[Youngian]

Fire’s out thankfully. It took a battering on D-Day as well as lightening induced fire in the 19th century.

[Youngian]

Has Tommeh an interest in medieval architecture? Not really, his supporters think there’s a Muslim conspiracy to torch cathedrals in France
https://x.com/TRobinsonNewEra/status/18 ... 0541322328

[soulboy]

French train network hit by 'massive attack' ahead of Paris Olympics opening ceremony, rail company says

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cxe24vg59lzt

Details still emerging but it appears coordinated and the timing is unlikely to be a coincidence.

Puns of a Safe From Harm/Protection nature welcomed from those familiar with the Bristol music scene.

[RedSparrows]

Infrastructure attacks are but part of the inertia creep...

[Andy McDandy]

If there's anything unfinished, sympathy to those who have to do the last minute things.

[kreuzberger]

If they are blaming Bristolians, it might be Tricky.

[soulboy]

Well they are a Wild Bunch.

[Abernathy]

This is bizarre. The blue geezer in the Olympic opening ceremony had fuck all to do with Jeebus or the last fucking supper, and watching it, such a thing didn’t even remotely occur to me (I just thought it was a bit fucking mad and weird).

Yet suddenly, it ‘s being treated as a grotesque and deliberate insult to Christianity, and WOKE BLASPHEMY !!!!!!!!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/a ... exwq_namtA

[mattomac]

Banged on for years that it is a secular country and that it had the right to dictate religious headwear but apparently this is wrong.

Can’t have it both ways.

[kreuzberger]

I would laugh my tits off if Barnier declared war. " We sail at dawn and storm the beaches of Clacton."

[Philip Marlow]

After the appointment was announced Ian Dunt put out a tweet describing Barnier as ‘top calibre people.’

https://newleftreview.es/sidecar/posts/the-gravedigger

Who would have guessed that at the end of his career – at age 73 ­– Barnier would be moving into Matignon? Following his appointment, an archival clip from 1971 circulated on social networks, showing a young Barnier delivering a speech so vapid and anodyne that he already sounded like a seasoned politician. One gets the impression that he has never changed, that he was born, Athena-like, fully armed with political cant. A typical careerist of the conservative bourgeois political class, he has known no other profession: elected to public office in his home region of the Savoie at the age of 22, he was a member of parliament by the age of 27. The viral clip betrays his essence: an ambitious yet second-rate statesman, who has spent his life navigating the troubled waters of the French right without ever rising to the top – until now.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Think foreigners who speak English rather over impress some British people. Marine Le Pen speaks English, after all.

He’s a bad choice for Prime Minister but he was the chief Brexit negotiator. Wasn’t that rising to the top?
This is all reminds me of stuff said about Neil Kinnock, where his EU Commissioner work is felt not to count.

I also don’t really get the problem with people having long career in politics. See Joe Biden.

[kreuzberger]

The cojones on Gisèle Pelicot are the eighth wonder of the world. This woman's sheer grit is beyond measure.

[Youngian]

The cojones on Gisèle Pelicot are the eighth wonder of the world. This woman's sheer grit is beyond measure.

The horror of her life makes for grim reading. Hope her bravery brings her some peace.

[kreuzberger]

German Vogue has done something extraordinarily powerful and beautiful in equal measure. I'm lost for words.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Perhaps her ordeal has been cathartic for France...

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/articl ... 082_7.html

France announced Monday, November 25, a new campaign to combat violence against women, including raising awareness about the use of drugs to commit sexual abuse, as the country reckons with a mass rape trial that has shocked the public. Equality Minister Salima Saa unveiled a raft of initiatives two days after tens of thousands of people staged new demonstrations in French cities against violence targeting women, where protesters denounced government actions as "window-dressing."

[Abernathy]

James O’Brien this morning was, as far as I can tell, the only UK journalist so far to link the Pelicot case to the government’s proposed legislation on classifying drink spiking as a specific criminal offence with commensurate penalties. As ever, the key will be in effective enforcement, but that hopefully will come.

[NevTheSweeper]

French PM Michel Barnier loses confidence vote. Government falls, leaving the path for the far right to win control.

[kreuzberger]

Le Pen has a paucity of seats and a ban from public office potentially hanging over her head.

C´est une Clusteurfuque.

[Youngian]

At least in Italy they wait until the technocrat leader completes the dirty work of making unpopular decisions before deposing them. Perhaps M. Melachon and Mdm Le Pen can pool their brilliant ideas to bring a new found confidence to the French economy.