Comment, Voices

Letter from France with Brian Masterman: A bit chilly for a naked biathlon on Christmas Eve

by Adopstar 9 January 2018

Well, he had to impersonate his favourite sportsperson, Martin Fourcade, a household name here and the world’s number one biathlete – the cross-country ski-ing and shooting variety. Not that he competes in the buff, though. A bit chilly for that. But the gendarmes had obviously had less to drink than the student and booked him for ‘exhibition sexuelle’.

Inexplicably, the JEP’s international sports pages have never once mentioned Fourcade, the Ronaldo of the Snows, though. Nor did they give even a column-inch to the French women’s handball team winning the world cup in mid-December either, and they only beat the reigning champions Norway in the final, s’il vous plait. Now don’t scoff – when was the last time England beat the Norwegians at anything, eh, never mind win a team world title?

Les Bleues were rank outsiders, too, but ‘Impossible n’est pas français,’ the French modestly proclaim, and France is now both the men’s and the women’s world handball champs. That’s a feat only the USSR in 1982 and Romania in 1962 have managed before, so we’re talking ‘historique’ here. Can’t think how the JEP’s sports editor missed it. But then you may be right – we Brits are as mystified by handball as we are or were by Johnny Halliday.

France achieved further Yuletide distinction of a double-edged sort when The Economist named it 2017’s Country of the Year for electing Monsieur Macron. The magazine says he’s shown that old divisions between left or right are less important than freeing up the economy.

Yes, well… Among his first measures were reducing the ‘impôt sur la fortune’, increasing taxes on pensioners and even cutting a niggardly five euros off rent allowances for the needy, which is why his critics call him ‘le président des riches’, the fat cats’ friend.

Here in Brittany, which is not far from France, we’ve had our own cause for quiet pride because the French ramblers’ association has just named the 95 km coastal trek round the bay of Morlaix from Loquirec to St Pol de Léon the country’s favourite hike.

It’s part of the Grande Randonnée 34 (GR34) trail and the highlight is the rugged Pointe de Primel where La Patronne and I have a holiday home and spent Christmas with our grown-up daughters Morgane and Fleur, home from Lisbon and Paris.

Constantly battered and buffeted by Carmen and Eleanor we were too, but the seascapes were stunning and Père Noël brought us loads of books to weather the ‘tempêtes’. Well, Amazon delivered a few too, but those people, me included, who thought the American giant would dodo-sticker regular bookshops have had to think again.

Seventeen years after the ogre first went online here, France still has 3,500 booksellers and closures have always been matched by new outlets. In fact, we now have more ‘librairies’ – not to be confused with your ‘library’, which is a ‘bibliothèque’ – than the USA or the UK, because Amazon has only managed to grab about 15% of the hard copy, paper book market. In fact, we have more bookshops, more publishers and more new books published every year than any other country in the world.

If you feel like writing a novel yourself, you might be inspired by the true story of this British couple in the Monts d’Arrée in central Brittany. He’s an Oxford professor and she’s a trained nurse but she suspected him of having an affair with an American actress. (Just for the record, the French definition of marital fidelity is one spouse and hardly any lovers.)

So she drugged his porridge and searched through his smart phone, finding conclusive evidence, then fled to St Malo and home on the other side of what the self-centred British call the English Channel. He eventually regained consciousness and was rushed to hospital, she came back and they’ve made up.

Now French fairy tales normally end with ‘and they had lots of the children’, but they’re both in their sixties and the judge has just given her a three-month suspended prison sentence instead. A rocky start to their New Year perhaps, but may I wish you a very Bonne Année 2017. Yes! Bloavez Mad, as they say in Breton.

Kenavo!

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