The Bugle Dordogne - Jan 2014 by The Bugle

Head of faulty breast implant company jailed Jean-Claude Mas, founder of PIP and the man behind the manufacture of faulty breast implants, has been jailed by a court in France >> Page 9

Dordogne January 2014 - Issue #7

Four believed dead in Dordogne river crash Just hours after buying a €30 million property, a Chinese businessman is believed to have died in a helicopter accident along with his son, the former château owner and a fourth person. Rescuers are still searching for the bodies. “scared of helicopters”, according to eyewitnesses. When the flight did not return after 20 minutes, concerned staff contacted the emergency services who launched a search using emergency helicopters, police dogs and around 100 officers on foot. Witnesses said that shortly after the crash, they saw two people struggling in the fastmoving icy water, which was in full winter flow. Local man Michel Galardini, 58, told Sud Ouest newspaper: “We are used to seeing him flying around his vineyard and over the river. The helicopter was flying very low, only 10 or 15 metres over the water. I thought that was a bit strange.” A few minutes later, he told the newspaper that he heard a “deafening crash”. “There was a huge amount of foam and I could see two people struggling in the water.”

NEWS - Look who’s coming to dinner

As wolves slowly repopulate France, how long will it be before they are roaming the Dordogne? >> Page 4

NEWS - Prostitution given red light

Under new laws passed by the government, it is now illegal to pay for sex in France, although soliciting will no longer be punished >> Page 6

Feature - Château de Montaigne

We take an in-depth look at the former Dordogne home of Michel de Montaigne, the iconic 16th century essayist >> Page 11

billionaire Chinese businessman has been killed after a helicopter, being flown by the man who had just sold him his château for an estimated €30 million, crashed into the river Dordogne. Also on board the flight were the businessman’s 12-year-old son and another man, believed to be an aide and interpreter. Lam Kok, 46, a hotel magnate who had diversified into the upmarket wine trade, accepted an offer of an ariel view of his new purchase from James Grégoire, who was until the previous day the owner of the Château de La Rivière near the town of Lugon-et-l’ile-du-Carnay, not far from Libourne. Mr Lam’s wife, Liu Xiangyun, who had posed for photographs with the two men earlier in the day, pulled out of the flight at the last minute, saying she was

INSIDE > > >

>> continued on page 5

France’s next president? Former leader Nicolas Sarkozy is on the comeback trail >> Page 7

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WHAT’S ON - Events in January

3 pages of events and write-ups from across the region. >> Pages 17-19

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2 ♦ IN THIS EDITION

Welcome to

The Bugle

ell, 2014 is finally upon us! I’ve been saying it for a few years now, but I do think that the economic outlook is gradually improving and that 2014 will mark the start of a real financial turnaround for France - I am nothing if not an optimist! For the time being, the news coming out of the UK is certainly better than in France, but the recession does appear to be (finally!) behind us over here and house prices are rising steadily back in the UK. Whether this results in a fresh wave of expats making the move to France remains to be seen, but that can only be a good thing for the local economy if it turns out to be the case. A recurring theme in the paper this month has been politeness. I know that the French have garnered an image over the years as being a bit insular and surly, but I have certainly never found this to be the case. I’m not a big fan of Parisians, but then neither are the French

who live outside the capital. Certainly in my little corner of France, the people who live here could not have been nicer or more welcoming to me and my family. Before moving to France, I lived in large capital cities for a number of years and so it came as a shock when random strangers said hello to me here in my local bank, post office or pharmacy. Even the moody teenagers will almost always give a polite “bonjour” when they enter into a room full of strangers. Although it seemed odd at first, I have come to realise that this is perfectly normal in the countryside and is something that I now also do myself out of habit. I don’t think there is much difference in general between the British and the French, it is more of a city/country divide in both countries. I had a good chuckle to myself when reading about the café owner in southern France who is threatening to charge his customers more if they are not polite when ordering their

www.thebugle.eu ○ THE BUGLE ○ JANUARY 2014

thought it possible in 2012 when his popularity ratings were at a then all-time low; he was being battered in the polls by François Hollande and a number of highprofile court cases were hanging over his head. Less than two years later, he’s virtually in the clear from a legal point of view and people appear to be clamouring for his return. I try to remain politically neutral on these pages, but I for one would love to see him return... when he was in power, vast chunks of the paper practically wrote themselves! Every month you could guarantee that he would do something funny, stupid or unexpected - a kind of Gallic cross between George W and Berlusconi!! Before I go, I would just like to wish all our readers the very best for 2014!!

morning coffee (see page 10). I am starting to wonder if that is an approach I should adopt here at Bugle Towers. Over the years we have had everything through the door, from a well thought out handwritten letter (to which we replied) to a one line email without a hello, please or thank you and simply asking, “got any jobs?” (to which we did not reply!) Personally, I think that much of today’s rudeness can be put down to technology. Learning to hold conversations by text message has ultimately led to many people dispensing entirely with any semblance of formality or manners - and that is without getting into the terrible spelling and grammar that textspeak invariably engenders! We have become so used to communicating anonymously by computer that I think people sometimes forget that there is actually another human being at the other end of the fibre-optic cable, leading them to write things that they would never dream of saying face-to-face with another person. Speaking personally, you are infinitely more likely to get a response from me if your email is properly formatted and politely written. It really doesn’t cost anything to be polite - maybe I’ll make that my New Year’s resolution for 2014! Elsewhere in the news, it very much looks like Nicolas Sarkozy is gearing up for another run at the presidency in 2017. You really wouldn’t have

INSIDE this edition 3-5 Local News 6-10 National News 11 Feature 12 French Life 13 Practical 14 Bilingual 15-16 Directory 17-20 What's On

Until next month!

General: editor@thebugle.eu

Steve Martindale, Editor

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JANUARY 2014 ○ THE BUGLE ○ www.thebugle.eu

New average speed Disparities emerge camera goes online in the cost of water

ince December 2013, the Dordogne is now the home of 2 stretches of road covered by average speed cameras, or radars tronçons. The latest addition to the department’s fight against speeding is located on the A89 between junctions 15 and 16, in the communes of Notre-Dame-de-Sanilhac and Saint-Laurent-sur-Manoire. For the time being, only cars travelling east, towards Brive, will be monitored. The 5-and-a-half kilometre stretch of dual-carriageway, just south of Périgueux, is guarded by a series of cameras which monitor a driver’s average speed across the entire section. If this is calculated to be greater than the local limit of 110 km/h, the car’s registration details will be sent directly to the centre national de contraventions in Rennes. A fine will not be long in then arriving in the post at the address where the car is registered. According to the prefecture, the average speed cameras “allow us to actively battle for better road safety by reducing speed, an aggravating factor in most accidents”. The other stretch already covered by average speed cameras in the department, launched in summer last year, is located on the D704 near Sarlat, heading towards Cahors. On this road, the average speed must not exceed 90 km/h. As well as the two sections covered by average speed cameras, the Dordogne currently has 22 fixed speed cameras and 5 red light cameras. There is also believed to be at least one mobile speed camera, mounted on an unmarked car, operating within the borders of the Dordogne. Final figures for 2013 are not yet available, but as of 15th December, the department had

seen 186 accidents, resulting in 33 deaths and 228 injuries. These figures hint at a marked improvement on 2012, when there were 220 accidents, 45 deaths and 288 injuries. In 2012, France’s army of speed cameras sent out more than 12 million penalty notices. In practice, many photos are unusable and the cameras actually flashed 21 million times. Figures show that 93.5% of these tickets are for speeds of less than 20 km/h over the limit. Although excessive speed is still a factor in 26% of all road fatalities in France, average speeds on the county’s roads have fallen by 10 km/h in the decade since the first introduction of fixed speed cameras. In 2012, there were 3,645 road deaths in France, significantly down from a peak of 9,000 in 2002, and the lowest on record since 1948, the year in which France first started accounting for road deaths. ■

91-year-old finds love with a garden placard

hey say you’re never too old to fall in love, something that a 91-year-old man from Libourne put to the test earlier last year when he placed a placard in his garden with the text “Due to a death, seeking a woman, to live together. 70-80 years old. With or without a car”, followed by his telephone number. Born in 1922 in SaintMichel-de-Montaigne, Dordogne, Roger-Marc Grenier was a soldier under General Pétain, fought in the resistance under General de Gaulle in the Second World War, worked as a mechanic, HGV driver, delivery man... but was left alone and lonely following the recent death of his wife, Simone. His solution was to find a like-minded companion to share his days with. The sign seemed to work and the nonogenarian was

soon receiving calls from his ‘ad’. “I met some women who wanted to spend the time just talking. But I wanted someone to keep me company, who I could count on,” explained the pensioner. And his patience has now paid off. Eight months after first installing his sign, he received a call from Yolande, an 86-year-old from the town of Arveyres, just 7 km from Grenier’s home. His conversation with ‘Yoyo’ made such an impression he arranged to meet her within minutes. “Many women called me, but there were lots who were completely worthless. When Yoyo called, I got into the car right away,” Grenier told Sud-Ouest newspaper. “I told her: ‘Listen, I’ll be at your place in ten minutes’. She waited for me in front of the gate. Obviously, she is quite old - you can’t have everything! But she is really, really

great.” Also speaking to SudOuest about their first meeting, a smiling Yolande added: “We got each other on the phone and he came over to my place very quickly. And then we came to an arrangement.” Yoyo has already moved into Grenier’s home, along with her dog Bianca and several chickens. “The first day she arrived here, we slept in the same bed,” Grenier admitted. “We want to go back to family life, quite simply. I met some women who wanted to spend the time just talking. We walk the dog, we live a normal home life.” Whilst the young lovebirds are currently enjoying their new romance, 86-year-old Yoyo has already laid down the law to her older boyfriend: “I told him that if he gets on my nerves, I’m going back to my apartment!” ■

he price of utilities are continually changing and recently it seems they have only heading in one direction - up. While your water bill might not be as large as the gas and electric bills for the year, it is still a sizeable chunk of most people’s household budget. A recent study has shown, however, that there is a wide disparity in the price of water across the country, with large differences even noted between neighbouring departments. Aquitaine as a whole has amongst the highest prices in France, although there is a significant disparity across the region. In the Dordogne, the price of a cubic metre of water is €4.18, fractionally above the national average of €4.15. In the Landes department, however, the price is just €3.09, while next door in the Lot-et-Garonne department a cubic metre of water will set you back €5.49 - the second most expensive department. Neighbouring Tarn-et-Garonne has the highest price in mainland France at €5.72 per m³. This wild variation across the country can be seen further if you look to the north of the department. Head over the border into Haute-Vienne and water will cost you just €2.92 per metre cubed, one of the cheapest places in the country to buy water. The study, which compared 6,328 prices gathered from the all the departments of mainland France as well as the overseas territories, revealed some stark differences in price. “The disparity, and the high levels in some departments have become the norm, leading to great injustices for consumers,” said a leading consumer rights group, which went on to call the current pricing structure a “jungle”. Not only do the prices vary wildly from region to region, but the study reveals that prices can also be very different within parts of the same department. The consumer rights group, which has criticised what it believes to be overly complex pricing structures and billing practices, is calling for prices across the country to be gradually brought in line with each other, something that is already being done on a smaller scale by some departments and groups of communes. “There is no reason why the harmonisation of these prices, which is already being done in certain areas, can not be rolled out across the country,” said the group, arguing that this would be “the first step on the road to having a single unit price for water in France”. ■

4 ♦ LOCAL NEWS

www.thebugle.eu ○ THE BUGLE ○ JANUARY 2014

Will wolves soon be roaming the woods?

he wolf is not an animal that you expect to come across while wandering through the woods in France. But in recent years, this once-lost predator has been making an impressive comeback. Hailed as a success story by naturalists and conservationists, the numbers of wolves are steadily rising. Today there are estimated to be around 200 animals in 20 packs, ranging across much of southeastern France. While this number is still relatively low compared with neighbouring countries, wolves are becoming a problem, in particular for sheep farmers. 5,848 animals were reported to have been killed by wolves in 2012 (up 120% in 5 years); 95% of the victims were sheep. Despite being virtually extinct in this country until 20 years ago, many experts now agree that it will not be too long until wolves will once again be roaming the woods of

The wolf in the French language Expression: quand on parle du loup (on en voit la queue) Meaning: speak of the devil (and he appears) Literal translation: when you talk about the wolf (you see its tail) Expression: avoir une faim de loup Meaning: to be ravenous, famished Literal translation: to have a wolf's hunger Expression: entre chien et loup Meaning: at dusk, at twilight Literal translation: between dog and wolf The French expression entre chien et loup is a poetic way to talk about dusk, the brief period of time after the sun sets, when the sky is just beginning to get dark. The idea is that there's still enough light to see an animal in front of you, but not enough to tell whether it is a dog or a wolf - and by extension, whether you might be in danger.

