Plenty of news and noise in France over the last few days. Making the headlines at the moment is Frédéric Mitterrand, the Minister of Culture who made waves a few weeks ago over his denunciation of the arrest of Roman Polanski, and is now struggling to fend off a storm of criticism over a book he wrote ('neither novel nor memoire') four years ago describing his experiences with 'garçons' in Thailand. Last night he was interviewed live on the main French TV news and defended himself in lively, if somewhat rambling and confused fashion. He condemned sexual tourism and paedophilia, which he had never indulged in, but admitted sexual relations in Thailand with 'men of his own age'. He didn't help his own case by continuing to refer to 'boys' though, and the polemic continues this morning.
Earlier in the week Le Monde made waves in the cycling world by publishing extracts from a report by the French agency against drugs in sport (AFLD), which apparently criticised the international cycling union (UCI) for giving Astana (the team of Contador and Armstrong) 'privileged treatment' during the Tour de France, allowing them extra time between the end of a stage and the drugs test, among other things. The implication of the report is that the UCI did what they could to ensure a Tour without positive tests, which the organisers of this year's Tour congratulated themselves for achieving. The AFLD however say they are working on new tests to detect the latest generation of EPO and the whisper is that 20 odd cyclists in this year's Tour are under suspicion...
Meanwhile in Lyon a couple of tragic but slightly curious cases made the national news. The first involved an unsolved murder from 34 years ago, which was apparently cleared up when a suspect confessed. The bizarre thing is that he can't be tried for the crime because the statute of limitations in France is a mere 10 years. The second case was an abandoned new born baby who was subsequently discovered to have a rare genetic disease, so doctors have appealed for the mother to come forward...
It's been a quiet week on the home front, apart from having a commuting English colleague of la bienheureuse (the witness to my earlier in-flight misdemeanors) round to dinner on Wednesday. Ma bien-aimée has a rare week without travel and I've been slogging away at re-write 4 of book 3. Not much incentive to get out of the apartment anyway - the weather has finally broken. It started raining on Weds night and has barely stopped since...
