<<Tout est dit, et l’on vient trop tard depuis plus de sept mille ans qu’il y a des hommes, et qui pensent.>>

La Bruyère, Les Caractères, 1688.

An early comment when I started reallowing them on my blog related to a Scottish tennis player, the person who made it showed ignorance on several fronts: First off, he didn’t know the difference between English, Scottish, and British. I used to consider myself British, but that was pre-Brexit. In fact, looking through my categories, England is way outnumbered by Britain.

En suivant:

J’ai été initié au français par l’émission Chez Hélène de la CBC quand j’étais très jeune. Il y a des extraits des disques vinyles réalisés à partir de cette émission sur Youtube. Je suis surpris de voir tout ce dont je me souviens de cette émission, bien que le français soit très basique. Définitivement du niveau A1, peut-être A2. Je ne suis pas sûr que le fait d’avoir regardé Chez Hélène sur CKLW-TV en tant qu’enfant d’âge préscolaire me qualifie totalement en tant que francophone.

In other words, I have been speaking French with varying levels of proficiency since I was very young. I own that my family and household wasn’t a francophone one, but I did visit francophone countries for about as long as I was speaking French. I have a lot in common with other members of the Belgian German community in that French culture was pushed on me.

Although, I prefer French to German culture. And Belgium is a close second to Britain in feeling like home.

I’ve got to figure out how to mention Amerloques and Rosbifs here, but I have been a “francophone” even if I wasn’t posting about French topics, or had my piece of paper from the French Ministry of Education attesting to that fact. (Actually, I have posted about France first “French” Category post was in 18/01/2010 and Second actual post was in 09/01/2011)

Which is something anyone who knows me would have known.

I realise that I don’t care that much about Britain post Brexit. Especially since Britain is very much a part of Europe.

Seriously!

This test was as official as you can get. I had to provide a government issued ID to take it. The document was sent to the Embassy in my country. Not to mention I had to actually sign for this even though the administrator (administratrix?) knew me.

Wild.

The neat thing is that it is another qualification for French citizenship that I have passed.

I’m “multilingual”: Proficient in English, French, and German. I can get by in loads of other languages (e.g., Slavic). Let’s not forget I was taught Japanese when I was 10, but forgot most of it.

I was translating for my mother when she went to a conference at the Pasteur Institute in 1980. The director’s secretary told me that there the director would present a very interesting paper: which happened to be the first mention of what would become HIV/AIDS.

Yeah, but did it help me get a job?

Seriously, it’s useful for me. But the reason I mention it is that I have been communicating with people in Russia and Ukraine. Yeah, the usual switch to English (phew!!!), but it gets to one thing I’ve learned in my travels:

Learn a few basic phrases: “Hello”, “how are you”, “do you have a room for the night?”, “Can I see the room?”, “where is the toilet?”, etc. and you are good to go. The conversation may switch to very basic English or French (or sign language), but you can still get along.

Or as a friend use to say: “all you need to know in German is ‘Zwei bier, bitte!” You will make friends if you are willing to make an effort.

Liberty Leading the People. 1830. Oil on canvas, 260 x 325 cm.

Despite what a lot of people think, this picture represents a later revolt against the French Monarchy, which went into hibernation for a while after the first French Revolution of 1789. Instead, this painting commemorates the July Revolution of 1830, which toppled King Charles X of France, the last Bourbon King of France. Charles was replaced by King Louis-Phillipe, the “citizen king”, which is a bit deceptive since Louis-Phillipe was the Duke of Chartes.

So, another factoid: Not all the nobles lost their heads during the terror.

King Louis-Phillipe rules through what I call the “Les Mis” period of French History, but is really called the July Monarchy in French History. That is a subset of something called the Age of Revolution. This is where you have a lot of different groups fighting it out over which direction the France would take, which is another fun post. It also comprises the fact that Europe was a real mess during the first part of the 19th Century. The upshot for people in the US is that one can change the form of the government while keeping a constitution.

Somewhere in here, there’s a Second Republic and the restoration of the French Empire under Napoleon III, or Louis-Napoleon. Actually, that is a great segue in French history since Louis-Napoleon was elected to the presidency of the Second Republic in 1848, he seized power by force in 1851, when he could not constitutionally be reelected; he later proclaimed himself Emperor of the French. Louis-Napoleon was given the boot after the Franco-Prussian War which led to the Communes and the Third Republic. Actually, the Franco-Prussian War led to a lot more events than just those, but that’s another story.