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the Dordogne. To this end a café philo was held in Sarlat in early December to discuss the potential return of the wolf and what it would mean for the department, its residents and farmers. The event also featured exhibitions of photos of wild wolves taken in the Mercantour National Park in the Alps. “The wolf will be back,” explained Laurent Delbos, director of the Village du Bournat living museum in Le Bugue and a wolf expert. “It has already crossed 2 major motorways, so there’s no reason it will not be back in our department. We need to prepare ourselves psychologically.” For his part, Mr Delbos insisted that he was neither pro nor anti the return of canis lupus lupus. “The wolf is a taboo subject that forms an important part of our collective subconscious. The pro camp tend to be urbanites, the anti tend to come from rural areas. The issue is symptomatic of our refusal to accept nature, an area that we feel the need to control. We do not like the idea of predators. “We need to let this controversial debate simmer and be careful not to stigmatise the wolf and turn it into a demonic beast. It is neither the good guy nor the bad guy here - it is simply a wild animal, like the bear. People in other countries have learned to live in harmony alongside the wolf.” Wolves were virtually extinct in France until a handful crossed the border from Italy and recolonised the French Alps around 1993; they then rapidly spread across much of the southeastern part of the country. Initially, the wolves were situated to the east of the busy and heavily populated Rhône valley, but having crossed this barrier they are now poised to colonise central France. According to Daniel Véjux, one of France’s foremost experts on the wolf: “It was inevitable that the need for new wild prey would force young wolves to establish new hunting territories across the Rhône at some point. Now, unless they are persecuted to extinction by mankind again, there is nothing to stop wolves spreading across thousands of square miles throughout central France in the next couple of decades.” Wolves are known to be living in parts of the Pyrenees and have recently been confirmed as “indigenous” to the Massif Central having spent 2 consecutive winters there, something that has even threatened the existence of Roque-

fort cheese. There are strict rules to the “Roquefort” AOC label, which stipulate that it is “compulsory” for sheep to be allowed to graze freely and to roam on the hilly pastures “every day” provided there is sufficient grass, “weather conditions permitting”. The farmers argue that with wolves roaming the hills, this may no longer be possible. The most recent confirmed sightings in the Massif Central were on the Col de la Croix Saint-Robert, around 150 km to the east of the Dordogne, although a pack would have to cross the A20 if it were to reach this department. Just weeks after the December meeting in Sarlat, reports came in of multiple wolf sightings near Montignac, Dordogne. Eventually, one quick-thinking 20-year-old snapped the “beast” with his mobile phone. Experts were then called in from the French National Office for Hunting and Wildlife, based in Grenoble, who were able confirm that the animal in question was in fact an escaped husky and put an end to 2 weeks of mild panic and wild speculation. Wolves are protected under European law and a “wolf code” established in France in 2004, means that the animals can only legally be shot by licensed “wolf lieutenants” or government marksmen and only then if all other measures have been exhausted. To ward off the carnivores, shepherds are first expected to invest in guard dogs, lighting and electric fences - financially difficult for all but the biggest farming businesses. ■

Bergerac-Marrakesh flights scrapped

ate last year, Bergerac Airport was proudly announcing that it had secured a deal to keep its prized route to Marrakesh open over the winter months, with 2 flights a week to Morocco. But then, just weeks later, travellers with reservations to Marrakesh received an email from Ryanair telling them that all flights from November onwards had been cancelled. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Dordogne was forced to admit that the winter flights were “a test phase” and that “Bergerac Airport will continue to be at the disposal of Ryanair should they wish to continue these flights”. “If this is not the case, the route will continue as normal from

Très Jolie

the 1st April,” explained Serge Mérillou, president of the Syndicat mixte air Dordogne (Smad). The latest news, however, is that there will now be no Ryanair flights at all between Bergerac and Marrakesh in 2014, despite the route being the airport’s most profitable last year. The reason, it has subsequently emerged, is a planned tax due to be introduced by the Moroccan government in April 2014. The new tax would have seen €9 added to the cost of a flight, a move which has so incensed the Irish lowcost airline that they have cancelled around 30 routes into the north African country from European runways, with the Bergerac flights amongst the casualties.

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The management of Bergerac Airport have stated that they are actively searching for a replacement airline to take over the route for the summer of 2014. There is a significant Moroccan population in the Dordogne, an estimated 4,000 in total, with an even greater number in the neighbouring Lot-etGarrone department. The Moroccan consulate in Bordeaux covers 11 departments in the south-west of France, where the expat population is believed to be around 80,000. The route from Bergerac to Marrakesh, which was established early in 2013, not only proved popular with the region’s Moroccan expat community, but also attracted plenty of locals in search of sunshine. ■

LOCAL NEWS ♦ 5

JANUARY 2014 ○ THE BUGLE ○ www.thebugle.eu

>> continued from pg 1

One body, believed to be that of the Chinese businessman’s son, was recovered on the night of the crash, but 10 days later, at time of going to press, the remaining bodies had not yet been recovered. It is feared that the survivors were swept away and drowned in a river which was in full tidal flood. The wreckage of the Robinson R44 helicopter, which is used by the police and army in several countries, was located early the following day in seven metres of water. “Every lead is being followed - the weather, the rules, maintenance, the pilot’s qualifications and the characteristics of the flight,” said Philippe Mole of France’s air transport investigation department. In a further twist, it has emerged that former owner James Grégoire himself bought the château in 2003 from its previous owner, Jean Leprince, who was killed in a light aircraft crash the year before, meaning that 3 successive owners of the property have now died in air accidents in just 11 years.

Mr Lam, who planned to build a hotel near its vineyard and convert the property into a high class tea and wine tasting centre, had previously twinned his home town in China with the nearby town of Libourne, the regional centre for the Saint-Émilion and Pomerol vineyards. Dozens of low or middle range Bordeaux vineyards have been sold to Chinese buyers in recent years, but this was the most expensive and prestigious deal so far. Château de La Rivière is the biggest and most respected vineyard in the Fronsac appellation of Bordeaux and its best wines sell for around €40 a bottle. The property, which is a prime piece of real estate in its own right, is believed to have 30 km of tunnels containing an estimated 1 million bottles of wine. The purchase of the château by Mr Lam represented the biggest Chinese investment to date in Bordeaux wine, reflecting a growing taste for luxury vintages in newly-affluent China that has pushed wine prices to record levels. As Mr Grégoire himself remarked in an interview in 2007:

Chinese billionaire dies in river crash

“A bottle of Pétrus or a Château d’Yquem can sell at any price in China. It is a symbol of wealth.” This passion for French wine is part of a wave of Chinese interest across Europe, seeking to satisfy domestic demand for what many Chinese consumers see as the finer things in life, such as French wines, luxury travel, foreign cars and fashionable clothes. There has been much fear in the indus-

hose of us who have driven in the UK may be familiar with seemingly extortionate parking fines when caught on a yellow line, or overstaying your welcome at a parking meter. In France, fines are set nationwide; for the 25 years until 2011 fines were fixed nationally at €11 and since then have been €17. Change is afoot, however, as local mayors could soon become free to set their own parking fines if new decentralisation legislation being discussed in parliament is passed. While the price of a parking fine in Eymet or Excideuil may remain at €17 or even drop, fines in Bergerac and Périgueux could soon be rising, although it may be some time until the changes officially become law. MPs have voted in favour of the measure at first reading - but it would take at least two years to come into effect. Under current rules, bad parking is a legal issue handled by the police, but many argue that the €17 fine is not enough to dissuade drivers from breaking the law. According to Guy Le Bras, general man-

ager of the Groupement des autorités responsables de transports (Gart), only 35% of drivers pay for parking when they are supposed to. By “decriminalising” parking offences, the door would be open for private companies to enter the market for collecting fines. This has the double incentive for local authorities of both increasing their revenue from fines as well as reducing the costs of collecting them - not only are private companies cheaper than using local police to collect penalties, any fees charged by the collection agency can simply be added to the cost of the fine. Supporters of the move argue that under the current system, fines are not high enough in Paris to dissuade drivers from parking illegally, but are too high in rural areas. They hope that mayors of rural towns will in fact lower the fines while those of larger cities are free to raise them. Critics of the proposals believe that the move will simply lead to higher and higher parking fines. Not only that, but because penalties will be handled on a municipal level, if a driver wishes to contest a

Mayors could be granted power to set parking fines

fine, they will need to contact their commune. If the commune upholds the fine, they will need to go before an administrative tribunal. That will require them to engage a lawyer and they will have no right of appeal. It has been established that Paris is keen to charge €36 for a parking fine, with Lyon and Strasbourg opting for somewhere in the region of €20. Meanwhile, the Senate has also unanimously voted in favour of making car parking, in any parking space, completely free of charge for disabled drivers. This would mean that drivers with a valid disabled badge would not be limited to designated disabled spaces to benefit from free parking. ■

try, however, that the new generation of Chinese owners, as well as French owned estates looking to target the Far East, may alter the taste of their wines to suit the Chinese palette, which traditional wine experts say is not as refined as that of countries with a longer history of wine drinking. Wine is big money in China... but so is fake wine. In November 2012, police found 10,000

bottles of fake Château Lafite Rothschild in a derelict house; one of the most expensive wines in the world, the haul had a street value of around €15 million. To date, Château Lafite Rothschild alone has won 6 separate lawsuits against Chinese companies producing fake wines. According to one Chinese wine expert, there is more Lafite ‘82 currently on sale in China than was ever made. ■

6 ♦ NATIONAL NEWS

www.thebugle.eu ○ THE BUGLE ○ JANUARY 2014

Colour tattoos Government set to outlaw paying for sex to be banned

ing circles operating in l'Héxagone. Today around 90% of sex workers in France are foreign, a rise of 70 per cent since 1990. However, many groups fear that fining clients caught paying for sex could have a detrimental effect on the working conditions of France's 20,000 sex workers. Tim Leicester, who works for Médecins du Monde, commented: “[The new legislation] won't change anything for prostitutes. They will be forced to continue to hide themselves because even if they are not risking arrest, their clients are. And their survival depends on their clients.” Women's Rights Minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem voiced her support for the reforms, calling the latest vote “the end of a long road strewn with pitfalls”. However, with fines threatening to drive the worst aspects of prostitution underground, it remains to be seen whether this really is the end of the road for those wishing to pay for sex. ■ Amaryllis Barton

ew laws on prostitution introduced this month will make it illegal to pay for sex. MPs in the National Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favour of a bill which will introduce a fine of up to €1,500 for those caught buying sex. Under the new ruling, prostitution remains legal, but soliciting will no longer be punished. The new legislation also includes provision to help sex workers find a way off the streets. France has traditionally had a tolerant approach to prostitution. Under Napoleon prostitution was legalised, with the “filles de joie” registered and subject to health checks. Since 1946, however, controls have tightened, notably under the current Socialist government. In 2010 Manuel Valls, the interior minister, spoke out against the “'new slavery” gripping France and some ministers have even called for a “society without prostitution” as part of a new vision of France's future. The tightened legislation comes as France attempts to break up the international sex traffick-

Nicholas

Hemming

hey are statistically less likely to cause deaths than cigarettes, alcohol or drugs, and fewer than 1 in 10 French people have them, but as of January 2014, coloured tattoos will become a taboo in France. 90% of coloured tattoo inks will become illegal following a move by the SNDV (the French union of dermatologists and venereologists) to reduce the adverse effects of the inks, which can include infections, allergic reactions and, according to a new study, cancer. Tattooists have responded to the news in shock, claiming that the new measure has no scientific basis and will only stigmatise the tattoo industry.

