From the French right to disconnect to the ‘sacred’ traditions of May 1st, via a surprisingly good memo, a lost French cinema classic and a drunk man in Marseille, Inside France is our weekly round-up of the news and talking points from France.
Inside France is editor Emma Pearson’s weekly look at some of the news, talking points and gossip in France that you might not have heard about. It’s published each Saturday and members can receive it directly to their inbox, by going to their newsletter preferences or adding their email to the sign-up box in this article.
A good memo?
Something odd happened this week – a French interior minister sent out a memo to préfectures that seems designed to make the lives of foreigners in France easier, rather than the reverse which is normally the case when Interior Ministers put pen to paper.
Laurent Nunez’s circulaire is nothing earth shattering – just a list of common sense measures that will ease the workload of préfecture staff and speed up waiting times for foreigners in France. I found it noticeable that it’s couched in practical terms and it really digs into the detail – it’s no surprise to learn that Nunez began his career as a fonctionnaire in préfectures.
And yet, in its own way, it is quietly radical – titled lutte contre la rupture des droits (combating the loss of rights) it acknowledges those foreigners whose residency permits expire while they are still waiting for the préfecture to process their request. Which happens all the time.
READ ALSO: What to do if your carte de séjour expires while you’re waiting for a renewal
One of the measures that Nunez orders is that préfecture staff can only ask you to provide documents which were on the list of required documents that they sent to you. At this point I’m sure that anyone who has never interacted with the immigration system is thinking ‘Well, duh, of course’.
But almost everyone I know has a story of being asked for a document that wasn’t on the list. My favourite is from a friend here in Paris who was asked for an extra proof of address and pointed out that this wasn’t on the list of documents she had been told to bring. The préfecture staff member took her list, scribbled ‘proof of address’ at the bottom and handed it back to her, saying “it’s on the list now”.
While this is obviously infuriating, it also means another préfecture appointment, taking up yet more staff time.
Whether Nunez’s memo can truly turn the tide on decades of this type of thing remains to be seen, but I salute the man for trying.
READ ALSO: Latest: What French Interior Minister’s plan means for your carte de séjour application
Sacred space
Also this week, something not unusual at all – French unions going bonkers at the loss of public holidays.
You may remember that the previous prime minister, François Bayrou was brought down after his proposal to scrap two of France’s public holidays caused outrage. So it was a brave move for the Macronist party leader Gabriel Attal to present a bill watering down the ‘non-working’ status of the May 1st holiday.
May 1st isn’t just any public holiday – it has a special status in French law as a day when employees, apart from those in essential industries, cannot work. It is also a totemic day for the left, marking international workers’ day and, as one union put it: “To question the principle of this day is to question more than a century of social history and collective achievements.”
In the end, the government shelved the plans in the face of union anger and left-wing opposition. But I cannot help but wonder who thought that this obviously predictable fury was worth it? May 1st is one day of the year – can we really not have just one day when no one is at work or shopping?
Switch off
On a perhaps related note, Emmanuel Macron has called for a monthly ‘day of disconnection’ for young people. The idea being that one day a month they have a screen-free day to “rediscover reading, sport or the vitality of real life”.
I don’t know about kids, but I think some of us adults would benefit from that too.
Talking France
We discuss the May 1st row in the latest episode of the Talking France podcast, along with Jordan Bardella’s photoshoot and whether Viktor Orban’s defeat in Hungary foretells a far-right loss in France – if only politics were so simple, says John Lichfield. Listen here.
Jump cut
I’m not one of those people who get grumpy about long films, but this one cannot be faulted for brevity as it’s just 45 seconds long.
It’s incredible though – perhaps the first example of cinema special effects. Made in 1897 – just two years after the Laumière brothers had shown the world’s first film – by French cinema pioneer Georges Méliès it was thought lost until a copy turned up in an attic in the USA last year.
If you have a little more time, I really enjoyed Juste une Illusion, the new film from French writer-director duo Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano. Like most of their films it’s warm, funny and joyous without being saccharine.
If you’re in Paris and don’t feel that your French is up to an entire film – there is a screening with English subtitles next month.
Barriers and booze
And I leave you with this incredible headline from French local paper La Provence – Ivre, il ouvre les frontières par erreur et retarde un millier de passagers à l’aéroport Marseille Provence.
It’s the tale of a drunk man who managed to bring an entire airport to a standstill simply by moving a barrier. It’s also part of the great French journalistic tradition of Ivre, il.
Inside France is editor Emma Pearson’s weekly look at some of the news, talking points and gossip in France that you might not have heard about. It’s published each Saturday and members can receive it directly to their inbox, by going to their newsletter preferences or adding their email to the sign-up box in this article.
