Delicious, cool weather swept into Lyon on Thursday. Which rendered plans for the weekend slightly ironic, given that we'd booked a hotel with a swimming pool high up in the Haute Loire to cool down from the expected heat wave. Still, it was reasonably sunny as we drove up on Friday afternoon, and we did manage a short swim in the rather chilly, supposedly heated water on arrival. A tasty menu du jour and early night followed, and the next morning we set out for scenic drive to the touristic capital of La Haute Loire, Le Puy-en-Velay.
Exhausted, we headed down and back to the hotel. Another tasty dinner and another early night followed. In the morning, we checked out and took a long and winding route home. Heading west we picked up the Loire and followed it upstream back towards Le Puy. Stopping off for drinks in the picturesque village of Chamalières we then headed north from Puy-en-Velay and enjoyed a late lunch of confit de poule in Polignac, in the shadow of a ruined fortress. Afterwards we climbed once more, up the rock to visit the ancient castle perched on top of yet another volcanic plug. And just for good measure, we climbed to the top of the donjon for more panoramic views of the Haute Loire countryside. From there it was all downhill, through St Etienne and back to cool, cloudy Lyon and the mundanities of everyday life on Monday morning.
The Bettencourt affair was pushed briefly off the front pages yesterday by the mise en examen of two international footballers for sex with an under-age prostitute. The summer of Les Bleus grows ever stormier.
It wasn't long, however, before the Bettencourt story was back, rolling along with no sign of grinding to a halt. Government minister Eric Woerth's wife was questioned recently by the procureur investigating illegal political funding and nepotism, and the labour minister himself is due to follow her into the hot seat, as soon as he's finished presenting the government's plans for reform of pensions and retirement to parliament. A busy man, Mr Woerth. Not surprisingly opposition MPs have been asking how he can devote himself fully to his job while defending himself against the Bettencourt bribery allegations. One of his alleged crimes was to ask Liliane Bettencourt's financial manager to give his wife a job, and the task of defending himself against the claim wasn't made any easier when said financial manager told the procureur that Woerth had asked him to 'advise his wife on her career'. Quelle difference?
On a more successful sporting note (what is politics if not sport?), this year's Tour de France is being heralded as one of the best in recent years. There certainly has been a fair amount of excitement, with plenty of twists and turns, but I suspect the French view is tinted a somewhat pinker shade of rose by the success of French riders. Six stage wins so far, the most in any Tour for nearly fifteen years. To top it all, three of them came in successive Pyrenean stages earlier this week. The final mountain stage is taking place today as I write, the final climb up the mythic Col du Tourmalet in damp cloudy weather (much like Lyon today - a break in the hot spell at last) certain to decide the overall winner of the Tour. Somehow, I think a fourth successive French win is unlikely…
Lyon is the subject of a bit of piss-taking in the national news today. Municipal police in the Parc de la Tête d'Or cautioned a man yesterday for allowing his three-year daughter to urinate in public. Authorities say it was on the pavement in front of a restaurant, with public toilets only a short walk away. He says he was on crutches, his daughter was desperate, he couldn't get her to the loo on time, and it was under a tree nowhere near the restaurant. Ho hum. He faces a fine of as much as 450 euros if he can't convince magistrates…
Another weekend, another trip to the mountains. With la belle-mère visiting and la bienheureuse taking a couple of days off work, after viewing the traditional quatorze juillet impressive fireworks display on Wednesday evening, we enjoyed three days and nights in Valmorel. After a stop en route for lunch on the shores of Lac d'Aigeubelette, walking plans for the weekend were thrown into partial disarray by the fact that the Valmorel chair-lifts don't work over the weekend. Strange way of pulling in the punters. Compared to a winter weekend the resort was empty, even with the extra numbers attracted by the passage of the Tour de France over the Col de la Madeleine in midweek.
Dinner out, and an early night followed. Showers and cooler weather greeted us on Saturday, providing an excuse for a lazy morning of reading and recovery and whiling away the time. The rain cleared by late afternoon, so we went for a much shorter stroll through and round the resort, the upper reaches of which are in the throes of major redevelopment. Five large cranes working on a new hotel and complex paused only at night and on Sunday.
Escaping the heat of the city, we headed into the hills for the weekend, in search of cool, quiet countryside and a travelling circus named the Tour de France. The Jura was the destination. We drove up on Saturday morning, parked in the sleepy village of Les Bouchoux, and set out on a gentle stroll up the hill to find a vantage point from which to view the cyclists whizz past.
It was certainly cooler, it was certainly quieter (for the moment) as we meandered along a pleasant path, fighting off an attack by killer horse flies along the way. At last we reached the quiet fly-free sanctuary of a picturesque waterfall where we paused for a picnic lunch. Thence it was onwards and upwards until we reached the route of the 7th stage of the Tour de France 2010. Finding a shady spot a couple of kilometres downhill from the Col de la Croix de la Serra, we settled down to await the spectacle. The caravane went past first, vehicle after dressed up vehicle spraying the roadside with giveaway caps, cakes, detergent samples and sundry other publicity items. Then at last came the racers, a strung out echappée followed a few minutes later by the peloton, then a few minutes later came the stragglers.
In twenty short minutes it was all over and we walked back down to the car to find our hotel in La Pesse, a neighbouring village. Looking forward to a cool, quiet night we dined in and collapsed into bed. Coolish it may have been, at least with the skylight window in our room open to the night air, quiet it was for a while. Then the clock on the village church struck ten. With the window open and the bell tower fewer than 30 metres away it was ten rather loud bongs.
"I think most church bells only ring up till about ten or eleven in the evening," said la bienheureuse, hopefully.
The clock duly announced eleven pm, then midnight..
