Skip to main content

French press review 24 December 2013

It's all about Christmas in today's French newspapers, starting with the truth about Santa Claus … and that’s official!

Advertising

Tabloid Aujourd'hui en France promises “the truth about Santa Claus”. The newspaper has decided to answer to all of the questions you have, or have not, about Santa Claus. One of them is "Where does he live?"

 

According to the paper, several countries claim to be hosting Father Christmas's headquarters. For the French and the Americans he operates from the North Pole but, according to Finland, he is based in Rovaniemi, a village in the north of the country that the Finns have named "the official village of Santa Claus".

More surprisingly, for Turks Santa lives in Patara, in the centre of their country.

Today's edition of left-wing newspaper Libération is a bit special.

"The Libé of solutions," reads the front-page headline. The entire paper is devoted to finding solutions to problems.

There is a nice long article on a small village of 2,200 people located in the eastern French region of Alsace. Ungershein decided a few years ago that it was time to do something about energy and a world without oil.

So how does that work?

Ungershein built its own photovoltaic power plant on four hectares of land. The plant is able to provide electricity for the entire village.

For Libération this small village is a shining example that a world without oil is possible.

Communist daily l'Humanité takes look at an interesting intitiative.

The daily is writing about free classes that famous French chef Alain Ducasse is offering unemployed women. L'Humanité met a few of them.

Most of the women were trying to find a job but did not have educational qualifications, explains l'Huma.

So that's where Alain Ducasse comes in.

He offers free classes, partly financed by the state, to 15 students.

According to the newspaper, most of the women who enrolled have found a job.

Naima, one of the former students, is now part of the staff cooking for President François Hollande at the Elysée.

Right-wing Le Figaro takes a look at what French people will be eating for Christmas.
Apparently that will mostly be traditional Christmas food this year - foie gras, oysters, salmon and turkey.

But will that still be the case in 20 years?

Probably not, according to Le Figaro.

French people might be eating insects by 2033. After all, 2.5 billion people in the world eat insects on a daily basis, argues the paper.

Economic daily Les Echos is also talking about food today.

According to Les Echos, French people will eat more that half a billion of chocolates during the holidays. That represents more than 600 million euros.

What's interesting, explains the paper, is that despite the crisis, chocolate sales have increased 2.5 per cent this year.

How do you explain that?

Well, that's simple, boxes of chocolates are not too expensive and in these harsh times indulging is seen as a small pleasure, explains.

 

Daily newsletterReceive essential international news every morning

Keep up to date with international news by downloading the RFI app

Share :
Page not found

The content you requested does not exist or is not available anymore.