Julien Schroder, the manager of Deluxe Tattoo in Reims, has been in the tattoo industry for 14 years. “I've only seen two allergic reactions to coloured ink - to red ink to be precise. I have never heard anything about the risk of cancer.” There is also concern that instead of reducing demand for coloured tattoos, a black-market colour tattoo industry could be created. According to 'Tin-Tin', the well-known tattoo artist who famously tattooed Jean-Paul Gaultier , the only people who will benefit are the “backstreet outfits supplying Chinese ink”. Seeking artistic expression through colourful body art, customers could find themselves in unregulated and unhygienic tattoo parlours. For the time being, tattoo lovers are signing an online petition, which already has over 150,000 signatures at time of publication, to stop the government ban. ■ Amaryllis Barton

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NATIONAL NEWS ♦ 7

Nicolas Sarkozy on the comeback trail

t may have looked almost impossible when he left office in 2012, but it now seems almost certain that France's “bling bling” president, Nicolas Sarkozy, will be making a comeback later this year, with one eye firmly on the 2017 presidential elections. Sarkozy left office promising never to return, but as Hollande's popularity levels fell to the lowest recorded in modern history, Sarkozy has continually dropped hints that he may come back to rescue “suffering France” from the economic crisis that he blames on the Socialist leader. “The question is not to know if I want or don't want to return. I cannot not return. I don't have a choice. It's destiny. Destiny,” he has told friends and political allies, according to a recent edition of Le Point weekly magazine. The comments came as a new opinion poll in Le Figaro showed that the rightwing ex-president is far more popular than the incumbent François Hollande, with 46 per cent of voters saying they would like to have Sarkozy as head of state and just 27 per cent plumping for the Socialist. In his first tentative steps back into public like after a very lucrative period on the international lecture circuit, the 58-yearold has begun attending the concerts of his singer wife Carla Bruni’s comeback tour, where thrilled audiences have greeted him with chants of “Come back Nicolas!” and “Get out Hollande”. For a long time, the biggest obstacle to a return to front-line politics were the charges raised against him over the so-called Bettencourt Affair. Sarkozy had been facing a lengthy trial process, a potential three-year prison term and a ban from public office after being formally charged in March last year as part of a wide-ranging probe into allegations he illegally received cash from France's richest woman, Liliane Bettencourt, to help fund his successful 2007 election campaign. Despite a series of other legal problems, when these charges were unexpectedly dropped by judges late last year, the door was suddenly re-opened for what had previously looked an unlikely comeback. In a

message he posted on his official Facebook page after he was cleared, Nicolas Sarkozy proclaimed that he had been declared “innocent”, and listed the numerous hardships to which he had been subjected by investigators, including 22 hours of questioning. “So, this was the price to pay so that the truth could finally be established,” he wrote, before adding a warning: “For the politicians who, during these months, have used this 'affair' and contributed to increasing suspicion, I want to remind them how the presumption of innocence is a fundamental principle. We can never win by slandering people. It only harms democracy,” he said. Sarkozy will have to battle hard to convince the public that he has changed from the man who lost the 2012 presidential elections. His problems with the electorate started as early as the night of his victory when he attended a VIP dinner organised at Le Fouquet’s, a luxury restaurant on the Champs-Elysées. He then jetted off for a short cruise on a billionaire friend’s yacht before his inauguration. A series of similar incidents led to his nickname as the “bling bling president” and built his reputation as a friend of the rich, disconnected from the people. Even if he successfully manages to change his image, his UMP party is in disarray, dogged by in-fighting, threatened by the rise of the far right and unable to capitalise on the Socialist government's record unpopularity. For that reason, it is now widely believed that Sarkozy is considering forming a new political party, a move that would also allow him to avoid a tricky UMP primary to select the party’s candidate for 2017. Bruno Jeanbart of polling firm OpinionWay said the prospect of Mr Sarkozy moving back into the Elysée was a very a real one. “If the current situation persists, with François Hollande remaining a very unpopular president, and the Front National remaining a real threat, his chances could be strong,” he said. “Today he appears to be in a favourable position because there is a void that was created on the right due to his absence and nobody has filled that void.” ■

Cigarette prices to hit €7 per packet From 6th January, the price of a packet of cigarettes in France will rise another 20 centimes, the third price hike in 15 months. The cheapest packet of cigarettes will now cost at least €6.50, with the price of a packet of Marlboro – France's most popular cigarette – reaching €7 for the first time. “Reaching the symbolic level of €7 is a big deal for our clients,” explained Pascal Montredon, president of the federation of tobacconists. “They tell us that they are having more and more trouble making ends meet.” Announcing the latest price rise, France's budget minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, told France 2 that the government's aim was to “have a steady decline in smoking and therefore a steady rise in prices”, adding that “the results seen in the last year show close to an 8% drop in tobacco consumption”. In better news for committed smokers, they are now allowed to bring twice as much tobacco into the country as was previously permitted. Following a ruling by the European Court of Justice earlier this year that France was not complying with EU rules by strictly limiting the purchase of tobacco, travellers can now bring 10 cartons of cigarettes back into the country, or 50 cartons for a car with 5 passengers. For cigars, the limit has gone from 50 to a whopping 1,000. According to Le Parisien, around 500 million packets of cigarettes smoked in France each year are bought in neighbouring countries such as Italy (€5/packet), Luxembourg (€4.80), Spain (€4.65) or Andorra (€3) - countries where taxation on tobacco is significantly lower.■

8 ♦ NATIONAL NEWS

www.thebugle.eu ○ THE BUGLE ○ JANUARY 2014

fter tackling the thorny issues of gay marriage and prostitution, a debate is currently raging in France on another controversial issue: assisted suicide and euthanasia. The subject has once again been thrust into the limelight following the double suicide of an 86-year-old married couple in a top Parisian hotel. Georgette and Bernard Cazes, both 86, were found lying peacefully on a bed in a room at the Lutetia hotel in the Saint-Germain district of Paris, having planned their deaths in meticulous detail. The couple, who met in their teens and had been married for more than 60 years, were found by hotel staff holding hands and with plastic bags over their heads. Police found two documents in the room, which was undisturbed: one, a letter for the couple's family; the other, a typewritten attack on the government, addressed to the French public prosecutor, demanding “the right to die in a dignified manner”. France's official Ethics Advisory Committee (CCNE) passed a majority vote earlier this year against introducing Dignitasstyle assisted suicide clinics where lethal medication is deliberately given to a patient. It did say, however, that it was in favour of “passive euthanasia” whereby treatment, hydration and nutrients are withdrawn at the request of an individual facing the end of their life. In 2005, France approved a law that allows patients, and in some cases their families, to decline extreme medical treatment keeping them alive despite their wishes, but euthanasia - an act by a medical professional or other person meant to cause the patient to die - is

illegal in France. This is despite repeated polls suggesting that over 90% of the public are in favour of assisted suicide. In neighbouring Switzerland, Luxembourg and Belgium, as well as in the Netherlands, assisted suicide is already either legal or has been decriminalised. In her final letter, Georgette Cazes voiced her anger at not being allowed to leave the world “peacefully”. She declared the letter a formal legal complaint for the “non respect of my liberty”, and wrote that she had asked her son to pursue the case after her death. “The law forbids access to any lethal pills that would enable a soft death,” the typed note said. “Should my freedom be only limited by that of others? Who has the right to hinder a person [to end their life] who has nobody in their charge, who is up to date with their taxes, having worked all these years and then as a volunteer in the social services? Who has the right to force them to commit cruel practices when they want to leave this life serenely?” One of their sons later said that they had been “planning their deaths for years” because they did not want to become a burden on their family or the state adding that they “feared separation and dependency on others much more than death”. Jean-Luc Romero, president of the Association for the Right to Die with Dignity, said that without a new law on euthanasia, those who wished to end their lives before a prolonged and painful sickness or period of decline, would continue to be forced to use drastic means to do so. “Unfortunately, the fate of this couple is typical. There are many elderly French people who are forced every year to take their own lives in

France debates assisted suicide laws

The couple chose the luxury Lutetia hotel in Paris for their last night together very unpleasant ways,” he said, adding that this case proved beyond doubt that the time had come for French law to change. “Quite simply we need a new law which allows people in similar circumstances to this couple to be able to seek assistance from doctors and to pass away peacefully and with dignity, in the company of their loved ones,” he added. “With assisted suicide you avoid trauma and allow a departure within minutes, without suffering and surrounded by loved ones.” Marie-Frédérique Bacqué, a psychoanalyst and head of the review, Death Studies, said that while nobody could be prevented from ending their life, “assisted suicide widens the possibilities of killing, which is problematic and dangerous:

how then could you refuse such a death to someone who is [simply] depressed?” In the wake of the story, a second couple, an 81-year-old and 84-year-old, were found by their cleaner in the bedroom of their home in the seventh arrondissement of the French capital having also taken their own lives. “It is clear the couple committed suicide by taking medication,” a police source said, who also confirmed that they had left a note explaining the reasons behind their actions. One neighbour described them as a “nice elderly couple” while another told AFP news agency that the woman suffered from cancer and walked with crutches, “but they went to the theatre and liked to go

out”. During his 2012 presidential campaign, President François Hollande promised to further look into the issue of assisted suicide, but no reforms have been presented to date. A panel of 18 people who are “representative” of the population was set up earlier this year at the request of the president to look into the issue of assisted suicide. In December, after news of the most recent suicides, the “Conference of Citizens” panel said: “The possibility of committing medically assisted suicide... is, in our eyes, a legitimate right of a patient close to death or suffering from a terminal pathology, based first and foremost on their lucid consent and complete awareness.” ■

François Hollande’s secret prostate operation In December last year, François Hollande admitted he underwent treatment for an enlargement of the prostate before he

became president in 2012. The operation took place at the Cochin hospital, Paris, in February 2011; Hollande stayed for

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several days and then returned home as no further treatment was deemed necessary. At the time, Hollande was president of the Conseil Général of the Corrèze region. The reaction to the news has been mixed, with Hollande drawing support from across the political spectrum. Bernard Debré, a UMP member but also the head of the urology department at Cochin, put the operation into context. “It was

nothing. It’s as if we were saying: you know, François Hollande was operated for appendicitis when he was seven. So what?” he said. However, the health of France's leaders is a sensitive issue after two previous presidents concealed serious illnesses: Georges Pompidou hid his cancer from the electorate, ultimately dying in office, and François Mitterrand did not disclose his prostate

cancer. The operation calls into question whether voters have a right to know the medical history of their leaders when there is no constitutional obligation to do so. An unnamed source close to Hollande commented it would have been 'political suicide' for the president to disclose his condition to the electorate before the presidential race in 2012. ■ Amaryllis Barton

NATIONAL NEWS ♦ 9

JANUARY 2014 ○ THE BUGLE ○ www.thebugle.eu

PIP founder Jean-Claude Mas jailed

ean-Claude Mas, the founder of Poly Implant Prothèse (PIP), the French firm at the centre of a global scandal over defective breast implants, was yesterday found guilty of aggravated fraud and sentenced to four years in prison. Four other defendants, former PIP executives or managers, were also found guilty and given jail sentences ranging from 18 months to 3 years. Cheers erupted from the 50 women present when the verdict was read out in the courtroom in Marseille, southern France. There were a total of 7,113 civil plaintiffs in what was one of the largest cases in French legal history. Mr Mas was also ordered to compensate more than 4,000 plaintiffs up to €13,000 each for the anxiety he had caused them and, in some cases, the physical trauma of having the implants removed. They are unlikely to receive anything, however, as the 74-year-old claims he is insolvent and PIP was put into liquidation shortly after the scandal broke. There was further anger amongst the plaintiffs as Mr Mas was allowed to walk free from court pending an appeal. Mr Mas admitted to lying about the gel he used but denied that the

substandard implants posed any health risks, at first dismissing the complainants as “fragile people, or people who are doing this for money”. He later offered a halfhearted apology. His co-defendants had acknowledged during the trial that industrial-grade silicone gel had been fraudulently used instead of the official Nusil gel, but said they were under Mr Mas’ authoritarian spell. PIP, which at the height of its powers was the world's third biggest supplier of breast implants, was accused of cutting costs for over a decade by using an illegal concoction of industrial and agricultural silicone not fit for use on humans. At around €5 per litre, it was seven times cheaper than medical-grade silicone - a costcutting measure that saved the company millions of euros per year. The scandal emerged after surgeons warned authorities there was an abnormally high rupture rate among PIP implants. Gendarmes searching the business in southern France then found cans of industrial silicone in a van. Soon afterwards, the company was closed and its products taken off the market. An estimated 300,000 women

sued by NHS doctors are being replaced for free. Previously, the then Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, told private clinics that they had a moral obligation to do the same. In November 2013, 1,700 women received an initial payment of €3,000 each from TUV Rheinland, the safety standards firm which certified the sub-standard

in 65 countries are believed to have received the implants, which are twice as likely to rupture as other brands - more than 4,000 women have reported ruptures. In France, the health ministry has advised all 30,000 women with implants to remove them and is footing the bill. In Britain, of the 47,000 women who received the implants, only those those is-

breast implants, in a separate trial. The judge in that case ruled that the company had “neglected its duties of checking and vigilance” and ordered it to pay compensation to victims. Lawyers for TUV Rheinland had argued that it was never the German firm's job to check the actual implants, and their task was only to inspect the manufacturing process. ■

INSEE sends letter to Napoleon!

