LOOFE 2020 is out! It’s free, fun and interesting
LOOFE, which stands for Light & Lively Observations on France Extraordinaire, is an annual magazine about life in France. Inside you’ll find short articles about different facettes of France and French society. You’ll find history, books, culture, people, language, photographs and nature explained helpfully with a touch of humor.Think of it as a manual for life in L’Hexagone! (L’Hexagone, incidentally, is one of France’s nicknames due to the nearly hexagonal shape of metropolitan France)
The third edition, which is out for 2020, contains articles called
Small is Good: Les Petits Plaisirs [of France], Laughter in France Rosa Bonheur, Broad with a Brush Photo essay Paris is not the Eiffel Tower Food Focus on Pâté en croûte See Paris and Die The Senate and of course there is a Culture Quiz, a Speak Easy Puzzle and "In Every French Household" Plus classified ads and advertising of places you should know in Paris …The traffic report for highways in France is called Bison Futé
Bison Futé or the "Clever Bison", is the national traffic website for Highways in France and now also available as a phone app. The Bison gives the current incident reports (accidents, closures, construction) for all highways in France as well as predictions of traffic volume for holiday weekends. It is a very helpful site for avoiding notorious traffic jams on French roads. But why on Earth is the traffic reporting system called "Bison Futé"? The "clever" part makes sense as the clever traveler avoids traffic, but why the "bison"? Well apparently the alternative suggestions for a mascot were a dolphin, giraffe, bird, and rat, so why not a bison? Bison Futé is an eye-catching, smart, affable American Indian, invented by the publicity man named Daniel Robert in 1976 as a gimic to get people's attention as France rolled out a campaign to encourage people to use alternative routes and depart at different times…
Why are the European election panels empty of posters?
The European Election is the second biggest election in the world in terms of number of voters, only India has more. The objective is to elect the 751 members of the European parliament, thus it concerns 28 countries. There are 2686 candidates in France alone. Each list from all of the 34 parties presenting candidates must have 79 members alternating strictly between men and women. The lists are organized vertically following their leader. This is a proportional election, so according to the percentage of the vote won by the party the first X candidates of the list will go to parliament. In France a party must have at least 5% in order to win any seats; other countries do not have minimums or have lower minimum percentages. The French lists are required to have 79 members each just in case one list sweeps the vote and thus wins all of France seats (hard to imagine!). There is a complication (not just one) this year stemming from the Brexit. France currently has 75 seats, b…