Whew!

And Napoleon XIV had nothing to do with any of this.

Cos the widow (la veuve) in question happens to be the guillotine. And at least one person “épouser la veuve” (married the widow, or was executed) in the actual event. That was where a couple of fishermen, Auguste Néel and Louis Ollivier, killed their boss in 1888. They were sentenced to death, but there was a problem.

Still more false advertising!

There wasn’t a guillotine in St. Pierre and Miquelon.

Which is where the tale sort of begins. They have to get a guillotine shipped in from Martinique in the real story. The upshot is that Néel is executed. And it was the only execution ever in St. Pierre and Miquelon.

In the film, the events are moved forward in time to 1849, which surprised me when I wrote this post since I thought the story was sort of close to actual events. The reality is that the book and movie made the event a bit sexier than it may have actually been.

In the fictional versions, the murder happens in the autumn, or early winter. There isn’t a guillotine, so there is a lot of wrangling until one is sent up from Martinique. In the mean time, Néel proves that the incident may have been an aberration by doing all sorts of good deads. Juliette Binoche plays Madame « La », which is most likely another addition to the story. But I didn’t see a lot of sparks flying between Madame « La » and Néel (Emir Kusturica) in the film. It definitely didn’t save Néel in the end since he ends up “marrying the widow”.

I would love to say the film was the origin of Rue Auteuil in Quebec’s Old City, but that is probably as accurate a statement as the fictional versions of this event.

See also:

Il y a 130 ans, un meurtre sordide sur l’Île-aux-Chiens a marqué l’histoire de l’archipel au point de devenir “l’affaire Néel”. Retour sur l’unique exécution capitale ayant eu lieu à Saint-Pierre et Miquelon.

French Translation:

C’est beaucoup plus facile de dire “huitante”.

I’ve mentioned this programme before as an aid in learning/using French, but I can’t praise it enough. It is worth a large batch of books, in particular Bescherelle L’essentiel (the five book set) and Larousse’s Grand dictionnaire des difficultés et pièges de la langue française as the above screen cap shows. The nice thing is that you can search for something and this will pretty much set you straight.

I do have to admit that it didn’t get this correct:

Réparateur de tort, s’inventant des ennemis de vent, vivant dans le passé, Don Quichotte est le premier woke de la littérature ! 

But that is due more to an editing error on the part of L’Express who should have said “moulins à vent” and made the reference to Don Quichotte (AKA Don Quixote) clearer.

Since I should in theory speak québécois, I like that this software not only addresses that form of French, but it’s made in Quebec (Bonjour de quelqu’un qui vient des pays en haute). There’s a post coming up on France and Quebec (maybe posts) since that is an interesting topic which ties into the “Notes for a future post…”. I like Quebec, but…

OK, my favourite parts are East of Quebec-Ville (Cap Diamant, Charlevoix, and the Gaspé), but I do like Quebec.

Still, I am happier in Europe.

On the other hand, this software is the best thing that ever happened for Francophonie, no matter what form of French you speak !

NOTE: I was about to do a French translation of this post, but WordPress really sucks for writing things elsewhere and then reposting. It pretty much sucks anyway. OK, I managed to do it.

J’ai déjà mentionné ce programme en tant qu’aide à l’apprentissage/utilisation du français, mais je ne peux pas en faire assez l’éloge. Il vaut un grand nombre de livres, en particulier Bescherelle L’essentiel (le coffret de cinq livres) et le Grand dictionnaire des difficultés et pièges de la langue française de Larousse, comme le montre la capture d’écran ci-dessus. Ce qui est bien, c’est que vous pouvez faire une recherche et le logiciel vous donnera une réponse.

Je dois admettre qu’il n’a pas trouvé ce qui suit :

Réparateur de tort, s’inventant des ennemis de vent, vivant dans le passé, Don Quichotte est le premier woke de la littérature !

Mais il s’agit plutôt d’une erreur d’édition de la part de L’Express qui aurait dû dire “moulins à vent” et rendre plus claire la référence à Don Quichotte (alias Don Quixote).

Comme je devrais en théorie parler québécois, j’aime bien que ce logiciel s’adresse non seulement à cette forme de français, mais qu’il est produit au Québec (Bonjour de quelqu’un qui vient des pays en haut). Il y aura bientôt un billet sur la France et le Québec (peut-être des billets), car c’est un sujet intéressant qui s’inscrit dans le cadre des “Notes for a future post…”.