Managing Editor: Steve Martindale Editor-in-Chief: Steve Martindale Registered Address: Les Quatre Chemins 23150 St-Yrieix-les-Bois France SIRET: 514 989 748 00017 Printed by: Charente Libre 16340, L’Isle d’Espagnac France Monthly circulation: 11,000 copies All copyright, unless stated otherwise, is reserved to The Bugle. Reproduction in whole or part of any text without permission is prohibited. Dépôt légal à parution.

ureaucracies the world over are known for their blunders, but France’s statistics agency, the INSEE, has outdone itself by despatching a letter to Corsica for the attention of Napoleon Bonaparte, the French emperor who has been dead for nearly 200 years! The letter, addressed in typed letters to “Bonaparte, Napoleon”, was despatched to 3 rue Saint Charles in Ajaccio - just next door to the former emperor’s birthplace, which is now a museum dedicated to his memory. The current resident of 3 rue Saint Charles clearly has a sense of humour, however, as they marked the letter “return to sender”, before adding an explanatory note beneath the address: “Died in 1821 – please forward to Saint Peter”. According to the INSEE, the letters were being sent out to thousands of newly-registered auto-entrepreneurs, questioning them about their “creative processes”. It is believed that an unknown individual had, possibly as a joke, registered a small business online under the name of Napoleon Bonaparte, and that the letter was then automatically sent to them as a result, despite it being registered with one of the most famous names in French history. Napoleon was born in 1769 in Ajaccio, Corsica, to a family of noble Italian ancestry. A brilliant military commander, he rose to become Emperor of the French and conquered half of Europe until his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, after which he was sent in exile to Saint Helena. ■

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France's oldest mayor to seek re-election When the municipal elections take place in a few months' time, one mayor will be looking for his 12th mandate - a record in France. Since first being elected mayor of La Bastide-de-Bousignac in 1947 at the tender age of 27, Roger Sénié has continued to serve his commune and now, at the age of 93, is hoping to be elected for a 12th time and reach 70 years in charge. Mr Sénié, who says he used to be called “Roger”, then “Monsieur Sénié”, before simply becoming known these days as “le maire”, is paid €570 per month for looking after the commune of 338 inhabitants in the Ariège department in the south of France. Despite fluctuating health, he says he has the blessing of his 90-year-old wife to run for his record 12th term as mayor. ■

10 ♦ NATIONAL NEWS

www.thebugle.eu ○ THE BUGLE ○ JANUARY 2014

our parents may well have drummed into you that it doesn't cost anything to be polite, but the opposite is not always necessarily true, especially if you are planning to drop in for a quick drink at La Petite Syrah café in Nice. According to a large notice outside the establishment, “un café” will set you back €7, but if you also include the magic words “s'il vous plaît” you’ll get the same drink for €4.25. Add a friendly “bonjour” and your morning caffeine hit will be yours for a much more reasonable €1.40. Café manager Fabrice Pepino said his staff had grown increasingly fed up with the bad manners of people in a rush on their office lunch breaks. “It started as a joke because at lunchtime people would come in very stressed and were sometimes rude to us when they ordered a coffee. It's our way of saying 'keep calm and carry on',” he said. “I know people say that French service can be rude but it's also true that customers can be rude when they’re busy.” He admitted that he was yet to

actually enforce the “strict” pricing scheme, but said: “People are more relaxed now, and they’re smiling more. That’s the most important thing.” As is often the way with these things, what started off as a joke quickly hit the internet and went viral, and before long the world's media were all focused on the small café in the south of France. Former government minister Christine Boutin even got involved, calling the sign an excellent idea. “We live in a strange old world,” said Mr Pepino. “For three years we have put all our passion into what we do, which is trying to offer quality food, and good wines… and it's this that creates the buzz. A few words on a blackboard. It wasn't even an original idea! I saw it on the internet and liked it… but I was planning to rub it out.” Another area of France where politeness is often not top of the menu is the Paris Metro. Parisian commuters are not famed for their manners and a trip on the capital's underground can often be an unpleasant experience. But now, Paris' public transport body has released a special

The café where politeness pays

“politeness” manual aimed at trying to reduce uncouth behaviour on the Metro, with a list of “commandments” on how to improve civility. These range from helping clueless tourists to ensuring body odour is not wafted around the carriage. The online “etiquette manual for the modern traveller” includes an array of tips split into four categories - “helpfulness”, “courtesy”, “manners” and “politeness” - drawn up from among more than 2,000 suggestions from the general public. The manual is largely tonguein-cheek, such as rule number

L'anglais - ce n'est pas cool

rance has long fought against the invasion of foreign words, particularly Anglicisms, into its language. Chief in that fight is the Académie Française, set up in 1635 to protect the purity of the French language. The institute’s 40 members advise on vocabulary, word usage and grammar, but it is increasingly losing its battle against words with English origins creeping into everyday usage. In 1994 France introduced the “Toubon” law making the use of French obligatory in official government publications, in state-funded schools,

in advertisements and French workplaces. This means, for example, that all English words on billboards must come with a French translation in a footnote. The law also requires a minimum of 40% of Frenchlanguage music to be played on the radio. One front on which the battle is being lost, however, is on the nation's TV channels. The advent of reality TV, American series and foreign-designed formats has seen a dramatic rise in English expressions and viewers can now tune in to “prime time” shows such as “Secret Story”, “Masterchef”

SUDOKU - EASY

or “Ice Show”. France has stuck with the English “The Voice” for its version of the popular international singing competition, whereas in Canada it is broadcast as “La Voix”. To begin the fight back against this cultural invasion, the Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel (CSA), France’s broadcasting watchdog, gathered together a selection of linguists and TV and radio bosses at its first-ever summit on “the future of the French language in audiovisual media” at the Collège de France in Paris, one of France’s most hallowed academic institutions. “The

3, which states: “On really hot days, even an emperor penguin needs to keep his arms close to his body so grab the bottom of the pole and not the very top!” Last year, France's stateowned railway operator announced the creation of almost 3,000 “polite police” with tough new powers to eradicate bad manners on the nation's intercity trains. Traveller gripes include spitting on and insulting ticket inspectors, putting feet on seats, pulling emergency alarms without reason, speaking loudly on mobile phones, playing music and damaging train interiors. ■ idea is not to mete out punishment or play at being grumpy grots who hunt English words, but rather to take stock of the situation and help channels be aware of their obligations in defending and promoting the French language,” Patrice Gélinet, president of the CSA's French language mission, told Le Parisien. Erik Orsenna, a member of the elite Académie Française, said: “I find putting Anglicisms everywhere, and often not the correct English terms, totally naff. People think it sounds trendy and international, but it’s just naff”. The best way to counter English is to make French “more beautiful, funny and cheeky,” he said. ■

SUDOKU - MEDIUM

The solutions to this month’s sudokus can be found on page 19

Hollande's son grabs headlines He has a cute beard, large RayBan style glasses, a very attractive girlfriend and his name's Hollande. This is the president's son, Thomas, whose celebrity lifestyle has been causing something of a stir in the French press. Tabloids to financial magazines seem unable to leave the president's more popular son alone. “Thomas Hollande is becoming a minor celebrity,” said Fabrice Argelas, a journalist at Voici magazine. “He is not in the top ten yet, but he is interesting and good looking.” In December the 28-year-old Hollande was photographed at a 600 euro per head dinner with his girlfriend, the singer-song writer Joyce Jonathan. However, Jonathan has no desire to become the new Carla Bruni of French politics: “Thomas is a lawyer, not a politician, in any event,” she commented earlier this year. The dinner made the news not simply because of its price tag, but because Valérie Trierweiler, the president's partner, also attended. To the frustration of the many cameras present, Hollande and Jonathan did their utmost to avoid a picture with Trierweiler, showing that relations between Hollande's children and his new partner have not thawed. ■ Amaryllis Barton

Lottery unveils game to create 100 millionaires a year Française des Jeux (FDJ), the company which runs the Euromillions lottery in France, has announced plans to create 2 millionaires every week from next month. As of the 1st February, a ticket for the Euromillions will rise from €2 to €2.50 if players also wish to take part in the “My Million” game. Every Tuesday and Friday, one ticket bought in France for the Euromillions which also took part in the My Million will be drawn at random, with the winner collecting a guaranteed €1 million. Because there is a guaranteed winner at each draw, the new My Million game will create over 100 new millionaires every year in France. Although players of My Million will be hoping that it will soon be their lucky day, FDJ chose an unusual date to announce details of the new game... Friday 13th! France has 83 Euromillions winners, more than any other country, ahead of Spain (67) and the UK (65). The biggest Euromillions win in France was 169 million euros. ■

SUDOKU - HARD

FEATURE ♦ 11

JANUARY 2014 ○ THE BUGLE ○ www.thebugle.eu

Château de Montaigne

By Amaryllis Barton

ichel de Montaigne, a th 16 century French essay writer, often claimed journeys were like ‘de beaux livres’, or beautiful books. My experiences as a tour guide at his Dordogne chateau seemed to have more in common with a mildly amusing horror story. Bats populated the corridors; a particularly malignant cat called Balzac roamed the deserted courtyard. The ancient, threadbare rug in my chateau bedroom, in the former servants’ quarters, concealed the remains of a defunct trapdoor. A shrine to Renaissance writing it was not. Although Montaigne’s chateau is one of the most important cultural attractions in the Dordogne, surprisingly few artefacts from the period remain in the tower. Indeed, th in the 19 century, the main part of the chateau burnt down when, according to popular legend, a servant dropped a candle in an upstairs bedroom. Thankfully, repairs were made. Nevertheless, as it is privately owned, the chateau has not benefited from grants or national funding. As a result, only a much-thumbed facsimile of Montaigne’s Essais - the magnum opus of this period of literature remains in his library. With so few clues as to how Montaigne lived, it is up to the guides to bring together the few remaining artefacts - a wooden chest, murals, painted quotations, several portraits - and tell his life story anew in their guided tours. These inanimate objects, thanks

to a little poetic licence, became characters in tours around the chateau. Frescos from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, liberally daubed over the walls of the study, were to become the backdrop to this narrative. Their varying states of disrepair recounted a still incomplete tale of restoration and intrigue. With their words inscribed on the wooden beams on the library ceiling, Virgil, Homer and Plato became minor characters in the story. Protagonists, or rather love interests, were found in the portraits of Etienne de la Boétie, whom many suspect had a homosexual affair with Montaigne, and Marie de Gournay, Montaigne’s 23-yearold intellectual paramour. Many visitors, however, are only initially intrigued by Montaigne; most lust after stories about the current owners of the chateau, to whom the historic site is a second home. “What are they like? Do they come here much?” they whisper as the guided tours come to a close. In confidential tones, people discuss why you would choose to live in such an austere setting. These sorts of misgivings are justified, due in no small part to the owners and the estate families themselves. Rumours involving ghosts in the tower (canine visitors treat the library with immense suspicion), a couple discovered in Montaigne’s bed, and illicit midnight tours of the tower, abound. Indeed the present owner, an aristocrat descended from a 19th century parvenu, claims you can hear a girl playing the piano at night. “Her portrait hangs above the mantelpiece where she died; this isn’t just a story, this

