My goodness gracious – what sleight of hand is Sarkozy attempting at the moment? Thriving on controversial covers for all things underhanded, he’s done it again, and all of France is in an uproar.

According to a recent announcement, every ten-year-old pupil in the grade CM2 will be ‘entrusted with the memory of a French child-victim of the Holocaust’ from the start of the new school year in autumn.

‘Nothing is more moving, for a child, than the story of a child his own age, who has the same games, the same joys and the same hopes as he, but who, in the dawn of the 1940s, had the bad fortune to be defined as a Jew,’ Sarkozy said as he concluded a recent speech at a dinner for France’s Jewish community.

Hopefully this embrace of historical consciousness extends to the home. Carla’s been in a bit of hot water recently over her comparison of the tabloid coverage of their relationship to the wartime plight of the Jews. Yeah, right. Really similar. The world feels your pain.

Bruni had criticised the website of the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur on fair enough grounds, but she touched on an extremely raw nerve of French history in asking:

‘If this kind of site had existed in the war, what would have happened with the denunciation of the Jews?’

I’m in a stunned silence even as I type this. Obviously drawing personal analogies was never her strong point. Supermodel to first lady in one simple step (or three simple months)? Maybe there will be some teething issues…

Now… according to the BBC (‘Illegal downloaders face UK ban’, 12/02/2008): ‘People in the UK who go online and illegally download music and films may have their internet access cut under plans the government is considering.’

I was impressed to read that. For if it catches on here (ha, unlikely, although G tells me it has been discussed), then all of France will have to go back to Minitel (and will no doubt gallantly re-embrace this 1980s interactive videotex French invention with a “bon” and a Gallic shrug).

For the French are prolific downloaders, or so it seems to this little computer illiterate black duck, and I think right up there after pétanque and Tour de France, “téléchargement” is the third French national sport.

I don’t really know – is it a common thing to have an external hard disk drive? Some friends here were comparing the size of theirs and I happened to joke that my introduction to external hard disk drives was my biggest culture shock since moving to France.

“Huh? You don’t have one? But how do you store your films and music?”

I had to confess that it was via DVDs and CDs and the shelves of a cupboard.

Everyone I know just has a USB stick, and as a student or backpacker, that was all I ever really needed, I admitted with a shrug to my shocked companions. Word files just don’t take up that much space.

Just to reiterate that the UK has, by no means, a monopoly on published trash - the French have come up with this attention-grabbing little number. Cécilia Sarkozy vs. Carla Bruni… and I think the winner of this round was obvious. Cécilia walks away with 30,000€ damages from Closer magazine, but Bruni keeps Nicolas Sarkozy. I know which I’d prefer!

While the rest of the world has their eyes turned to the Benazir Bhutto assassination, I thought I’d take a look at what’s capturing the French newspaper headlines as we slide into 2008.

This is great news for me, but possibly traumatic to a trillion others, so I’ll try and be a little empathetic: No smoking in cafes, restaurants, bars and discos (otherwise get hit with a 450€ fine for patrons or 750€ for proprietors). This follows a measure in February 2007 banning smoking in public areas such as railway stations, airports, hospitals, schools, offices and shops. As a committed non-smoker (but not one of those infuriating born-again or reformed non-smokers), this is the best news I could have all year. Previously, an evening at a concert or bar would be enough to evaporate the aqueous layer from my eyes, and I would walk around snow-blind for the following two days. So hello Paris nightlife – I’ll be back!

Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni – this is a little older now, but frankly, will it ever get too old? I think not!?! Whenever there is Euro Disney to traipse through holding hands or Egypt to loll idly, there will always be a story. I wish I could have been there when Guillaume first found out. I’ll paint the picture as it was painted for me though – Guillaume, in full business attire, in the very serious grown-up world of his office, reading Le Monde for the news and insightful comment of the day… lets out a yelp that echoes through the office. One of the secretaries asked him what was wrong to which he could only point a hesitant finger at the paper. She took a quick look and replied “Oh yes, Sarkozy and Carla Bruni, I can understand your shock.”

Columbia and Betancourt. This is not an issue about FARC or kidnapped politicians. This is a continuation of the Sarkozy media circus. In Italy, Berlusconi actually had to purchase the media; here, Sarkozy just owns it. I cynically pointed out earlier that in future national crises, Sarkozy would have to continue divorcing members of his family to deflect media attention from the more pressing issues at hand, but he’s found a far more enjoyable way to distract the populous. Gaddafi pitches his heated Bedouin-style tent in Paris during a five-day diplomatic visit to France, there hasn’t been a government in Belgium since June due to a political deadlock over Wallonia/Flanders autonomy… who cares!?! What kind of shameless self-exhibition is Sarkozy performing now – that’s where the real news is!

