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…