is what people really believe...” With a wry smile, the owner claims it is his duty to garde le mystère of a historical monument - and he’s right. Stories like this are the lifeblood of tourism. Visitors come to the chateau in search of facts: where did Montaigne eat, sleep, read, and meet his wife? But they are most fascinated by the fiction: ‘perhaps that hole in the library wall doubled up as a urinal’, ‘perhaps Montaigne’s daughter really was madly jealous of Marie de Gournay’, ‘perhaps that’s why she got rid of all Montaigne’s books after he died’. Or, as they look longingly at the fairytale red door to the private chateau, tantalisingly left open, ‘perhaps our guide knows more about the castle’s history than she’s letting on’. And, likewise, inquisitive visitors make for more interesting tours; frequent trips to the chateau are made by Montaigne scholars. Renowned specialist Alain Legros visited during my stay, and wasted no time in casting doubt on several guides’ pet theories: the popular story of Montaigne plying unruly Protestant visitors with drink was unequivocally dismissed as “rubbish” (a diplomatic translation!) Equally, Antoine Compagnon, professor at the Collège de France, visited last year and wrote a book about the summer he spent with Montaigne, marrying Montaigne’s musings with a modern appreciation of the great writer. Such visits testify to the chateau’s continuing status as a site of debate, where, as in the Essais, reason, doubt, fact

and fiction meet, and a shrewdly constructed tale is the result. Other visitors to the chateau include enthusiastic university lecturers, curious school teachers or avid pilgrims of Renaissance literature. There are, of course, those who resent being told a story, or, as they claim, spun a yarn. Montaigne’s private study is a case in point. Only a few faded sketches remain of the frescos which once spanned the room; explaining how barely visible painted grapes supposedly attracted birds is sometimes difficult. Tour guide Lucie Fernandez is unimpressed by doubters, however. “No-one knows for sure what the truth is,” she says, “but we’ve had architects, historians and other experts tell us some of the more outlandish stories might be true. And anyway, it’s always good to leave a little to the imagination.” It has been argued that the precision with which Montaigne presented himself in his Essais prevented the sort of legends which arose around Shakespeare and Rabelais, for example. Even so, it must be said that the myth of Montaigne has overtaken the reality: his legendary upbringing, speaking Latin aged 3 years, the infamous kidney stones which inspired some of the Essais, even his death, risk overshadowing the fact that Montaigne deliberately eschewed providing an exaggerated account of his life. Indeed, in his own time Montaigne was known more as a statesman than as a writer or philosopher. However, none of this stops an elderly Scottish-Norwegian couple,

tightly gripping Sarah Bakewell’s recent book on Montaigne, listening intently as I recount how Montaigne supposedly rose with Christ at his death. The line between fact and fiction is always difficult to draw and Montaigne unashamedly took liberties with it. Guides at the chateau have liberally embraced this philosophy - and the tours are all the more satisfying for it. Thanks to imaginative guided tours, Montaigne’s tower has become an extraordinary palimpsest of narratives, since paintings, frescos, quotations, the words of guides, and the hearsay of visitors, jostle with Montaigne’s own account of his life presented in the Essais. Rousseau wasted no time in calling Montaigne a faux-sincère, claiming he painted himself “sideways on” in the Essais. But this was the point. Montaigne told the most interesting tale of all: his own - and from his own perspective. And he did so realising all his evidence, all his means of verification, were all part of that story. The following quotation appears in the first book of the Essais, published in 1580: Je n’enseigne point, je raconte (I don’t teach, I tell stories) Here Montaigne expresses his philosophy as a writer; however, this maxim also provides the key to a successful guided tour. When the paint has peeled away, when the journals are lost, as Montaigne’s were, and when the books have been removed, oral narratives are all that remain. ■

12 ♦ FRENCH LIFE

www.thebugle.eu ○ THE BUGLE ○ JANUARY 2014

Regular environment contributor, Arthur Smith from Harlequin Developments, examines where all the soil has gone, how to deal with the perennial problem of rats and why beer is better for you than coffee!

he very first article that I wrote for The Bugle was an article on Peak Oil, so I was very interested in a recent news piece that I found on t’interweb entitled Peak Soil. It is being widely said that soil degradation is the biggest potential disaster facing us all. At the recent Soil Association annual conference, president Monty Don said, “If we are to feed the world, we must have good soil. As a soil scientist said only last week, we have reached ‘peak soil’ and we can’t produce any more”. Soil Association policy director Peter Melchett added, “Following the EU decision to drop their proposed European legislation to protect soils, partly at the insistence of the UK Government, the Soil Association is calling on the government to say what they will do to stop the extraordinarily high rate of loss of UK soils on which all of our food production depends”. The latest major soil study,

conducted in 2009, found that food production is being jeopardised by the loss of two million tonnes of topsoil each year. The health of our soil is too important to leave to chance. The EU directive that the UK government has blocked would have led to co-ordinated action to protect and improve soils across the EU. *** The recent cold weather, and the availability of easy to get food has caused a recent problem with rats around the chicken sheds here at Chez Smith, and has led me to look at the various methods of getting rid of them. One method I investigated was poison. Poisons fall under two categories: First Generation, and Second Generation. First generation poisons are less toxic than second generation; they are designed to be put out and eaten over a longer period of time, so the

lethal dose is built up over a number of days. Second generation poisons are more toxic and take just a single dose to be effective. They are generally used when first generation poisons have failed. To me this seems a short sharp shock, with the poison only ‘out’ for a short period of time. However, in the fields around here there are many many owls. They are always very vocal when I’m out on the ‘last pee run’ with my dogs late at night. Rat poisons can have a knock-on effect on other wildlife such as owls, who eat dying rodents and suffer by producing eggs with very soft shells that end up getting crushed. There are alternative poisons available that are ‘owl friendly’, and I think that is the type that I will be using. I would seriously miss the hooting of the owls at night which add so much to the pleasure of living here. *** More exciting news from t’interweb, and doubly so because it involves good news about one of my favourite subjects, beer… It appears that the next time you

Peak soil, rats & beer

congratulate yourself for choosing a coffee over a beer, you might want to think again. Researchers have discovered that caffeine can shorten life expectancy, while alcohol can increase it. Something we’ve all secretly known, haven’t we? Scientists at Tel Aviv University have found that caffeine shortens, and alcohol lengthens, telomeres, the end parts of chromosomal DNA. Just as the plastic tips of shoelaces prevent fraying, telomeres keep chromosomes stable and prevent deterioration when the cells containing them divide. Telomeres become shorter as a person gets older as every time a cell duplicates, the chromosomes

are copied into the new cell with slightly shorter telomeres. When the telomeres become too short, the cell dies. The scientists found that telomere length was reduced by even low levels of caffeine, but it was increased by alcohol. So, be careful if you’re keeping off the booze as a New Year's resolution, you may be shortening your life…!! ■ Arthur Smith Harlequin Developments www.harlequindevelopments.com Tel: 05.55.68.67.56 Mob: 06.06.60.46.97

In the garden - jobs for January

by Michelle Pierce

Reading This time of year gives you the perfect excuse to read... and read... and read. There are now so many excellent books available on gardening, online websites, newsletters and e-versions of gardening magazines. Doesn't it make you furious when a gardening presenter sweetly talks about 'new' gardeners? Who do they think has been watching them say so much of the same thing for the last 25 years? The really helpful info seems, more and more, to be in books rather than these hyped up 'no maintenance' gardening programmes. This is a really good timeframe to do some interesting reading (species, cultivars, techniques, suppliers, history...) before the lure of outside becomes too strong. Use this time to plan ahead Initially, I sort through my seed saved from previous years, so that I don't buy anything I've already got. Then, I like to look at seed catalogues, old magazines and books. I make a wish list of all the things I'd like to sow. This usually covers pages! Kids in sweet shops come to mind!!!! Then I whittle it down into a more realistic quantity. Do I really need six types of chard? I try and factor in some new things every year, for the pleasure of growing something unknown. If I was super organised, I'd then make a rough plan to know what I'd plant where, and when, to keep on

top of crop rotation. This can seem very complicated but it basically just means not planting the same patch of ground over and over with the same family of vegetables in order to reduce pests and diseases accumulating. It also makes sense in that one type of plant will absorb different minerals, etc. from the soil than another. Sowing can start indoors A propagator is ideal, but a warm airing cupboard or windowsill will do fine. Don't sow in too large a quantity - you may end up with fifty pepper plants getting leggy indoors as they wait desperately for the better weather! Naturally, if you have a polytunnel, greenhouse, or even cold frames, then it's easier to park them. Hardy annuals like cornflowers, poppies, marigolds, scabious, etc. can be sown, as well as herbs like parsley. Avoid the really heat-loving ones like coriander and basil. It's your last chance to plant garlic, but frankly any heads that are lingering in shops are probably not that special by now. Wait for the new ones to arrive. Same goes for those poor autumn bulbs and tubers that sometimes find their way onto the shelves. Fruit trees It's soon the end of planting for bare rooted trees (make sure you trim the roots a little to encourage regrowth) and therefore also for moving young self-sown tree seedings like peaches, plums etc. as well as raspberry canes, currants, gooseberries and other soft fruit. Prune them back when transplanting and also finish pruning apple and pear trees. Avoid doing any pruning if there are really hard frosts. You can also clear around the bases of trees, give a feed and clean the trunks with a stiff brush. This helps you see what sort of pests have hibernated on the bark. It is a very good thing sometimes just to go out and look at your trees, to get an idea of whether they look healthy or not. Then you can keep them in mind for special at-

sychologically, just knowing that we've turned the corner and that the days will soon start to get longer, and that there will be more and more of those afternoons when you can smell a certain kind of spring-like aroma, is such a relief! But still, it's too early to really get cracking and you need to restrain yourself. There are still a good number of weeks ahead of us before the earth really warms up, and it doesn't always pay to jump the gun.

tention later. Grafting starts in February, so decide what, if anything, you want to graft. Weeding Keep a weather eye on the weeds, especially so that things don't install themselves right in the middle of clumps of plants. You know which weeds are problematic in your garden, so prioritise these. Others can get hoed in later with no problem. A clean patch If you want to clean your veg patch, you can lay down a covering of weed suppressant textile on the ground. Weigh it down with logs or staples directly where you want it. Leave it until April before taking it up and sowing. Most of the weeds will have been killed, or at least the germination of the new generation slowed down. January is quite a good time to look at the structure of your garden See if your garden works for you. If

there's a muddy trail going across the lawn to the washing line, maybe a path, or stepping stones might be called for. Hard landscaping can be a good use of time this month, cold conditions permitting. It is very useful to look at what other gardeners have done - both by visiting gardens, if you can, and by travelling on the internet. Then, if you do decide to make some changes, you can see what you've liked elsewhere. Make a provisional list of projects Review any notes or jottings you made last year. Maybe you had wanted to make a new flower border, or move some bushes, or dig a pond. See whether these projects got done or got shelved and ask yourself whether you still want to do these things. Think about any new projects for the year. Make a list of all your planned projects and put them in order of priority. Anyway, whatever you do, I wish you an excellent 2014 in the garden! ■