Miss France, Valerie Begue, keeps her crown after being asked to stand down by pageant organisers over some controversial photographs. I see from BBC World that this story has been popular all over, the most popular story from Europe on Friday 28, December. In what could be quite possibly the most interesting international issue to raise a perfectly arched eyebrow in France at the moment (that doesn’t involve Sarkozy), campaigning from her Indian Ocean home island, Reunion, has ensured Begue her crown. I like to read a good story about post-colonial protest… at the moment, though, it’s only revolving around Miss France…

Like the rest of the world, I’ve been recently reading a little about the ludicrous and anachronistic laws of the United Kingdom. If you haven’t yet ventured across them, they contain such un-profundity as permitting a pregnant woman to urinate in a policeman’s hat and the murder of Scotsmen with bow-and-arrows within York’s city walls.

‘In Liverpool, it is illegal for a woman to be topless except as a clerk in a tropical fish store.’

You get the idea.

The day that the article was released, and subsequently emailed globally, was a day of celebrating a small victory over on this side of the channel. Well, at my place at least.

“Surely”, I argued, “surely there must be equally ridiculous French laws. You too have a system of regal ancients prone to burdensome bureaucracy. There must be SOME stupid French laws out there…”

My pleas were greeted with a nonchalant but dismissive “pfft” and we took this argument to the venerable oracle, the wise sage of all things trivial.

Google didn’t return any results in my favour.

But I’ve finally found some dubious French laws, that I think go against the very grain of French society (like the ‘mince pies cannot be eaten on Christmas Day’ in the UK). For instance, ‘it is illegal to kiss on railways in France.’

What’s the deal with this? Commuters, up in arms, I say! Get on the next train (if it’s not a strike day) and lock lips with the nearest stranger!

At least I hope this law means ‘on the trains’, because if it’s regarding the railway tracks themselves, then I guess it’s a very practical law.

‘No pig may be addressed as Napoleon by its owner’ (lucky George Orwell wasn’t French).

And whilst the British may not die in parliament, in France ‘it is forbidden without a cemetery plot to die on the territory of the commune.’ Well that’s just inconvenient really – and how do they enforce the penalty?

NEWSFLASH: toomanyfrogs reverts back to old-school cut and paste!

Guillaume found this advertisement for “La semaine anglaise” (”English week”) being offered at the moment by television station, CANAL+. In case it’s too hard to read, under the cartoon figures it says ‘position 1, position 2… position 6′ and then ‘together we are warming up Franco-Anglo relations.’

The partner of the frog (it took us a little while to figure this out)… roast beef.

French systems of administration and bureaucracy are infamous amongst expat circles, and I don’t think I’ve ever read an account of any foreigner in France where queues, paperwork or the carte de séjour weren’t mentioned at least once – and never favourably.

I’ve been lucky so far, in that on arrival Guillaume and I went together to sort out bank accounts and mobile phone bizzo, and I just watched and waited as he fussed with his car registration and social security. I was a little astonished at the reliance on actual paper, but I put it down to being a small town thing. Nothing was achieved on the day, we often didn’t get past the reception desk, and left with a piece of paper with scribbled notes and circled details, highlighting what to bring with us the next time. As visiting these institutions was an activity on our daily calendars somewhere between sloth and indolence, it was actually quite a pleasant way to get acquainted with the town. Had I, say, an actual life or a job at this time, the repeated visits would have been strenuous and frustrating.

Now in Paris, working as an au pair, all this gets organised for me. So I’m virtually unscathed by it all, except hearing stories from foreign friends who study at universities here, and my “online subscription” for a vélib’ public transport bicycle (ah-ha! I thought to myself, France is moving with the times, I can apply for this online! But after pages and pages of filling in my contact details, place of birth and bank specifics, such is the dependence on paperwork that I still had to download and print the PDF, to post it to them by snail mail and wait fifteen days for a response! Argh!!)

I can’t actually withdraw money free-of-charge from any Banque Populaire ATM in Paris, only from one “local” Banque Populaire ATM in Angoulême. On hearing this I wasn’t filled with any great sense of confidence – surely they put our details on a computer? Couldn’t this feasibly be reached from Paris?

However… in the mail the other day, Guillaume received a “Welcome to your new address” letter from Banque Populaire… to our Paris address! How did they know this!?! Are the funds saved from investing in the internet being used for good old fashioned espionage? We don’t recall notifying the bank of a change of address – and plus, we never actually lived at the original address that we gave them! But perhaps they already know this… It just gets strange and stranger…