'The Greatest National Anthem in the World, Ever'
The power of La Marseillaise explained in a hand drawn animation.
Posted by BBC Radio 4 on Wednesday, 18 November 2015
BBC Radio 4 has produced a great video looking at the French national anthem, La Marseillaise, narrated by historian Simon Schama.
He explains how the force and emotion of the words empowers the French population, and how it still has a relevance today following the terrorist attacks in Paris.
Despite Winter Fuel Payments for older expats in France ending this autumn, the campaign to reinstate them continues.
Brian Cave, of the Votes for Expat Brits website, is urging people to contact their own MPs, or that of where they last lived in the UK, to raise the issue with Frank Field MP.
Frank Field (above) is chairman of the Select Committee for Work and Pensions and in reply to Brian Cave said: “The Committee has no plans, at present, to investigate the specific matter you raise but I am always open to suggestions from colleagues.
“Might I suggest, therefore, that any friends or relatives of yours living in the UK should ask their local MP to take up this matter in the House?”
THE recent spell of very hot weather contributed to an additional 700 deaths, the French health minster has said.
Marisol Touraine said that between 29 June and 5 July there was an increase of 7% in the number of deaths compared to the long-term average for the same period.
This was how the figure of 700 was reached, and compares to 15,000 additional deaths in 2003, when the health service was heavily criticised for its poor reaction to the extreme temperatures.
This year around 3,600 people were admitted into hospital, while around 1,500 saw their local GP as a result of temperatures which hovered around 40°C.
Billboards advertising services such as hotels, restaurants and service stations will no longer be allowed at the entrance of French towns and villages of under 10,000 residents, as a law voted in 2010 came into effect on Monday.
The law scrapped an exception for advertising judged “particularly useful for travellers” because certain businesses, such as supermarkets, were found to have bent the rules for commercial purposes.
Although this initiative was primarily driven by environmental group Agir pour les paysages, other loose-knit advertising collectives such as Les Deboulonneurs, les Deposeurs and la Brigade anti-pub are also campaigning against “excessive” advertising.
La grande pagode du bois de Vincennes restaurée ! par mairiedeparis
Hidden in a wood on the outskirts of Paris is an African pavilion turned pagoda which houses the largest Buddha in Europe, made in the Paris atelier of the Spanish artist Joan Miró.
The Grande Pagode is an eclectic cultural, religious and artistic treasure, but most of those strolling and jogging around the Lac Daumesnil in the Bois de Vincennes, do not even know it is there.
Now France’s Buddhist community, which celebrated the reopening of the pagoda after a €1m (£720,000) facelift this weekend, is hoping to attract new visitors.
Photo: Jean-Pierre Dalbéra
Photo: John Keane.
Long-term expats will have their right to vote in British and European elections restored. However, they will be unable to vote in the European referendum if they’ve lived abroad for more than 15 years.
The Votes for Life Bill, announced after the Queen’s Speech today, will scrap the 15-year rule that sees expats lose their votes in UK and European parliamentary elections once they have been out of the country for that long.
This had been promised by the Conservatives in their manifesto. The rule affects around one million of the five million British citizens overseas.
However, Downing Street said it will remain in place for the referendum on Europe, as there is not enough time to enforce the change by the time of the vote, due by the end of 2017 at the latest.
It said: “The franchise for the referendum will be based on the general election franchise, plus members of the House of Lords and Commonwealth citizens in Gibraltar, British, Irish and Commonwealth citizens over 18 who are resident in the UK will therefore be eligible to vote as well as UK nationals resident overseas for less than 15 years.”
The UK government has ruled out extending the right to vote in the upcoming EU referendum to all British citizens living abroad, despite a promise made by the Conservative party chairman that it would.
The EU referendum bill, which will be announced after the Queen’s speech on Wednesday, will make clear that the franchise – the people eligible to vote – will be the same as in general elections, which is adults from the age of 18, Irish and Commonwealth citizens resident in the UK, and British citizens who have lived abroad for less than 15 years.
This means that more than 1 million EU citizens living in Britain will not be able to vote, as they are in local elections, in what would be seen as a victory for Eurosceptic campaigners.
The bill will also rule out giving the vote to 16- and 17-year-olds, an idea backed by Labour and the SNP.
WITH the Winter Fuel Payment for British pensioners in France set to end in autumn of this year, a website is available to highlight many of the issues and concerns of people.
The winterfuelpayment.info website explains how the payment works, but more importantly the reasoning given by the UK government for its cancellation to certain British people living overseas.
In relation to France, the government decided to include the French territories overseas in comparing average winter temperatures to the UK, saying France enjoyed ‘warmer’ witers.
Nor surprisingly many people argued against this measure, highlighting the cold temperatures experienced in France, and other EU countries, meaning some faced difficult choices when it came to paying their heating bills.
The site has been created by expat campaigners, Roger Boaden and Brian Cave, who have been involved in contacting MPs in Westminster and gathering evidence against the cancellation of the payment.
They have also been heavily involved in campaigning to extend the 15 year rule on votes for UK expats.
A man has been charged with the murder of an 80-year-old British woman living in southwestern France after police found a “mutilated” body in “two different locations” in woods matching her description, a prosecutor announced on Thursday.
Violet Price, a pensioner living in the southwestern Lot-et-Garonne region, went missing from her house in the village of La Croix-de-Moustier on Saturday.
A 32-year-old man has been arrested and charged with murder after telling police he committed the crime and disposed of the body.
GENDARMES are continuing their search for an 80-year-old Englishwoman missing from her home in the Lot-et-Garonne since the weekend.
The Sud Ouest website reports that Violet Price went missing from her home in La Croix-de-Moustier, not far from the popular Dordogne village of Eymet and that her son raised the alarm late on Saturday.
Octogénaire disparue dans le Lot-et-Garonne : le mystère s'épaissit http://t.co/Yo0ph0IMAf pic.twitter.com/cAInf3ISeV
— SO_47 (@SO_47) April 14, 2015
Around 70 gendarmes, a helicopter and divers have been involved in the search, but no trace of the woman has been found.
Her house was locked up, there were two cups of coffee on the table, her car still outside and there was no evidence of a disturbance in the property.