Americans are not very familiar with Arabs and Muslims, on the whole, and tend to regard them as foreign and possibly threatening. But that is not the case in France. For starters, there are lots of “Arabs” in France; ten percent of the population is Muslim, quite a few more than are Protestant (2%). Most [...]

France has legalized gay marriage and adoption of children by gay people and gay couples. HOORAY!

Bread was always the “staff of life” in Europe, from the time of the ancient Romans and their “bread and circuses” to keep the masses happy (the modern equivalent is “fast food and television”). But we Americans, eating our daily potatoes, rice and pasta, may not realize how the “daily bread” of the Our Father [...]

I’m seeing a very strange trend happening over the past few months. The French seem to unabashedly be accepting their defaults. Here are the top 3 that shocked me the most — did they shock you? 1) The French can really be a bag of dicks sometimes. I thought hell would freeze over, thaw, then freeze [...]

Back in my early years in France, after I had finished my French classes and was starting to look around for a job, there was a statistic that shocked me: 50% of French people earn less than 1500€ a month. Of course at the time, I still had my American salary expectations and I hadn’t [...]

“Le Peuple de Paris” running at the Musée Carnavaet until February 26, 2012. It is a sociological investigation into the lives of the working classes in Paris in the 19th century, looking particularly at how these people and their lifestyles, were portrayed by artists and the media at the time, and provides an intruiging and original [...]

I was walking in a park the other day and noticed a woman with her cat on a leash. I had to laugh (and take a picture) when she tossed the cat up onto the branch of a tree and tried to play with it. Enforced playtime was obviously not working for the cat, and [...]

It’s a strange thing how trends work in France. Many things here become fashionable only after the Americans have started the fashion. Offhand I can think of: blue jeans, living in former industrial spaces, and the riots of 1968. Sometimes this is a good thing; but there are certainly American trends I would not like [...]

While there is no end of soul searching going on over here over DSK, the voice that is consistently missing from the discussion is a female one. A few brave women have managed to make themselves heard, but I find it appalling that most of the panel discussions are exclusively male, and that there isn’t [...]

Making its way around the Internet right now is a primer on France, perhaps useful for people planning a first-time visit: THE NATION France is a medium-sized country situated in the continent of Europe. It is an important member of the world community, though not nearly as important as it thinks. It is bordered by [...]