J’aime bien le Québec, mais…

OK, mes parties préférées sont à l’est de Québec-Ville (Cap Diamant, Charlevoix, et la Gaspésie), mais j’aime bien le Québec.

Néanmoins, je suis plus heureux en Europe.

D’un autre côté, ce logiciel est la meilleure chose qui soit arrivée à la francophonie, quelle que soit la forme de français que vous parlez !

Besides being multilingual. Tant pis pour toi si tu n’es pas bilingue.

My politics are pretty far left in the US, but pretty centre/centre-left in Europe. Case in point, I’m enjoying reading a couple of interesting stories in L’Express: “Se focaliser sur la race et le sexe a réveillé les furies et les furieux” and “Identité, “racisé”, universalisme… Rokhaya Diallo-Yascha Mounk, l’étonnante rencontre“. OK, L’Express is at the Centre of the French political spectrum, but one of the things I enjoy about French culture is the openness of the debate without the ad-hominems found in US politics. For example, “Trump supporter” or “Bernie Bro” being used to shut down the debate. With both sides being guilty.

The first article is a great discussion of that phenomenon. Although it’s hard to summarise, but I find the sentiment about identity politics very welcome. But identity politics doesn’t just include race, gender, or sexual preference–it also includes political and religious affiliations. As critical theory pointed out, the bottom line is power: whether it is racial, sexual, doctrinal, or relating to philately. Keeping people from talking to each other is the perfect means to preserve power. Things get dangerous when people start talking to each other.

The things you miss when you are stuck in one language.

Footnote: 

You can use a translator such as Deepl, but it will miss properly translating this comment about reparations:

Réparateur de tort, s’inventant des ennemis de vent, vivant dans le passé, Don Quichotte est le premier woke de la littérature ! 

Best translated as “Reparations make enemies of windmills by living in the past, Don Quixote is the first “woke” in literature”.

Je suis desolé pour ça car Valérian et Laureline est un de mes B-Ds favoris, plue que Asterix ou Tintin.

Valérian et Laureline was influential to a lot of Sci-Fi, in particular star wars.

Anyway. I would add the picture of me with Valérian at Angoulême for good measure, but WordPress really stinks for that these days. The picture above takes up the whole page. And also messes up the caption.

I am well aware of his other work besides Valérian et Laureline, but that series is definitely my favourite. I hinted at it in an earlier post, but I put the Shingouz on my Facebook page once in regard to Russiagate. The Shingouz would be the perfect candidates for that: much better than the Russians. The Shingouz are especially adept in trading important and sensitive information to interested parties.

As for his influence on sci-fi (this was supposed to be a formatted quote):

Several commentators, such as Kim Thompson of The Comics Journal, film critic Jean-Philippe Guerand and the newspaper Libération, have noted certain similarities between the Valérian albums and the Star Wars film series. Both series are noted for the “lived-in” look given to their various settings and for the diverse alien creatures they feature. Mézières’ response upon seeing Star Wars was that he was “dazzled, jealous… and furious!”. As a riposte, Mézières produced an illustration for Pilote magazine in 1983 depicting the Star Wars characters Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa meeting Valérian and Laureline in a bar surrounded by a bestiary of alien creatures typical of that seen in both series. “Fancy meeting you here!” says Leia. “Oh, we’ve been hanging around here for a long time!” retorts Laureline. Mézières has since been informed that Doug Chiang, design director on The Phantom Menace, kept a set of Valérian albums in his library.

But that is only one of many and the most well known example. An amusing story from Mézières’ life:

Arriving in Salt Lake City, Utah with no money, he sought out Pierre Christin, who was living there while teaching at the University of Utah, and turned up on his doorstep asking him if he could sleep on his settee.To make ends meet, Mézières produced some illustrations for a small advertising agency in Salt Lake City and for a Mormon children’s magazine called Children’s Friend as well as selling some photographs he had taken while working on the ranch in Montana. After a few months, he found work on a ranch in Utah: this time succeeding in his aspiration of living the life of a cowboy, an experience he described as “better than in my dreams”.

I wonder how many of those people realise who lived in their community. I also wonder if any of that work exists (it probably does: the Mormons can be packrats).

I’d like to say it would be neat to meet Luc Besson, but I think he would be like the kids I grew up with who were more than happy to practise English with me. My French would be much better had I insisted on speaking French back then. Mais on parle français toujours maintenant.