PRACTICAL ♦ 13

JANUARY 2014 ○ THE BUGLE ○ www.thebugle.eu

Everything you always wanted to know about “international” marriage, divorce and the applicable law If you are married to a person of a different nationality or if you live in a different country than your country of origin, finding out which law is applicable to you (between domestic law, European law, bilateral and international conventions) is not always easy, especially if you wish to divorce. Here are a few practical tips and information from lawyer, Prune CALONNE. MATRIMONIAL REGIME Law applicable to “international” marriages The legal principle is that the matrimonial regime that is applicable is the one of the country where the spouses settle down permanently after the wedding, except if the couple have moved rapidly after the marriage to reside permanently abroad. Standard French matrimonial regime In France, the standard matrimonial regime applicable to everyone who gets married or resides permanently in France, if no marriage contract has been signed, is the community regime (“régime légal” also called “régime de la communauté réduite aux acquets”). The civil code states that anything purchased after the wedding will be considered a jointly owned asset (“bien de la communauté”). Anything bought prior to the wedding by either one of the spouses is considered to be his or her own asset (“bien propre”). The only exception to this regime is donations between spouses. If a donation is made by one spouse to the other or by anyone else, it will remain the sole property of the beneficiary of the donation. Beware, if the community regime is applicable

to you, according to French law, your spouse, even if they do not work and have no revenue, will be entitled to half of all assets purchased during the marriage when you start divorce proceedings. Bear in mind that getting married under French law can be more complicated compared to the standard regime applicable in Great Britain. In France, for example, if your spouse does not repay their debts, creditors may come after you as they might consider that these debts were contracted for the household’s sake and could hold you jointly liable. Therefore creditors could demand you to repay the whole sum due if they consider you are more solvent. Afterwards it is possible to reclaim some of the money through the courts or the whole sum if you can prove that the expenditure was for personal interests and not that of the household. Legal action would be necessary in these instances if the husband or wife refuses to refund the money. EXCEPTION: Marriage Contract If you wish to get around French law, it is possible to do so even if you wish to set up home in France. I would suggest that you seek legal advice from a notary in France (bilingual and who is used to handling foreign clients) and have a wedding contract drafted. Only the notary can execute such

2014 Tax Proposals W

hilst the French government continues its efforts in trying to reduce the budget deficit here we cover the main points of next year’s budget, which is currently under debate in parliament. Assurance Vie Investments Despite a lot of talk in the

media about big changes, the budget has made only very minor adjustments to the taxation of investment income. However, there have been suggestions that tax advantages should be reduced to encourage greater investment into French industry. Investing in French industry

Rather then reducing the tax advantages of existing investments, the government plans to create new ones offering extra advantages for those who are willing to invest in the development of new businesses over the longer term. Firstly, the maximum investment limit in a Plan d’Epargne en Actions (PEA) will increase from €132,000 to €150,000. To encourage investment in French business, two new investment schemes are to be launched. A tax-advantaged PEA – PME will allow an investment of up to €75,000 into small and medium sized businesses (PMEs). A new type of assurance vie policy, the Euro Croissance will also be used to help smaller companies. This is designed to be a halfway house between the low risk Fonds en Euros and riskier “unit-linked” funds offering a capital guarantee after eight years. The annual returns will apparently be superior to those of traditional Fonds en Euros, although the precise mechanics are yet to be announced. Another new product, the Vie Génération will attract investment into areas such as social housing and the provision of “social and solidarity” projects.

a task in France. General regime applicable under French law (“Régime primaire”) Even if your wedding was celebrated abroad, if you reside in France permanently do not think that French law is not applicable to you. Whatever your nationality, the basic French general regime is applicable to you (“régime primaire”). The type of regime can be decided through a wedding contract. Rights and obligations between spouses can be determined by a wedding contract. However, French law states that there is a strict minimum of rights and obligations that cannot be escaped through a contract, i.e. provision 212 of the French Civil Code. There are 3 rules that cannot be bent: • Help and assistance between spouses during marriage (“Devoir de secours et d’assistance”) - Financial support has to be provided to the “impoverished” spouse, during marriage and if spouses decide to separate, until divorce proceedings are over. Note: It is a criminal offence not to help an “impoverished” spouse while you are still married, especially if this help is decided by a court ruling (“abandon de famille”). • Financial contribution toward the expenditures of the household (“Contributions aux charges du mariage”) - Each spouse has to contribute to the expenditures of the household, according to his/her income. You could be held liable by the Juge des Affaires Familiales (High Court judge in charge of family law affairs) if you

Switching existing investments It is proposed that any switches into the new Euro Croissance investments will not affect the accrued tax benefits associated with assurance vie policies which infers that existing investments can be switched into the new ones without any adverse tax consequences. Another advantage of this new investment is that annual investment returns will not be subject to the deduction of ‘social taxes’ at source, as is the case for traditional Fonds en Euros. Assurance vie – no change? For investments in place before the age of 70, each beneficiary may receive €152,500 free of tax with 20% taxation on the next €902,838 and 25% thereafter. It is proposed that the higher rate will rise from 25% to 31.25%. However, to encourage investors to move money into the new products mentioned above, the existing 25% rate will apply to the new contracts. Income tax After two years of frozen income tax allowances inflationlinked rises have been reinstated. If your income tax bill is

do not participate and may be forced to do so through a court ruling. • Joint and several liability of the spouses regarding debts from the household (“Solidarité aux dettes du ménage”) - French law can be tricky if it is applicable to you and you are not aware of this principle! It is possible for one of the spouses to contract a loan for the household interest without the other’s consent. You might only be made aware of marriage debts during divorce proceedings. If you earn more than your partner, creditors may decide to come after you to try and recover the sums (because you are more solvent). Unless you are able to demonstrate that the debts did not really benefit the household, you will be held jointly liable. The matrimonial regime and the law of the country can be chosen by spouses since June 2012 through “ROME III” EC regulations, but bear in mind that a French notary or judge will always be much more inclined to apply the law of the country that they know best, i.e. the law of the country where they practise. “International” divorce... To be continued… ■ For more information, please contact: Prune CALONNE, Avocat, 117 Route d’Albi, 31200 Toulouse Phone: 0033 (0)5 34 30 51 33 Email: scpcalonneadouedugast@hotmail.fr My firm can arrange appointments in CAHORS at our correspondent’s offices. Please do not hesitate to contact us for more details.

relatively low a reduction is applied and this reduction has been increased benefitting those with tax bills of less than €1,016 next year. Conversely, better off families will be adversely affected by a change to the “credit” given for having dependent children. For 2013 income, the maximum reduction that can be gained falls from €2,000 per child to €1,500. Property Capital Gains Tax Since 1 September 2013 the sales of second homes are now exempt from capital gains tax after 22 years, rather than 30. A 6% reduction is applied for every full year of ownership after five years until 22 years of ownership, with an additional 4% applied for the final year. After applying the “period of ownership” reduction, any sales taking place between 1 September 2013 and 31 August 2014 will benefit from an additional 25% reduction. After calculating all reductions, the rate of tax applicable remains at 19%. ‘Social taxes’, at a current rate of 15.5%, are still applicable on these property sales, with full exemption after 30 years ownership, not 22. Annual ownership reductions will be 1.65% for each year from 6 to 21, 1.6% for the 22nd year and 9% pa for the remaining years. The temporary 25% additional reduction mentioned

above also applies to ‘social taxes’. Share Portfolios A new ‘taper relief’ scale on the sale of shares is proposed. Taxable gains are progressively reduced based on the period of ownership with a set 50% reduction for shares held between 2 to 8 years, increasing to 65% for ownership beyond 8 years. The taxable gain will be added to other income and taxed at the appropriate income tax rate, plus the usual ‘social taxes’. VAT From 1 January 2014, the “standard” rate of VAT (TVA) in France will increase from 19.6% to 20% with the other rates of 7% rising to 10% and 5.5% dropping to 5%. NB: The proposed legislation covered above is currently being ratified by parliament, so amendments are still possible before it passes into law. Peter Wakelin is Regional Manager of Siddalls France, Independent Financial Adviser, specialised in tax, inheritance, pension and investment planning for the British community in the Dordogne since 1996. Telephone 05 56 34 75 51 Email bordeaux.office@siddalls.net www.siddalls.fr

14 ♦ BILINGUAL

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Burns Night - January 25th

urns Night is the day that those of Scottish heritage celebrate the life and works of the famous poet Robert Burns. Robert Burns was born just over 250 years ago, on January 25 1759 in Alloway, Scotland. His father was a simple farmer and his mother never learned to write, but Burns was a prolific reader and managed to achieve a thorough education for himself. Aged 15, Robert Burns started working the fields of his father’s farm alongside a girl named Nelly who would become the subject of one of his earliest poems. Burns became filled with a passion for what he called “man’s first great pleasure in life” and as he grew, so did his success with women – he would go on to father fourteen children by six different mothers. Burns wrote in ‘Scots’, a dialect that looks similar to English but can be confusing to modern English speakers – for example he penned the song Auld Lang Syne, which many people can say, but fewer understand. He released his first book of poetry in 1786, which contained works on everything from

urns Night est un jour de célébration en Ecosse, en hommage à la vie et à l’œuvre du fameux poète Robert Burns. Robert Burns est né il y a un peu plus de 250 ans, le 25 Janvier 1759, à Alloway (Ecosse). Son père était simple fermier et sa mère n’avait jamais appris à lire, mais Burns était un lecteur avide et il acquit une grande instruction par ses propres moyens. A l’âge de 15 ans, Robert Burns commença à travailler dans les champs de son père aux côtés d’une jeune fille prénommée Nelly, qu’il évoqua dans l’un de ses premiers poèmes. Burns se prit de passion pour ce qu’il appelait «le premier grand plaisir de l’Homme dans la vie» et son succès auprès des femmes grandit en même temps que lui: il devint le père de quatorze enfants nés de six mères différentes. Burns écrivit en “Scots”, un dialecte similaire à la langue anglaise mais un peu déroutant pour les anglophones modernes. Par exemple, il écrivit la chanson «Auld Lang Syne»: beaucoup de personnes la connaissent mais un nombre moins important la

religious hypocrisy to a typical Scottish Saturday night out. The poems were modern, sarcastic and light-hearted and the book was an instant success! All of a sudden, everyone in Scotland knew the name Robert Burns. Burns read widely about Scottish history and became a vociferous nationalist, writing many romantic ballads about Scottish attempts to secure their independence from the English. He was also a vocal supporter of the French and American Revolutions, although he did later renounce his French tendencies when Britain and France went to war in 1792. Unfortunately, Burns had a weak heart, and the strenuous requirements of a farmer’s life took their toll. He died in 1796 aged just 37; his wife gave birth to his last child on the day of his funeral. Burn’s legacy lived on and in 1801, a group of his friends and admirers decided to honour the departed poet with a dinner on his birthday – January 25th. They did it again the next year and the next and soon Burns Clubs were appearing all over the country.

Those present would read a selection of Burns’ works and talk about the impact that he had had on their lives. Initially, the celebrations were only for men despite the poet’s fondness for the ladies! The tradition gathered momentum and has become an annual event that is still celebrated throughout Scotland and across the world. The ‘haggis’ forms a central part of every Burns Supper. Haggis is made by stuffing a sheep’s stomach lining with the heart, liver and lungs along with oatmeal and spices and is served with ‘neeps’ (turnips) and ‘tatties’ (potatoes). It is usually brought in to the room on a platter, accompanied by a bagpipe player. Someone will then read Burns’ famous poem “Address to a Haggis” before all the guests toast the haggis and eat it. Haggis is today the national dish of Scotland and much of this popularity can be attributed to its position within the Burns Supper. During the meal, more poems are recited, songs are sung, speeches are made… and everyone drinks a lot of whisky! ■

comprend. Il publia son premier recueil de poèmes en 1786, qui aborde toutes sortes de sujets, de l’hypocrisie religieuse à la sortie typique d’un Ecossais le samedi soir. Ses poèmes étaient modernes, sarcastiques et légers et son livre eut un succès immédiat! Soudain toute l’Ecosse connut le nom de Robert Burns. Burns lut beaucoup de livres sur l’histoire écossaise et devint un nationaliste véhément. Il écrivit de nombreuses ballades romantiques sur les tentatives des Ecossais pour obtenir leur indépendance vis-à-vis des Anglais. Il fut aussi un fervent partisan des Révolutions américaine et française, bien qu’il renonçât plus tard à sa solidarité pour les Français lorsque la France et la Grande-Bretagne entrèrent en guerre en 1792. Malheureusement Burns avait le cœur fragile et la pénibilité de la vie de fermier eut raison de sa santé. Il décéda en 1796 alors qu’il n’était âgé que de 37 ans. Son épouse donna naissance à leur dernier enfant le jour de ses funérailles. L’œuvre de Burns se perpétua

et en 1801, un groupe d’amis et d’admirateurs décidèrent de rendre hommage au poète disparu en organisant un dîner le jour de son anniversaire, le 25 janvier. Ils recommencèrent l’année suivante, puis l’année d’après et bientôt des Clubs Burns se constituèrent dans tout le pays. Les participants lisaient des extraits de son œuvre et parlaient de l’influence qu’avait eue l’auteur sur leurs vies. Initialement, ces rencontres étaient seulement réservées aux hommes, malgré la passion de Burns pour les femmes! La tradition se popularisa et devint un événement annuel, encore célébré aujourd’hui dans toute l’Ecosse et dans le monde entier. Le “haggis” est au centre de chaque Souper de Burns. Le « haggis » est une panse de mouton farcie avec les abats (cœur, foie et poumons), de l’avoine et des épices, le tout accompagné de navets et de pommes de terre. Il est généralement servi sur un grand plat, escorté par un joueur de cornemuse. Quelqu’un lit ensuite le célèbre poème « Address to a Haggis » (« Ode au Haggis ») puis les convives portent un toast au « haggis » et le mangent. Le « haggis » est désormais le plat national de l’Ecosse et sa popularité tient essentiellement à sa place privilégiée lors du Souper de Burns. Durant le repas, les convives récitent des poèmes, chantent, font des discours... et chacun boit beaucoup de whisky! ■

Did you know...? Love (in tennis) The use of the word 'love' derives from the French word for 'egg' (l'œuf) because an egg looks like the number zero.

