Immigration in France, A new look

Immigrant or expat? A question long debated in our anglophone community. As with most north western nations the history of immigration is a major part of France's history where a quarter of the population is either first- or second-generation French and ten percent are immigrants. And as with everything in France there is a dedicated museum. The new layout (as of June 2023) of the Musée National de l'histoire de l'immigration (Museum of Immigration in France) at the Palais de la Porte Dorée takes on the challenge of evolving views on immigration. The choice of building itself is an interesting one.   The Palais de la Porte Dorée was originally called the Palais des colonies which was constructed between 1929 and 1931, for the Colonial Exposition. The Exposition attempted to promote an image of imperial France at the very height of its power. The Palais was to be a “museum of the colonies”, representing the territories, the history of the colonial conquest a…
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  • 29 janvier 2024
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Sports in France

Hints for Newcomers – Hindsights for Old-Timers: Sports in France in this Olympic year 2024 by Shari Leslie Segall When your spouse was offered a high-paid, top-executive position in Paris, did you declare, “We’ll move to the most beautiful city in the world only if I can find a step-aerobics class catering to my age group and ability level”? Have you said to yourself, “Now that I have played tennis in the Bois de Boulogne, skied in Grenoble and run the Marathon de Nantes, what could possibly be left for me to do?” Does your overpowering attraction to moelleux au chocolat crash full-force into your seeming inability to chase its pernicious effects from your thighs? If the answer to any of these is a resounding “YES!” you have come to the right article. France is often criticized by Anglos for not having the kinds of school/university-based athletic programs common in their native countries. “The battle of Waterloo,” the Duke of Wellington is (apocryphally) noted as h…
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  • 20 janvier 2024
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Coups de cœur at Bill & Rosa’s Book Room

Coups de cœur at Bill & Rosa's Book Room is an article that features a favorite selection our recent donations that are available for purchase. COLD COMFORT FARM by Stella Gibbons Flora Post is orphaned at twenty and decides her only option is to descend on relatives - the doomed Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm, where she takes each of the family in hand and brings order to their chaos. What we think: This comical portrait of British rural life in the 1930s will have you roaring with laughter. Available at the Book Room, 5€ The Noise of Time, Julian Barnes In May 1937 a man in his early thirties waits by the lift of a Leningrad apartment block. He waits all through the night, expecting to be taken away to the Big House. Any celebrity he has known in the previous decade is no use to him now. And few who are taken to the Big House ever return. What we think: This is a remarkable fictional biography of the great Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovi…
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  • 16 janvier 2024
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Bill & Rosa’s Book Room

What is Bill & Rosa's Book Room ? 

First of all, for us, a Book Room is a comfortable place to spend some time. Think of it as the reading lounge on the ocean liners of yore with a western bent. Our maître-mots are

Read, Write, Relax. Buy, Borrow, Donate.

Bill & Rosa's Book Room has several aspects. It is first a USED BOOK SHOP and a LENDING LIBRARY. There are many novels of all genres for sale plus non-fiction, biographies, history, some poetry, cookbooks, cats, books on Paris or France, memoirs and children's books. Most books are in English, but also in French and even a few bilingual. Prices start at just 2€.

The 500 volume lending library has four sections :

The Sylvie and Henry Noullet Library: novels mostly in English Bill and Rosa's Library of the American West includes no…
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  • 14 janvier 2024
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Merde! Stephen Clarke, Interview with a Paris author

"Not one of the other Stephen Clarkes you might have read about, who include an Olympic swimmer, a world-record-holding pumpkin sculptor and various criminals. I'm just the author whose new novel, Merde at the Paris Olympics, is now out." -- Stephen Clarke

If you are an expat in Paris (or not!) you must know the adventures of Paul West, The hero of A Year in the Merde and its sequels depicting French lifestyle from his personal perspective as an English man. The books became incredibly famous as many people could relate to the story. Who never had problems adapting to a new country? The language, the workplace, meeting people... many subjects tackled in the books with a great sense of humour. As a French girl, I was very amused by those books. Even if Stephen Clarke gently points out some of our weird traits, it is obvious that deep down he really loves France. As a matter of fact, I found out he lives in France! I spent a few years in…
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  • 5 janvier 2024
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