Then one, then two, and so on through all through the night, with a few random chimes thrown in for good measure at one o'clock, which temporarily lulled me into the blissful false belief that I might have actually fallen asleep for more than an hour.
Lesson learned. Never book a hotel without checking the whereabouts in relation to the village church. In the morning, dark rims and bags under our eyes, we set off for home, stopping off en route for another pleasant walk, up and down the Crêt au Merle, followed by a short stroll to take in the stunning view at the Belvédère du Cuchet. From there it was downhill all the way, back to the Lyon heat...
The Sarkozy regime continues to battle allegations of illegal political 'donations'. Yesterday government spokesmen claimed Monsieur le Président had been cleared when the former Bettencourt accountant backtracked on earlier claims that Sarko was among the right wing politicians who regularly received cash from the major shareholder in L'Oréal. However, closer examination of the 'retraction' reveals that she says she told the media site, which broke the story, that Sarkozy only 'may' have been among the beneficiaries of the Bettencourt largesse, rather than claiming she definitely saw him, as was originally reported. She also holds to the claim that the Bettencourt financial manager told her he was giving 150000 euros in cash to the Sarkozy presidential campaign in 2007. A bank official at the branch 50000 euros were allegedly withdrawn from has now categorically denied speaking to the accountant, who claims she told her the money was to fund the Sarko campaign. Is that the sound of UMP thumbscrews being applied?
Elsewhere in the media, the left-wing magazine Marianne claims to have seen the famous account books kept by the accountant, and reports that they show cash withdrawals totalling 380000 euros in the first 3 months of 2007 (compared to about 60000 in the equivalent period the previous year, when there was no presidential election campaign). The Bettencourt lawyers say the cash withdrawals were all to cover the personal expenses of André Bettencourt, but Marianne says that only about 180000 worth of spending is accounted for in the books. All rather surreal. How can anyone need sixty thousand euros worth of petty cash per month, let alone a hundred grand plus, and haven't billionaires heard of credit cards?
Meanwhile the Tour de France reaches the end of a rather eventful first week, characterised by sundry crashes, hot weather, government politicians making a point of comparing the approachability of the cyclists comported to French international footballers, and a lot of fuss surrounding the poor form and behaviour of the British 'bad boy' of sprinting. When Mark Cavendish finally won his first stage of this year's tour yesterday, he promptly burst into floods of tears in the middle of a live interview on French television, and it took a full minute before he managed to recover sufficient composure to continue. Which appears to have rather endeared him to the French media, who love a good bit of high sporting emotion.
And in local news, it's hot in Lyon today. Very hot. And tomorrow, and…
Saturday evening finally brought relief from temperatures in the upper thirties. Overnight thunderstorms cooled things down and Sunday's maximum was a mere 30C. A brief respite it seems, as the forecast is for 35C+ again on Thursday and Friday and Meteo France are predicting a spell of weather similar to the long hot summer of 2003. As you might guess it was a weekend when we did as little as possible. Too hot Saturday to venture out for more than a short walk to the shops, but Sunday we managed a stroll and lunch along the river. It was strangely quiet, with most of the waterside restaurants closed. Perhaps not so strange, with it being the first weekend of the French school holidays. Seems most of the city, all of our building neighbours included, headed straight for the seaside.
The heat in the political arena continues to rise. Revelations in the Bettencourt affair continue to make daily headlines, and today a former accountant for the richest woman in France dropped a fresh bombshell. After being interviewed by police investigating the Bettencourt tax irregularities she talked to the media website which has broken most of the story. Among other things, she alleged that Sarkozy was one of the numerous right wing politicians who regularly visited the Bettencourt home and walked away clutching a brown envelope stuffed with cash. More specifically she also claimed Eric Woerth (in his capacity as treasurer of Sarko's UMP party) was given 150 thousand euros in cash to help fund Sarkozy's presidential election campaign. Naturally Monsieur le Président and his budget minister have denounced the allegations as 'calumnies'.
In other French corruption news, six policemen from in and around Marseille have been arrested following an investigation into inside tip-offs to Marseille crime godfathers.
As France's favourite weather girl told us on TV last night, a canicule is defined as three or more successive days when the thermometer climbs above a certain limit during the day and doesn't drop below another at night (34C and 20C for Lyon), and as such, strictly speaking, we aren't yet enduring a heatwave. Well, wall to wall sunshine and temperatures hovering around and above 30C since Saturday is plenty hot enough for me. A thermometer outside the bedroom window showed 29C at 10.30pm last night, was back up at 28C by 10am this morning and is now showing 36C in the shade. And no end in sight. Summer took its time arriving, but now it's here with a vengeance.
Elsewhere, the heat is still on the Fédération Française de Football. The president finally bowed to the inevitable last weekend and announced his resignation, and a meeting of the ruling body has been going on today. The resignation of Escalettes was accepted, but the election of his successor has been delayed until the next meeting in three weeks because of a failure between the amateurs and professionals to agree on a compromise. They did however make one definite decision, confirming the appointment of Laurent Blanc as the next French coach.
Another public figure sweating under the spotlight is the labour minister Eric Woerth, linked with a tax scandal involving the richest woman in France, L'Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, who recently promised to 'regularise' her tax affairs after being accused of tax evasion via Swiss bank accounts. The questions arise because Woerth was budget minister until March this year, and thus in charge of fiscal administration at the same time as his wife was working as tax advisor for the company which manages some of Bettencourt's financial interests. She has since resigned but the opposition and media remain on the attack. Clandestine recordings of conversations involving a Bettencourt advisor have surfaced, in which Woerth's name is mentioned several times a payment of 7500 euros towards Woerth's election campaign is sanctioned. Which is apparently entirely legitimate, but that won't stop more questions being asked. For the moment the Sarkozy camp is backing their man…