The Bugle thanks French teacher, Sophie Arsac, for the translation of this month's bilingual article on a topical aspect of FrancoBritish culture.

Bilingual Crossword Clues in English - answers in French

Across:

5. Water (3) 6. Bull (7) 8. Churches (7) 9. Here (3) 11. Thank you (5) 12. Piano (5) 14. Rice (3) 15. Tickets (7) 17. Week (7) 18. Flight (3)

Down:

1. Daisies (11) 2. Berries (5) 3. Meadow (3) 4. Vaccination (11) 7. Room (5) 10. Daughter (5) 13. Line (5) 16. Bag (3)

Bilingual crossword solution can be found on page 19

DIRECTORY ♦ 15

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simple solar energy system that runs on its own, even when you are not there! – And provides a free heat supplement in winter. The Solarventi air panel was invented more than 20 years ago by Hans Jørgen Christensen, from Aidt Miljø, with the backing of the Danish government. He wanted to use the sun’s energy for airing and ventilation of the thousands of holiday homes on the West coast of Jutland, - houses that were left empty and unheated for long periods - houses with damp problems, mould and bad odours - houses that left their owners with discomfort, lots of work and expense. He wanted a system that would be safe, simple, without the need for radiators, water and/ or mains electricity. Slowly but surely, the first Solarventi

model came together. How it works The principle behind Solarventi is simple: a small, builtin, solar cell powers a 12V fan that is connected to an air vent, a control unit and an on/ off switch. Whenever the sun shines, the air in the solar panel is heated and the fan, receiving power from the solar cell, introduces warm, dry air into your home at the rate of 20 to 100 cubic metres per hour. The initial models were more than capable of keeping the cottages dry (and ventilated), even with the limited sunshine hours available in Denmark during the winter season. Since that time, the technology has really come along in leaps and bounds. Now, more than 20 years later, the 3rd and 4th

generation Solarventi have exceeded all expectations. In Southern Europe, Solarventi is not only used for ventilation/dehumidification purposes; with far more winter sunshine hours, it also provides a substantial heating supplement. Several technical and governmental studies show that incoming air temperature can be increased by as much as 40°C. A DIY Solution? The installation process is very straightforward and should only take two or three hours. All that is needed is a drill, hammer and chisel to make a hole in the wall. Roof installations are also possible. In fact, the Solarventi was originally designed to be a DIY product in Scandinavia it still is. There are no electrical or

water connections and it can be safely left running, even when the property is empty. Solarventi requires no maintenance - if the property is unoccupied during the hot summer months, then it can be left running at low speeds for ventilation and dehumidification purposes or simply switched off. With a range of panel sizes, and the option for wall or roof mounting, Solarventi is suitable for all types of buildings, caravans or even boats!! Following the patenting of its design in 2001, Solarventi has only recently been actively commercialized. Over the last six years, Solarventi units have been installed in more than 24 countries and demand is increasing rapidly. From Greenland to Australia, Solarventi is finally getting the recognition it deserves. ■

SOLARVENTI - Available in the Dordogne From Harlequin Developments Tel: 05 55 68 67 56 Mobile: 06 06 60 46 97

16 ♦ DIRECTORY

Building Services General

www.thebugle.eu ○ THE BUGLE ○ JANUARY 2014

05 55 41 17 76

Harlequin Developments are a Distributor and Installer for Solarventi, solar dehumidifying and water heating products, as well as a range of other renewable energies

05.55.68.67.56 06.06.60.46.97

harlequindevelopments@live.com www.harlequindevelopments.com SIRET: 494.501.067.00016

Building Services Electricians BARWICK ÉLECTRICITÉ SHAUN BARWICK QUALIFIED ELECTRICIAN

Available for all types of electrical work Small jobs, new builds, renovations, rewires Consuel assistance and certification service available Fully insured with 10 year workmanship guarantee Based near Châlus (87230) Covering departments 24 and 87

Tel: 09 72 35 74 73

Email: barwick.shaun@gmail.com Siret: 794 282 368 00016

Genuine/Reliable/Honest Local + Europe + UK runs Goods In Transit Insurance 14m3 capacity 4.2m load length French Spoken

Food & Drink

Harlequin Developments All aspects of renovation and refurbishment, big or small, undertaken.

Man & Van Transport

Gifts & Crafts

sales24@thebugle.eu

Ivan Petley

Karen’s Kitchen Catering for you in the Dordogne

Specialising in home-made pastries: Sausage rolls, Pasties - Cornish, Cheese & Onion, Steak & Stilton, Vegetarian & Chicken. Eccles cakes. Scones made to order. All prepared and baked daily on the premises you cannot get fresher! Bacon, cheese, bread, tea bags & tinned produce all in stock. Find me at your local market: • Tue - Le Bugue • Thu - Eymet • Fri - Le Buisson • Sat - Villereal • Sun - Issigeac

www.karenskitchen24.com email: karenskitchen24@gmail.com

05 53 74 01 91 or 06 01 31 07 47

The Dordogne Chippy Traditional Fish & Chips in a town near you All venues are in the evening between 6pm & 8.30 pm (except Villereal which is at Lunch time) Tuesday: Monsegur or Tremolat Wednesday: Issigeac Thursday: Eymet Friday: Lauzun Saturday: Villereal (Lunch time) See our website for full details:

www.thedordognechippy.com 05 53 74 01 91 or 06 30 02 46 67 siret: 444 925 630 00014

Please mention The Bugle when responding to adverts

3D Puzzle Maker

05 55 33 21 59

Handmade, fully interlocking, multi-layered 3D puzzles from just €9. Keyrings €2 plus other unique gift ideas. Customisation and personalisation possible. Postal delivery options across France.

www.frenchvanman.eu

Tel: 05.55.80.29.88

Based southern 87, Oradour-sur-Vayres Siret 530 213 644 00012

General

05 55 68 74 73 Open every day except Monday

SOS Help

anxious? stressed? feeling down? call us up! 3 - 11pm daily Confidential & Non-profit

www.soshelpline.org

WWW.CARDBUBBLE.COM

Your advert here

BUY YOUR BRITISH GREETINGS CARDS ONLINE! QUALITY CARDS AT UK PRICES! E: ANGI@CARDBUBBLE.COM FREE DELIVERY ON ALL ORDERS OVER €10 WORLDWIDE siret: 751 978 917 00019

Transport, Removals & Storage

Lucid Services

Specialist in carpet, upholstery and car interior cleaning

05 55 41 17 76

Also all aspects of house finishing, painting, decorating, floors, dry lining, plastering & insulating

sales24@thebugle.eu

Tel: 06.32.32.64.54

05 55 41 17 76

email: lucidservices24@gmail.com siret: 512 614 306 00011

Parking For Limoges Airport

Experienced shop fitters required

to work as part of an existing team on retail roll-outs and larger projects. Requirement to travel and to be away from region for 1 to 5 days.

Please send full CV to:

www.parkinglimoges.com

05 55 03 37 96

aka The Shed

32,000ft2 of great products incl. British Groceries, DIY, Housewares, Furniture, Clothing, Toiletries plus loads more!!

01 46 21 46 46

Les Bregères, 23150 St-Martial-le-Mont alison.petley@wanadoo.fr

Efficient parking for all types of vehicles Book now!!

Eco Entrepot

contact@reactive-resource.com www.reactive-resource.com

Advertising in The Bugle Business Directory Advertising your business couldn’t be easier. Text only, boxed listings are available in our Business Directory from just €13.50/month. Alternatively, why not spotlight your business with an Advertorial, available from 1/6 Page (€50 HT) up to Full Page (€300 HT). Both Directory Adverts and Advertorials represent a cost effective way to put your brand in front of more than 20,000 pairs of eyes each month!!

For more information on any of our advertising options, please feel free to give us a call on 05 55 41 17 76 or send an email to sales24@thebugle.eu

6-Month Contract €108

Small b&w Directory Ad

(€18/month)

Large b&w Directory Ad

(€24/month)

Small Colour Directory Ad

(€27/month)

Large Colour Directory Ad

(€36/month)

€144 €162 €216

12-Month Contract €162

(€13.50/month)

€216

(€18/month)

€243

(€20.25/month)

€324

(€27/month)

Directory Advertising is available either in black and white or colour, and in either small (30 words max) or large (45 words max) format. Directory adverts may only contain text - no logos, images or artwork are allowed. The minimum contract length is 6 months. Advertising is payable on publication. All prices are HT.

Large Directory Ad 46mm x 71mm (Actual Size) 45 words max Small Directory Ad 46mm x 46mm (Actual Size)

30 words max

WHAT’S ON ♦ 17

JANUARY 2014 ○ THE BUGLE ○ www.thebugle.eu

WHAT’S

in January Concert: Les Cordes d’Argent of Saint-Petersbourg - Tuesday 14th January Concert by one of the top Russian traditional orchestras accompanied by vocal ensemble Arnaut de Mareuil. 20h30. Entry €10. Free entry for children. Eglise St Georges, 24000 Périgueux.

*****

Concert: Caravan - Friday 17th January Concert of jazz-swing at the Centre Victor Hugo, Mussidan at 20h30.

*****

New Year Concerts - Saturday 11th & Sunday 12th January Two ‘Concerts du Nouvel An’ by the Orchestre de l’Union Musicale Bergeracoise. Conductor Aurélien Cescousse has concocted a choice programme. The first part will take you on a journey through hispanic music and Viennese tradition. The second part will be festive, fun, full of surprises and ends with grandiose works that will excite and delight. Saturday 20h45 - Sunday 16h. Tickets cost €7. Centre Culturel Municipal Michel Manet, place Gambetta, 24100 Bergerac. For more information tel 05 53 57 71 51. *****

Theatre: Les Brumes de Manchester - 11th, 17th, 18th, 24th & 25th January The Mists of Manchester: Play by Frédéric Dard, presented by the Comédiens de Naillac. William Collins was murdered on Wednesday April 8, 1925 at the station in Manchester, between 10:10am and 10:20am. In this gripping whodunnit, Inspector Byrne leads the investigation in which everyone seems to have something to hide: his relatives are behaving strangely; a couple of friends turn up out of nowhere; then there is the strange valet; or the blackmailer; an unscrupulous estate agent; or perhaps his half brother who curiously finds an ice pic in his toy box... This is black humour of the purist English tradition. Suspense, emotion and thrills guaranteed!

Concert: Le Off – Festival d’Hiver d’Eymet- Saturday 18th January

Tickets €8 (concessions €5). Performances start at 21h.

Music by jazz-funk group Matayo at the Château d’Eymet. Food from 19h30. Concert 20h45. Tickets €12.