Mes condoléances à la famille. C’est une grande perte sur le plan culturel.

Get Antidote, https://www.antidote.info/en, it’s the best resource available for the French language. It’s very comprehensive and does Quebecois. It also catches all the slang used in Frantastique’s questions (e.g., “Sélectionnez des synonymes familiers de soûl. Plusieurs bonnes réponses possibles.”). While Quebecois isn’t on the DELF, it is nice to know. For people who aren’t familiar, Quebecois is like listening to someone with a thick Southern US or Australian accent.

Having internet access is really good as well. You can listen to Radio France International, https://www.rfi.fr/fr/. That’s very useful if you are preparing for the DELF since the listening exercises are culled from RFI stories. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, https://ici.radio-canada.ca/ohdio, also has internet service. You are listening to the regular CBC programming as opposed to something geared for external listeners, which means you will get a good idea of Quebecois. There are a lot of French internet radio stations.

Radio Canada may feature Quebecois accents, but it also has things such as la météo and le rapport de trafic. Nice day to day features to know and use.

I find Spotify is the best for listening to music since you can narrow your playlists down to language. Also, a lot of artists use it to promote their work. So, not only do you get to listen to French, you can discover new artists. It expands your world in more than one way.

Likewise, you can watch French and foreign TV on Netflix. I think DIx Pour Cent (“Call my Agent”) is a Netflix exclusive as is Au Service de la France (“A Very Secret Service”). There is also MHz Choice and a few other French services that “broadcast” to the US. France 24 and TV5 have contracts with some service providers for live feeds (cynicism from working in Telecom law comes in here). I prefer to be my own service provider.

If you haven’t bought a MAC or Apple OS computer, you will want to do so since they make it really easy to work in other languages. I have the French and French dictionaries in my dictionary file. Although, the Dictionary in Antidote is well worth the price.

I’m sorry that all these technological things came late for me because it would have made it easier for me to be a Francophone. French has always been a part of my life, but it has become a necessity post-Brexit.

When they do something well–they do it really well. This is from a series called “La Classe américaine“. It’s funny as heck.

This does have subtitles: https://youtu.be/asz3OzZyFOI.

Imagine my surprise when I see that the President of France talking about increasing the number of unicorns in France. Is it April First?

Nope, your French dictionary may be dated, but Antidote (https://www.antidote.info/en) came to the rescue:

économie – Jeune entreprise du domaine des nouvelles technologies qui, sans être cotée en Bourse, est estimée à plus de un milliard de dollars

That’s “Young company in the field of new technologies which, without being listed on the stock exchange, is estimated to be worth more than one billion dollars” in English. Not to mention this is a really good term since some of these companies really have zero assets.

Their real assets are YOUR INFORMATION which they sell.

Maybe some of these companies actually have a product, but they sell airware for the most part.

Here’s your unicorn.

I’m really surprised that my only marked post on this topic happens to be from 10 August 2014 and relates to Alternative history. Although, that is probably the most appropriate since St. Pierre and Miquelon Islands happen to be two small islands off of Newfoundland which are still part of France. It went back and forth between Britain and France during the 18th and 19th Centuries. However, under the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1763), which put an end to the Seven Years’ War, France ceded all its North American possessions, but Britain granted fishing rights to France along the Newfoundland coast, and as part of that arrangement returned Saint-Pierre and Miquelon to France. It became and overseas Territory of France in 1945.

It’s sort of like the line from Rupert Brooke’s The Soldier

That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England.

In this case, it’s still part of France.

I did make a hint about these Islands in a post at MikeB’s. The hint related to:

Law enforcement in Saint Pierre and Miquelon is the responsibility of a branch of the French Gendarmerie Nationale; there are two police stations in the archipelago.

The islands were resettled by France in 1816 mostly with Basques, Bretons and Normans. It feels a bit like Brittany, as does the Gaspe. Unlike the Gaspe, you really ARE in France when you are here.

This came to my attention since I have subscriptions to a few francophone newsletters. It’s an online collaborative dictionary for the French language. What makes it different is that it contains “non-traditional” French. For example, this defintion:

prendre un chimin chien Définition: Locution verbale(Guyane): Prendre un itinéraire différent du trajet classique, en passant par des raccourcis ou des chemins accidentés.

It might be useful to someone.

https://www.dictionnairedesfrancophones.org/

https://www.dictionnairedesfrancophones.org/presentation

It’s like the New York Herald-Tribune comment in my last post.