Until 30/06 Le Touquet (62)
‘Battle rock’. Rock band competition, local young groups playing in cafés, salle de fêtes and in the streets.
03 21 06 72 00, www.letouquet.com
07-08/06 Gravelines (59)
Country music at Sportica. Among the performers are Boomer Mc Lennan & Cheyne Pride from the USA,
Raising Cain & Alive & Pickin from the UK and Bus Stop from France.
03 28 65 35 00, 03 28 23 41 10 www.sportica.fr www.opalenews.com
20-29/06 Arras (62)
Traditional French vocal music.
06 70 70 99 07, www.fete-de-la-musique.cityvox.com,
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27-29/06 Maubeuge (59)
27-28: Pop & Rock at Le Manège, Maubeuge. Groups include Cali, Hocus Pocus, DEUS, Air Traffic, 29:
French vocal music françaises.groups include B. Lavilliers and Bumcello,
03 27 62 11 93 www.lemanege.com
An association has been set up in Troyes, Aube, and is now
spreading all over France to teach children, aged nine to 14,
traditional crafts and skills in small groups of two or three.
Skills learnt include tiling, carpentry, roof timber
construction, masonry and plumbing.
Anyone interested should contact L’Union des associations
l’outil en main,
22 rue des Filles-Dieu 03 25 73 74 83
www.louitlenmain.asso.fr
One hundred years since the reconstruction of the
medieval Château of Haut-Koenigsbourg, half a
million visitors per year clamber round the spectacular
battlements towering 800 metres over the plain of Alsace on
the rocky crag Le Staufenberg. It is one year since the
département of the Bas Rhin – the northern half of Alsace –
bought the site for a symbolic euro from the state which had
held it since France ended the 48-year German occupation.
This simple administrative change has transformed the site.
Under the state, all the profits were shared with the other,
mostly loss-making, national monuments. Now the profits
are going into much-needed improvements and the entry
figures are already climbing.
The Grand Order of the
Frigousse, The
Brotherhood of Piperia la
Galette, The Order of the
Bearded and Moustached,
The Culinary Academy of
the Nantes Scallop…. all are
deliciously photographed and
described in Alain-Francois
Lesacher’s latest book ‘Les
confréries gastronomiques
de Bretagne’.
The world-famous
Rance dam, near
Dinard and Saint-
Malo, hit international
headlines when it was
alleged that a pornographic
film was shot in its offices.
The unique EDF power
plant, built 40 years ago,
produces enough electricity
to supply 223,000 homes. It
is also one of Brittany’s
major tourist draws. A few
weeks ago, a small film crew
was discreetly admitted into
the central administrative
offices inside the dam to
make a porno movie, which
was later broadcast on the
internet. As soon as EDF
executive Cyrille Périer, in
charge of the dam, heard
about the film he lodged a
complaint with the police.
The public prosecutor
decided that only consenting
adults were involved so no
further action was needed.
Pierre Coppey, boss of Cofiroute which runs many of the
French motorways, has suggested that the State allow his firm
to levy a toll on all the Breton four-lane expressways. He said
that the State would gain a great deal if it either widened the
scope of motorway concessions to finance the upkeep,
widened the ‘Francilienne’ (Paris ring-road) or made the
Breton quasi-motorways paid for by the tax payer and free to
all users. “If the State allowed us to run Brittany’s road
network, we could invest in roads on its behalf with the toll
on sections of the roads under our responsibility,” explained
the road boss. This is no new idea. Other interested parties
have tried to push a similar deal through with the State for
years. Nevertheless, local politicians have always strongly
opposed the idea on the grounds that free roads serve the
local economy better in the long run.
The Musée Rodin has a retrospective
of the sculpture of Rodin’s mistress
Camille Claudel, subtitled ‘Une femme,
une artiste’.
Claudel (1864-1943) comes into her
own as a woman who, albeit selfdestructively,
fought against the
obstructions of her time. Late 19thcentury
society inhibited women from
training as sculptors, having their own
studios, exhibiting at salons and being
granted state commissions.
Further to recent articles in French News about women's pensions, the UK Department of Work and Pensions has issued a press release explaining that "women pensioners could boost their state pension or even be in line for a windfall payment under special terms.
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