Le Rocksane, 14 bis rue Pozzi, 24100 Bergerac. For more information tel 05 53 63 03 70 or visit www.rocksane.com

For more information tel 05 53 23 82 37 or visit www.maquizart.com *****

Ballet: Swan Lake - Thursday 23rd January

A version of the ballet Swan Lake interpreted by South African dancer and choreographer Dada Masilo. Masilo uses a company of 13 male and female African dancers to revisit this great classic: its themes, Tchaikovsky’s music, its tutus and its pointes. Re-imagining this ballet through a South African eye and fusing classical ballet and African dance, giving it a new breath and a new life, Masilo tackles the issues of intolerance, forced weddings, AIDS and violence. Not to be missed! 20h30. Tickets €22. Théâtre l’Odyssée, Esplanade Robert Badinter, 24000 Périgueux. For more information and reservations tel 05 53 53 18 71. *****

Theatre: Frankenstein - Thursday 30th January A production of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in English by the Association Théâtre en Anglais. 14h30. Tickets €38 / € 29 / €23 / €15. Centre Culturel Municipal Michel Manet, place Gambetta, 24100 Bergerac. For more information tel 05 53 57 71 51.

CONTEMPORA ART SHOW

7th December 2013 - 29th January 2014

For the 6th consecutive year, the ATELIER CONTEMPORA presents an exhibition of contemporary work by 15 artists: Hélène Lazowinsky - Sue Wilks - Jean-Claude Baisero Françoise Bouchet-Doumenq - Helene Buttling - Pierre Carcauzon - Clémentine Mitrani - Jeane Douet - Philippe Debat Lydie Clergerie - Brigitte Sénéchaud - Bernard Maricau - Janet Cintas - Brigitte Perraudin-Quelin - Sy Cappelino Painting - Sculpture – Installation - Collage - Lithography Open Tuesday to Saturday 14h - 18h

Free entry ATELIER CONTEMPORA 40 rue Notre Dame (next to the Collégiale), 24600 RIBERAC INFO: tel 05 53 90 47 43 (am) or email: mana24@orange.fr

18 ♦ WHAT’S ON

www.thebugle.eu ○ THE BUGLE ○ JANUARY 2014

David’s Dordogne Doggy Odyssey All about dogs & cats: Extreme animal outings in South-West France When David and Fran Marker first came to France in 1999, their first desire for their new home was a dog. They never suspected their love of animals would take David all over their adopted country and beyond. Born in Manchester, David Marker had been a clerk, salesman, van driver, merchant seaman, tipper driver, and international HGV driver. “I like to be on the move,” he says. “I’ve got itchy feet, but I do like to come home to Fran and my dog.” Within a week or two of arriving in Saint-Front-la-Rivière, near Brantôme, Dordogne, he had contacted Phoenix, the animal adoption association. Phoenix had no suitable dogs for adoption but referred him to Anna Hart in Nailhac, near Hautefort. Anna offered a super greyhound named Lira. It was not too long before the Markers were also adopting and fostering dogs through Phoenix, including a Breton spaniel by the name of Match that had belonged to the family of actor Derek Nimmo, star of “All Gas and Gaiters”. At 60, David retired from heavy-haulage firm Gauthier’s of Saint-Pardoux, for whom he had driven HGVs all over Europe. At this point he realized he could combine his two passions: animals and the open road and it was not long before he was volunteering to collect and deliver dogs for adoption and fostering on long-haul trips. “I’ll go anywhere,” he explains. “I’m 71 now. I have the time, I love all kinds of animals, and I enjoy driving. I missed the Relais Routiers and the camaraderie of David, the Teardrop and an adoptive spaniel drivers, and just being on the road. This is perfect. All I ask for now are my vehicle expenses.” He adds: “The job has just snowballed, so many people need to move their cats and dogs. It’s amazing. I especially like Dobermans and luckily about 60% of my trips are with them, through PAD.” He currently makes an average of 6 trips a month of up to 3 days, taking pets to a new home. In the past, Marker movements were blogged on Total France, but the dogs insisted he get his own website: http://longdistancedogdiary.weebly.com Ask David about his overnight arrangements and there’s a surprise. No expensive hotels or B&Bs. Until recently, the dogs shared the back of the Berlingo with their chauffeur, each with their own “berth”. However, an overnight stop in the van between Argenton and Wiltshire, next to a restless otter hound convinced David to make improvements to these arrangements. He chose a brand-new Teardrop, a tiny caravan, a light and easily towed sleeper, leaving the van to his doggy companions, and without increasing diesel expenditure for his clients. An ideal solution, he reckoned, until the drawbar snapped off the Teardrop between Brantôme and Barcelona. After abandoning the tiny caravan he completed his mission with 2 galgos lèvriers in the van. Returning to the disaster site, the Teardrop was recovered and is still the subject of an ongoing dispute with the UK manufacturers. Undeterred, David has mounted the Teardrop shell onto a brand-new trailer chassis supplied by a Périgueux firm, and is back on the road again. As we go to press he is with a labrador, somewhere between Charente, Dieppe, Berwick, to Inverurie (north of Aberdeen), and back to base in the Dordogne via Sunderland and Worthing. “There are a lot of reasons why people need to find a new home for their pet,” says David. “It could be the owners can’t afford to keep the pet any longer, or there’s a family break-up, or the owner is infirm and can’t exercise the dog, or it’s a hospital stay. All sorts of things. It’s often somebody in a fix. It’s nice to be able to help without breaking their bank.” Wow! Or is it Woof?

‘SECOND CHANCES’

Limousin Writers' Weekend Retreat at Château-de-Bellefond, Lagraulière, Corrèze Limousin Writers, who meet at La Bibliothèque Anglaise de la Corrèze in the beautiful Château Bellefond near Lagraulière, are hosting their second Writers’ Weekend Retreat from 16th-18th May 2014 The weekend will be spent in workshops and writing sessions designed to provide both experienced writers and beginners an opportunity to discuss and create in an encouraging and inspiring atmosphere amidst the château’s charming and idyllic surroundings.

http://chateau-bellefond.com/uk/ Two days' workshops, accommodation, and meals are included in the cost of ONLY €228! Participants are also welcome to attend daily at reduced rates. Workshop leaders include: Poets Gordon & Jocelyn Simms who organise the Bilingual LitFest in St-Clémentin, France, as well as running writing competitions and writing course materials. www.poetryproseandplays.co.uk www.stclementinlitfest.com Journalist Nicola Thornton, who runs successful creative writing courses in Barcelona. www.creativewritingmagic.com Wendy Wright, poet, dancer, writer, and teacher, who won a Millennium award for her services to Special Needs education - wendywrightfr@ntlworld.com Rick Lee, thriller writer, drama practitioner and experienced workshop facilitator. www.rick-lee.co.uk

! PLUS !

Write a short story of less than 300 words with the title ‘Second Chances’ AND WIN A FREE WRITERS’ WEEKEND IN A FRENCH CHATEAU!!!! For more information, the full programme, booking form and competition entry details visit

http://rick-lee.co.uk/limousin-writers-second-chance-weekend-retreat/ or contact suecramptonhill@gmail.com

Over €1,200 raised C’est Bonnes! After learning about the disaster which struck the Philippines, members of the Dance and Music Association in Bonnes (16) decided to organise a Ceilidh evening (pronounced Kay-lee: Scottish for a seriously good dance-til-you-drop party!) to raise funds for Médecins sans Frontières. “The response has been absolutely amazing,” said Association president Derek Reid. “Well before the event, over a hundred tombola tickets were sold already, and local restaurants and businesses generously provided great prizes.” Around 120 people turned up on the evening of December 4th, bringing dishes for the buffet for sharing. Music and dancing were only interrupted for the tombola and a nearest-the-bottle coin-throwing contest generating much excitement and considerable funds. An enthusiastic Madison and Auld Lang Syne closed the night, which raised a total of 1,222.20 euros for the people of the Philippines. The International Dance and Music Association attracts French as well as British members from a wide area. For the past two years, dancers have been meeting at the Bonnes Salle des Fêtes every Wednesday. The programme features a variety of Scottish and international dances, and attracts a lively and mixed British-French audience. The Association also offers music sessions, guitar classes and an opportunity to make music in good company - often the local bar; great occasions to share the fun. Anyone interested is welcome to contact Derek at derekreid@aol.com

WHAT’S ON ♦ 19

JANUARY 2014 ○ THE BUGLE ○ www.thebugle.eu

Variations on Variety December is often thought of as Panto time, but down Ribérac way people shout “Oh no it isn’t!” It’s Music Hall that hits the seasonal spot in this part of the South-West. That is especially true in the pretty little town of Villetoureix, on the Dronne near Ribérac. At the end of the first week in December the Variations-en-Scène troupe put on their rip-roaring, internationally-themed Vaudeville show. Based on the Victorian notion of music hall, as televised at the Leeds City Varieties (for those of us too young to remember the real thing), it is a show that demands large amounts of audience participation. In fact, most of the huge audience turned up in costume as if ready to tread the boards themselves, like a crowd scene from Downton Abbey. Producer, Alison Chew, created a novel twist on the old, familiar format, by having three distinct scenes, set in London, Paris and New Orleans. Alison explained: “We have both French and British members so it makes sense to “Maurice Chevalier” on stage during a performance reading The Bugle! have part of the show in French. New Orleans, of course, is a bit of both English and French. In a way that’s what Variations is all about: getting a show together, entertaining friends and neighbours and having fun in both languages.” Established in 2006, Variations does a couple of shows and dramatic productions for the public each year. Every night is a sell-out. Many thanks for your advert regarding the Marché de Noël in Abjat-sur-Bandiat This is no great surprise when you find that December’s event, for instance, (24) on 8th December, organised for The Bansang Hospital Appeal Gambia. I am included a light and delicious, 3-course supper, served between the acts. delighted to say we raised an amazing 2,300 euros which is an incredible amount, Variations has a strong dance and music strand and live music accompanied the and will be a huge boost for the hospital. entire evening with the additional bonus of a resident chorus to boost the sound and Our latest newsletter can be found and downloaded on www.bansanghospitalappeal. raise the roof to the delight of the audience. Alison had song-sheets produced for org which gives all the latest news on how the money is spent and all the projects. every customer to enable everyone to join in the songs in both English and French. We have been fund-raising here in France for 7 years and each year I am overwhelmed “What a great idea,” said Barbara Carter, from Texas, USA. “A lot of the English by the generosity and kindness I receive from the wonderful people in this part of songs were new to us, and we’d never have managed the French ones, but with a the country. This year we have raised in excess of 7,000 euros - I couldn't possibly song-sheet we could join in too.” achieved any of this without your help. So thank you most sincerely from the bottom Variations-en-Scène is one of three associations dedicated to British/French of my heart, and also from Bansang Hospital. performing arts registered with the Mairie in Villetoureix, near Ribérac. The theatrical group is complemented by a chamber choir and a vocal ensemble. Together I hope you have had a very happy Christmas and I would like to wish you all a Very they have an informative website: www.variationsfrance.com The three groups Happy New Year & Kindest regards, Linda Nicholson are supported by the Conseil Général of the Dordogne and the UsmD.

Thank you from Bansang Hospital

EASY

Monday

Market Days

Beynac Le Fleix Les Eyzies Ste-Alvère

Tuesday

Beaumont du Périgord Bergerac Brantôme Cénac-et-Saint-Julien Lanouaille Le Bugue Mareuil Neuvic Ribérac Salignac Eyvigues Thenon Trémolat Villefranche-de-Lonchat

Wednesday Bergerac Hautefort Jumilhac-le-Grand La Tour Blanche Montpon-Ménestérol Montignac Périgueux

HARD

MEDIUM

Piégut Pluviers Razac Sarlat Siorac-en-Périgord Vélines Domme Excideuil Eymet La Coquille Lalinde Monpazier St Astier St-Julien-de-Lampon Terrasson

Belvès Bergerac Lalinde La Roche Chalais Le Bugue Montignac Mussidan Neuvic Nontron Périgueux Razac Sarlat St Aulaye Thiviers Verteillac Villefranche du Périgord

Friday

Sunday

Thursday

Bergerac Brantôme Cubjac Le Buisson Ribérac Sarlat Sigoulès Vergt

Saturday

Agonac Beaumont du Périgord

Bergerac Couze St Front Daglan Issigeac Pontours Pressignac-Vicq Rouffignac Sarlat Sorges St Cyprien St Génies St Pardoux la Rivière

20 ♦ WHAT’S ON