Talking Trash or Talking Straight?
‘Emmerder,’ loosely translated by the US media as ‘to piss off’, should certainly be voted January’s Mot du Moi, Word of the Month. Emmanuel Macron (e-m-… is there a conspiracy afoot here?) has been forever lambasted as an elitist out of touch with le Peuple. Not so! In a recent interview he used the ’em’ word THREE times to express his desire to make the lives of the non-vaccinated purely miserable by requiring booster IDs for just about everything. WHILE the law was being debated in Parliament. Furor! A gaffe jumped on by his enemies; a brilliant display of down-to-earth speaking-out what the country secretly feels, according to his own gang. As to the term itself, even though the root word equals ‘shit’ it sounds not so raw and offensive as ‘pissed off’ is to American ears. Bourgeois parents might tell their kids not to be so ’emmerdant.’ A CEO might term himself ’emmerdé’ by, well, gov’t vax rules. And of course, politicians and married couples ’emmerdent’ each other all the time. PS- the measure requiring QR-code verified triple vaccination passed on Friday after long and healthy debate.

Drastic Times Call for Drastic Measures.
Christine Taubira (ex-Minister), Anne Hidalgo (mayor of Paris), Yannick Jadot (ecologist), Jean-Luc Melanchon (perennial gadfly and also-ran) and Fabien Roussel (official Communist) are all Left-wing candidates for the upcoming presidential election. But they refuse a primary vote, and aren’t likely to show up at the Place de la Republique, where on Friday twelve representatives and citizens launched a hunger strike aimed at forcing them to coalesce around a single candidate who might have a chance. The strikers include the 75 year old author, Anne Hessel, a Euro Deputy, and a twenty-five year old engineer who declared, “When the climatologists tell us we have only ten years in which to act, to lose five more years would be a crime.” “It’s therefore urgent and vital to push the candidates to come together to implement ecological solutions,” according to the group’s official statement.

I’d Feel Positively Naked Without One!

To be chic this winter on Parisian streets forget the E-scooter and last century’s Hermés scarf. What you need in order to stand out or rather to fit in is a fluffy, adorable, criminally overbred…Pomeranian! Just the novelty you crave during Covid lockdowns. This ‘toy’ breed (sic) comes in a range of yummy colors, from pale vanilla to mocha eclair. Price in Paris for a cheapo puppy sans papier? Around Euro 2000. Take that, Hermés! But even without papers, no fear that the little cutie will be deported. Abandoned, possibly? Eventually?