Inside France: Asterix, cheese and Le Pen's moment of truth
Inside France is our weekly look at some of the news, talking points and gossip in France that you might not have heard about. It's published each Saturday and members can receive it directly to their inbox, by going to their newsletter preferences or adding their email to the sign-up box in this article.
Crunch time for Le Pen
In recent weeks French politicians and media have been somewhat distracted by events across the Atlantic, but the focus has returned to France with a potentially seismic court ruling due on Monday.
This is when far-right leader Marine Le Pen
finds out if she will be banned from politics
, as the judges in her embezzlement trial deliver their verdict.
If she is found guilty, the judges have the option of either imposing an immediate ban (as a legal update in 2016 recommends) or allowing her to remain in politics while she appeals. Given that appeals can be spun out for years, this is basically the difference between allowing her to stand in the 2027 presidential election or not.
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Given that she has come second in the last two presidential elections, with a narrower margin each time, this is hugely consequential.
The judges will - one hopes - make their ruling on purely legal grounds, but if she is given an immediate ban, then Le Pen
has the option of appealing to the Constitutional Court
, which must consider balancing the law against the constitutional right to "freedom of elections".
The
'sages'
of the Council are no stranger to making
decisions on huge and controversial topics
, but it really doesn't get much bigger than this . . .
Talking France
We talk about the upcoming verdict
on the Talking France podcast
- and debate whether she should be banned - while also discussing McDonald's plans for French villages, the French law on surrogacy and Ryanair's threat to leave France.
We also have a brief but fun diversion into the place that Astérix and Obélix hold in French hearts. At every French sports international that I have ever been to, there is always at least one fan dressed up as the Gaulish heroes - I wonder if there is an official rota?
Listen
here
or on the link below.
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Veiled threat
They say nothing can be predicted but death and taxes, but I think you can add two more to that; that every few years, France will have some kind of discussion about what Muslim women wear; and that conversation will be neither calm nor reasoned.
This week, as French MPs prepare to debate whether the hijab or Muslim headscarf should be
banned in any kind of sport in France
(professional or amateur), judo star Teddy Riner
offered a view
.
The French sporting giant (in both senses of the word - 11 times world champion, 5 Olympic golds and 6 ft 9 inches tall) made the following statement: "In some neighbouring countries, it's fine to wear the hijab and nobody minds. I think we're wasting our time in France - let's think more about equality rather than focusing on one and the same religion."
His view might sound fairly uncontroversial - but the reaction demonstrated how France apparently cannot have a normal conversation about this.
The hijab ban had been couched as being
all about French secularism
, with supporters keen to emphasise that the law would ban all types of religious clothing or symbols in sport, and wasn't specifically targeting Muslim women.
But reacting to Riner, Interior Minister Bruno Retaillau said: "The hijab is not a symbol of freedom, it's a symbol of submission . . . Nor is it a marker of equality; on the contrary, it radically challenges equality between men and women, and is a sign of the inferiorisation of women's status.
"Of course, not all women who wear the hijab are Islamists. But you won't find a single Islamist who doesn't want women to wear the hijab."
The veil slips.
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Fromage facts
As this week featured World Cheese Day, I went to have a look in The Local France's cheese archive - in the last five years we have done roughly 130 articles on cheese, which I consider to be not nearly enough for a country that has so many excellent cheeses.
But how many cheeses does France actually have? Cheese experts say it's
somewhere between 600 and 1,600
and it won't surprise you to hear that much time has been devoted to arguing about this.
One thing for sure, it's a lot more than Charles de Gaulle estimated with his famously exasperated quote: "How can anyone govern a country with 258 different types of cheese?"
Inside France is our weekly look at some of the news, talking points and gossip in France that you might not have heard about. It's published each Saturday and members can receive it directly to their inbox, by going to their newsletter preferences or adding their email to the sign-up box in this article.
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