are among the measures unveiled by the goverment in an €11bn deficit reduction package.
Prime minister François Fillon says the new measures will target well-off individuals and big businesses - but they have angered opposition leaders and unions, who |
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| AMERICAN CONNEXION |
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| FEATURES & INTERVIEWS |
| Developing the French Riviera |
| The Paca region will see schemes of national and international importance taking shape in the coming years |
PROVENCE and the Côte d’Azur will see schemes of national and international importance taking shape in the coming years.
Regional president Michel Vauzelle said these were the LGV high-speed railway line, which will form the Marseille to Nice leg of the Mediterranean line from Barcelona to Genoa (reducing journey times to Paris as well), and the experimental Iter reactor which will investigate nuclear fusion.
Researchers at the multi-billioneuro, international Iter project (being built ne |
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| BUSINESS |
| M&S returns with Paris flagship |
| Marks & Spencer could launch a new British retail invasion in France, returning 10 years after pulling out |
BRITISH fashion retailers are well-placed to follow Marks & Spencer as it returns to Paris in November to open its new store at 100 Avenue des Champs-Elysées, says international retail marketing expert Professor Charles Waldman.
Former professor at Insead business school in Fontainebleau and now at CEIBS in Shanghai said more firms could play the British card and sell to the French: “There’s an appetite for fashion in France, an appetite for new concepts. British fashion has got a real appeal |
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| COMMUNITY |
| US family seeks French relatives |
| Angela Willis gives more information for those interested in helping her search |
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JANUARY’S edition of The Connexion includes an article about an American family searching for long-lost French relatives – here we give extra information for those interested in helping them.
Angela Willis, a farmer’s wife and artist from Indiana in the United States, told us about her quest to make contact with a branch of the family in France with which they lost contact a |
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| TRAVEL |
| Cheap minicab firm fined |
| A firm that wants to bring cheap minicabs to France has been fined €5,000 |
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A FIRM that wants to bring cheap minicabs to France has been fined €5,000 after competitors took legal action over “unfair competition”.
Avignon-based Easy Take were found guilty of picking up passengers from the roadside, according to a spokeswoman, Elsa Rotureau.
However she said they denied doing so and planned to appeal. The Vaucluse taxi union, which took action against Easy Take, had, however, asked the Nîmes appeal court to close down Easy Take, which it refused to do.
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