Pickpockets may be operating in this metro station” was the understatment of the summer. Police report that metro crime was up by 25% from last year and violent thefts rose 42%. The American Embassy noted that the number of US tourists reporting stolen passports between May and July rose by 35%.
Meanwhile, Saint-Tropez was besieged with traffic jams last August by Loana fans as they surrounded the villa that she was sharing with fellow loft story winner Christophe. The couple’s last test is to spend 45 days in their Saint-Trop’ residence before receiving 3 million francs.
French wine producers fear they are losing out to countries such as Argentina, the US and Australia. New world wine producers have seized 20% of the global market starting from nearly zero 20 years ago. Last year, Australia replaced France as the leading wine supplier to Britain. Although France, Spain and Italy still have 60% of the international wine market, people here worry that globalization threatens traditional French family-style wine-making.
Photocopy babies? Non merci, said France’s health minister Berrnard Kouchner as he called for a worldwide ban on human cloning in response to Italian doctor Severino Antinori’s plans to produce the world’s first human clone. The Italian doctor says he has 700 couples willing to participate in his program and that he is ready to start experiments on a ship in international waters if necessary.
“Killer trees menace France.” Well, not exactly — but after a fatal traffic accident last summer in the Haute Pyrenées the fate of the country’s picturesque plane and poplar tree-lined roads is in question. Safety advocates want to cut them down stating that trees were to blame for 799 deaths last year. The country’s most famous victim? Albert Camus, who ran into a tree returning to Paris in 1960.
On August 20, French Holocaust survivors marked the 60th anniversary of the Drancy detention center. Situated in northern Paris, it sent more than 70,000 jews to Nazi extermination camps.
