Ode to A French Washing Machine

I have been living comfortably in France for several months now and I am completely enamoured with the washing machine in this apartment.

Features of the machine:

• Tumbles my clothes instead of using that shape destroying spindle.
• Washes the clothes longer but my clothes don't seem to fade nearly as fast.
• Uses 40-60% less water (apparently, according to Wifflepedia.)
• Uses 30-50% less energy (Ibid, but you might want to confirm here.)
• My clothes are dryer when I take them out.
• The one in our apartment is not very noisy when I think of the freight train sound box at my mom's house.

Compared with North American machines, I see nothing wrong at all with this washing machine, permit me to incite groans but I would say that it is a total wet dream.

I'm happy to have been acquainted with
a more ecologically-sound, practical,
and efficient machine.

Le BD

Many comic addicts, franco-philes, or former immersion kids are probably already familiar with the Franco-Belgian bandes dessinées, or BDs for short. The BDs industry is so huge here that my roommate was shocked when I told her that Canadians in general aren't that into it. That being said, North Americans might be familiar with Tintin (the adventures of a young man, his little white dog, and a captain with a black beard), or Les aventures d'Astérix et Obélix (a sometimes anachronistic account of the adventures of a Gallic period Laurel and Hardy), and maybe Lucky Luke (a sheriff in the American Wild West, French-style).

Les BDs, however, are not just for kids, adults go nuts for them here and you can buy them everywhere from specialty shops to Carrefour. For the uninitiated, wifflepedia that sh*t or if you are in France, just drop by your local library which should have a BD section. BDs are really one of the greatest ways to improve your French, it's not Molière but often you'll find every day expressions and vocabulary.

On a final note, he's not really a BDs artist but I have to gratuitously mention my personal favourite French drawer Sempé because not only did he illustrate my favourite childhood French immersion memory, Le Petit Nicolas, but his cartoons are just the best. However, the author of Le Petit Nicolas is Goscinny, who is a BD guy and wrote, among other things, the Astérix series.

Image source:
http://www.amnistiacatalunya.org/edu/humor/edu/imatges/sempe.GIF

Scandal and the French right-wing!

The French presidential elections are coming up next April but other than seeing the main candidates' faces plastered all over the magazine racks, I haven't been keeping up or learning as much about French politics as I could.

Today, however, something piqued my interest. Maybe it's because I used to watch soap operas, or that I am finally confronting my penchant for sensationalism, or maybe that I've always had an unhealthy interest in learning about Conservative right-wing politics and politicians - I guess it's kind of like the curiosity I had about serial killers. Anyway...

Scandal has rocked the French right-wing!
The sons of a French Conservative politician, by the name of Philippe de Villiers, are involved in some sort of legal affair after the younger son, Laurent, accused his older brother, Guillaume, of raping him, bringing up charges that span over fifteen years. And in loving father fashion, papa Villiers has denounced these charges as part of a "conspiracy to commit political sabotage". Villiers offers a few "clues" as to why he believes that his younger son's claims can't be validated and concludes that the entire affair has something to do with a "network of secret agents" and revenge against Guillaume, who, pater familias Villier says, provided him with evidence of the presence of purported "islamic terrorists" at Charles de Gaulle airport.

Villiers is leader of Mouvement pour la France - a traditionalist, nationalist party strongly opposed to deeper integration in the EU and outsourcing of jobs to Eastern Europe, favouring a more protectionist stance for the French economy. Villiers is also, as any self-respecting Conservative should be, pro-family values based on Christian standards. And in keeping up with more recent events, Villiers has also expressed his concern over a rapid "Islamisation" of France and in response to the riots in the suburbs in 2005, he used the slogan (apparently inspired by another right-wing idol, Reagan) "France, love it or leave it".

Whatever the truth may be, I just can't help but feel that hard right-wing conservatives always seem to respond to situations in ways that make me think that I won't possibly ever hear of anything more incredulous, but then another one of them comes along and finds a way.

Vive la famille!

Hiring practices

I read an article in today's 20 minutes, the free daily for commuters, about the discriminatory hiring practices of French companies. The article presented the findings of a recent study for l'Observatoire des discriminations, to determine the likelihood of certain groups to be discriminated against when applying for jobs in France.

The study was based on 6 641 submitted resumes and requests for interviews in the areas of construction, manufacturing and food service. The study compared the responses received for the resumes of five categories of individuals determined most likely to be discriminated against, with those of an "ideal" candiate who is male, 28-30 years old and with an identifiably French name. The discriminated categories were: a male 48 or 50 years old; a 32 year-old woman with three children; a person of Maghrebian origins; a person with a recognised handicap; and a person of unsightly appearance.

The results in brief :
The worst off were the 48-50 years old, especially when applying for executive positions.
People of non-French heritage (I think it can be assumed that it is non-French of the "coloured" variety) have it only slightly better.
A person with an officially recognised handicap received about half the callbacks of the "ideal".
A woman with three kids received 63 per cent callbacks to the "ideals'" 100.
And, according to the study, a person with an unsightly appearance (a man with messy hair) is apparently second best to the eyes of French employers.

An article on a related note was found on the same page that reported on how the diversity among employees of a company, Norsys, increased after it adopted an anonymous CV rule. "Anonymous" in this case means that CVs are not to include photo (not mandatory per se, but unspoken as expected), the name, age, sex, nor adress of the candidates.

Apparently, at the government level, the idea was raised to create a law for the equality of opportunities, stipulating that any company with more than fifty employees be required to have anonymous resumes. However, the decree still has not been published and could possibly be buried. So far, the government has spoken about "experimenting" before adopting a law of this kind.

There is an anonymity rule in place for French students that forbids them to write their names on any part of the exam, except on the upper right hand corner of the first page, which is then folded and glued and revealed only after the exam has been graded. I was told that this is to ensure the "equality" of all students. Apparently inequality exists only in state institutions and seems to disappear in the private sector.